16 Migrants in Chase Get Work Permits

Work permits were issued Thursday to most of the illegal immigrants aboard a pickup that led Riverside County deputies on a wild freeway chase that ended in videotaped beatings.

Federal immigration officials in Los Angeles said they issued the permits to 16 of the 19 immigrants taken into custody after the chase. They said they acted at the request of the U.S. attorney’s office, which is investigating the beatings.

“The U.S. attorney has asked that everyone be kept in the country in the event that they are able to develop a smuggling charge,” said Richard K. Rogers, director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s Los Angeles district.

Authorities are still looking for the smuggler who careened down the highway with his human cargo April 1.

Susan Alva, a lawyer with the Coalition for Humane Immigrants Rights of Los Angeles, which represents the 16 immigrants given work permits, said job offers are coming in ranging from an auto body shop to fast food restaurants. They have been placed in private homes.

Although a Los Angeles Times Poll conducted last week found that 71% of Americans believed that the beating was unjustified, more than half disagreed with the federal government’s decision to let the immigrants remain in the United States for at least six months.

Alva and other immigrants’ rights advocates had criticized INS official Rogers last week, saying he appeared to be backing away from an earlier agreement to issue the permits. But they complimented INS officials Thursday.

Attorney Peter Schey, of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, said the work permits serve law enforcement and humanitarian interests.

“The INS did the right thing here,” he said. “It’s helpful to the overall investigation of the case. Clearly witnesses are not going to wait around if they are forced into hunger and homelessness.”

Three of the immigrants have not applied for work permits, Rogers said. Schey, who represents two of them, said they are still recovering from injuries and are unable to work.

Videotape of the incident shows one of Schey’s clients, Enrique Funes Flores, being struck the most blows.

“He’s just not in a position to work,” Schey said Thursday. “It would be premature for him to apply. His elbow is fractured and his left arm is in a cast. He is still in pain.”

Schey said his second client, Santiago Garcia Pedraza, has a knee injury.

“He was thrown to the ground and kicked,” Schey said, adding that he is not anticipating that there will be a problem getting work authorizations for the two men once they are able to work.

Alicia Sotero Vasquez, the woman shown on videotape being clubbed and pulled to the ground by her hair, is ineligible for a work permit because, technically, she is still involved in a deportation proceeding, Rogers said.

Sotero, who is also recovering from injuries, was released from custody after posting bail and is still under an INS order to show cause why she should not be deported, he said.

But Schey challenged Rogers’ interpretation of INS regulations, saying that the district director has the discretion to issue work authorizations.

“We have hundreds of cases where work authorizations are issued even after deportation proceedings have commenced,” Schey said. “It is not that uncommon.”

The other immigrants were released without bail to the Mexican Consulate.

The beating incident ignited a national debate on police use of force, immigration policy and the practice of high-speed chases on crowded streets and freeways.

Schey sees an irony in some defenders of the deputies calling for all of the immigrants to be immediately deported.

“Had there been no videotape, these people would all have been deported to Mexico within hours of their apprehensions,” he said. “The victims whose civil rights were seemingly violated would have had no claims whatsoever.”