Arrest Leads Gallegly to Fault INS

Rep. Elton Gallegly said Wednesday that sexual attacks allegedly committed by an illegal immigrant in Thousand Oaks show that INS officials are not doing enough to ensure that undocumented immigrants who commit crimes are permanently removed from the country.

Immigration and Naturalization Service officials agree, but say they lack the resources to keep up with the problem.

Responding to attacks on three Thousand Oaks women, allegedly committed by an illegal immigrant who had been jailed a number of times and deported twice, Gallegly said the INS has failed to send many lawbreakers to formal deportation proceedings.

Unlike voluntary deportations, formal proceedings allow illegal immigrants to be prosecuted for a felony if they return.

“The INS as an organization has not shown a real will to focus nearly enough on enforcement,” said the Simi Valley Republican, whose tough stance on illegal immigration is well known. “They say they don’t have enough personnel to deport known rapists and murderers, yet they have the personnel to triple the staff for the naturalization process three months before an election.”

But INS officials said they do not have enough detention facilities and immigration judges to formally deport all of those identified as illegal. They hold formal proceedings for those who commit the most serious crimes, they said.

In addition, INS agents have been kept busy with new assignments. In the last nine months, agents have been assigned to scour jails from Ventura County to San Bernardino County for illegal immigrants.

“I understand his concerns, and I agree with them, but you can’t expand any further than your resources will allow,” said Richard Rogers, director of the INS district that encompasses Ventura County.

Jose Zavala, 21, was charged Tuesday with raping two Thousand Oaks women earlier this year and trying to rape a third woman on Saturday.

He was arrested after allegedly trying to attack the third woman in her Sunset Drive home. A trail of blood led sheriff’s deputies from that home to a car a few blocks away where Zavala was hiding.

The incident touched a raw nerve in the community, especially as word spread that Zavala was an illegal immigrant who had been in trouble with the law before and had twice been deported after serving time in jail.

Immigrants rights advocates Wednesday said they hoped those incidents would not whip up anti-immigrant fervor.

While denouncing the brutal crimes, the advocates were quick to point out that the suspected serial rapist is not typical of the illegal immigrant population in Ventura County.

“I totally believe in prosecuting this guy and showing him the door,” said Oxnard attorney Oscar Gonzalez, spokesman for the Ventura County Mexican-American Bar Assn. “I don’t ever want him in this country again.

“But he is not representative of illegal immigrants,” Gonzalez added. “Most are hard-working and law-abiding and don’t want to do anything to draw law enforcement attention to themselves.”

On Wednesday, the 44-year-old woman who was attacked Saturday expressed frustration that a breakdown in the immigration system may have contributed to the string of terrifying assaults.

“Obviously the system didn’t work,” said Sue Clohessy, who fought off her attacker as her 5-year-old son lay nearby. “They deported him, but he came back twice.”

But she also cautioned against lumping all immigrants together. It was a Latino immigrant--to whom she rents a room in her home--who heard Clohessy struggling with her assailant and ran to her bedroom, scaring the man away.

“One person can’t give a whole group a bad name,” she said.

For Gallegly, the attacks point up the greatest failing in the battle to take immigrant criminals off the streets. Even after they are convicted, serve their time and are removed from the country, he said, many return to commit more crimes.

“We have enough problems in this country with criminals without importing them from foreign countries,” Gallegly said.

To make sure that illegal immigrants are not released back into the community, Gallegly helped launch a six-month pilot program at the Ventura County Jail.

Under the program, two INS agents scour the jail, identifying illegal immigrants before they go to court and tagging them for deportation once they do their time in County Jail or state prison.

In the 60 days after the program began in mid-November, Gallegly said, INS agents identified 246 illegal immigrants in County Jail. Of those, one was in jail on a murder charge, three were charged with assault with a deadly weapon and others were doing time for charges ranging from dealing drugs to child molestation.

The program is not perfect, Gallegly said. Many of those tagged for deportation are offered voluntary departure, which carries no real penalty should they choose to return. And even those who are formally deported could return, threats of felony charges notwithstanding.

“There are no guarantees,” Gallegly said. “But it gives us one more tool to put away somebody who has been plaguing society.”

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Correspondent Chris Chi contributed to this story.