The West Coast Connection

Last Saturday two deaf Mexicans walked into a police precinct station in New York City and told officers they and more than 50 other Mexicans, many similarly handicapped, had been smuggled into the country, physically abused and forced to peddle key chains and other trinkets in New York streets, subways and airports. They were given a pittance of the profits and confined in two houses in Queens, the Mexicans said.

Mayor Rudolph W. Guiliani likened the situation to “bondage and virtual slavery.”

Regrettably, this image is all too familiar here in Southern California, where foreign nationals have been abused and forced to work against their will on American soil. Remember the case of the Thai garment workers held captive in El Monte almost two years ago? And that image has not disappeared. In Los Angeles, vendors peddling trinkets work the airport terminals and malls. No definite link has been established between the New York case and similar situations here, but the resemblances are striking and saddening.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service should move swiftly to investigate whether there is any link between the New York and Los Angeles situations.

Scores of deaf Mexicans may have been smuggled into the United States by a ring possibly in operation for nine years, according to press reports. One route was reported to run through San Diego.

There is of course the possibility that the case has been blown out of proportion. One report out of Mexico says the group is some sort of extended family and that several times in the past two years members of the group visited the Mexican consulate in New York and never expressed a complaint.

Maybe. But two of the smuggled Mexicans have now complained of physical abuse, labor law violations and overcrowded conditions in their living quarters. Seven Mexicans, six of them deaf, have been arraigned on abuse charges there, and one, believed to be the ring’s leader, is being sought by authorities.

The Los Angeles office of the immigration service does not have to wait while the New York case unfolds to launch its own investigation. It should move immediately, in cooperation with the Mexican authorities, to uncover the truth of this case. Foremost in its duties is protection of innocents.