Records Seized at Immigrant Agency’s Office

State and county investigators seized records and computer equipment from the Santa Ana office of a national Latino immigrant rights organization Tuesday and shut down operations for the day as they investigated “voting by unqualified persons” in last fall’s election.

About a dozen armed agents from the offices of the Orange County district attorney and the secretary of state arrived at Hermandad Mexicana Nacional in two blue vans about 7:30 a.m., serving a search warrant on the lone maintenance worker in the building at that hour.

Nearly 12 hours later, most of the agents left with at least 15 boxes of documents and computer hardware. Four other agents remained in the building, and it was unclear whether the search would be completed Tuesday night. The district attorney’s office would not comment on the items seized.

The search followed a monthlong investigation by state and local agencies into allegations of voter fraud and voting by noncitizens in the November election, triggered by a complaint by defeated Orange County Rep. Robert K. Dornan. Investigators have been assisted by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, which keeps records on the residency status of immigrants.

Bert Corona, the Los Angeles-based executive director of Hermandad, said Tuesday that the organization is the victim of a political vendetta. He said the Orange County district attorney’s office is acting at the behest of Dornan, who is contesting his election defeat.

“It’s all part of the question of Dornan’s defeat,” Corona said. “His folks asked the D.A. to put this search warrant into effect. It wasn’t necessary. They know they can come here any time. We don’t have anything to hide.”

Investigators in the past three weeks have talked with people registered by Hermandad in an effort to determine whether laws were broken by the organization, authorities said.

In separate interviews last month, 19 people told The Times they registered to vote at Hermandad while taking citizenship classes there but before finishing the naturalization process. Most also said that they voted before they were sworn in as citizens. Both actions could be prosecuted as felonies and could subject violators to deportation.

All cast ballots in the 46th Congressional District, where Dornan, a veteran conservative Republican, was defeated by political newcomer Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove). After his defeat by 984 votes, Dornan claimed that the election was marred by voter fraud, including voting by noncitizens. It was not known which candidate the noncitizens voted for.

On Tuesday, Dornan said, “Since Thanksgiving Day, I always felt the story was bigger than me or one congressional seat. Regardless, I was not going to pack up my tent and slink off into the night believing I had been victimized in an unfair election. I will stand and fight.”

Civil rights activists and Latino leaders expressed outrage Tuesday and said the action could discourage new citizens from voting. “I fear that we may be taking a meat ax to a discrete problem, and in the process chilling the interest of legitimate voters,” said Robert Rubin, deputy director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights in San Francisco.

“Certainly we do not support any illegal registration of voters, but I have not seen any numbers that convince me that this problem is widespread.”

Dozens of clients seeking help with immigration papers or other services arrived at Hermandad offices Tuesday only to find a “Closed” sign posted in English and Spanish. “Come back tomorrow,” some were told by Jay Lindsey, the organization’s spokesman.

“I hate this. This is a service organization and my biggest concern is that people get served,” Lindsey said. “We’re going to do everything we can to get back in there as soon as we can. We’re not going to leave people high and dry.”

Immigrants seeking help from the organization were turned away all day.

“I just came to get help with my citizenship papers. I don’t know where else to go,” said Joel Martinez Gonzalez, 38. Like other clients of the organization who do not speak English, he had been relying on the group’s volunteers to guide him through the maze of paperwork the citizenship process requires.

Nativo Lopez, executive director of the Santa Ana office, where 10,000 people took classes to become citizens last year, did not appear at the site. Lopez, 45, a Latino rights activist since his high school days, won a seat on the Santa Ana Unified School District board in the fall election.

Lopez attended Tuesday night’s school board meeting, but refused to comment on the search.

Prosecutors obtained permission for the search late Monday, said Assistant Dist. Atty. Wally Wade, who is in charge of the investigation. The search warrant was authorized by Municipal Judge James Brooks, based on a lengthy affidavit filed by prosecutors.

Hermandad last month acknowledged that some noncitizens who were taking classes at Hermandad cast ballots before they were sworn in but attributed the problem to misunderstandings and their eagerness to vote.

On Saturday, Hermandad officials said they had interviewed about 100 Hermandad students and staff members in an internal investigation and found no wrongdoing. Also that day, about 300 Hermandad supporters demonstrated at Times offices in Orange County and Los Angeles and urged a boycott of the newspaper.

Lopez, Hermandad’s director, also has said a congratulatory letter given by INS officers to people completing a citizenship interview could have led people to wrongly believe they were already citizens. INS district Director Richard Rogers said Tuesday that the district has added a sentence to the letter that clarifies when applicants become citizens.

Latino activists have said Dornan’s complaints of voter fraud are hypocritical because in 1984 Dornan registered to vote from a vacant office building in Buena Park, which he was using as a campaign headquarters, an apparent election code violation. Dornan was not prosecuted.

Times staff writers Dexter Filkins and H.G. Reza and correspondents Hope Hamashige and Jeff Kass also contributed to this report.