A Home Video’s Heavy Price in a New Era

The ice cream vendor never imagined that the FBI would be interested in his home video of downtown Santa Ana. He was not thinking post-Sept. 11, an era of new sensitivity about anyone taking pictures of federal buildings.

Carlos Vasquez, a Mexican immigrant, filmed the Ronald Reagan Federal Building for a video he wanted to send to relatives back home. But the activity was brought to the attention of federal authorities who discovered he was an illegal immigrant and now plan to deport him.

The FBI said Vasquez is just one of thousands of people interviewed after Sept. 11 on grounds that they may know something about terrorist activity. With the new vigilance, activities near government offices that were once considered innocuous now often catch the attention of law enforcement.

“There is a heightened sensitivity to anyone filming federal buildings. This sensitivity was not there before Sept. 11,” said Matthew McLaughlin, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Vasquez, 35, said he included Santa Ana’s federal building, at 411 W. 4th St., in his video because it was part of the city’s skyline. The video was taken with the most expensive item he’s bought since coming to the United States in 1990: a $1,200 camera bought on a payment plan at Circuit City.

While he was outside the building Dec. 6, he said, his filming was stopped by security guards and he was interviewed by Santa Ana police, who wrote down his driver’s license. On Dec. 11, FBI agents were at his doorstep.

Within three weeks, Vasquez was sent to an immigration detention center in Lancaster for one month, then released on bond.

Vasquez said he came to the United States 11 years ago and was hoping to become a legal resident. He said he had submitted an application for residency through his brother, who is a citizen, in April. He put his earnings at $250 a week selling ice cream from a 1976 van.

“What really hurts is the injustice and discrimination,” said Vasquez, in the room he rents for $350 a month in Santa Ana. “I came here to work and make money to survive.”

But McLaughlin said other people who have been questioned for possible terrorist activity have also been referred to the Immigration and Naturalization Service if they could not prove legal residency.

In the weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Middle Eastern immigrants who came to authorities’ attention as possible suspects also were targeted for deportation if they were found to be in the United States illegally.

An INS official said Vasquez’s deportation case is not about whether he videotaped a building but whether he is in the country legally.

“I would put the onus back on the individual. If he wanted to stay in the U.S., he should have gotten legal status,” McLaughlin said.

“We have set protocols. He is not being singled out. He was taking video of a federal building. You do not know what his intent is until you investigate.”

Vasquez said the FBI interrogated him on five occasions, repeatedly asking him whether he knew a man who he believes is of Middle Eastern descent. Vasquez said he knew the man only by sight from his visits to a store where he bought ice cream for his truck.

Vasquez said he was given several lie detector tests. INS records show that he failed two polygraph tests administered by the FBI. Vasquez said he believes he failed because the questioner kept rephrasing a question--whether he knew the man from the ice cream store and whether he was asked by another person to film the building--until he answered incorrectly.

McLaughlin said Vasquez was not forced to be interviewed and that the lie detector tests were voluntary. At any time, Vasquez could have stopped the interview or test, he said.

Civil rights advocates say the case demonstrates how the new vigilance can usurp personal freedoms.

“It’s an example of the kind of overaction and reaction that violates human rights day in and day out now,” said James Lafferty, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild in Los Angeles.

Immigration authorities took Vasquez’s driver’s license, so he has been unable to work. The driver’s license was obtained legally, before the state required drivers to show a Social Security number to get one.

His brother, Juan Vasquez, 33, a U.S. citizen, has been helping pay for food.

“They did him a lot of harm,” he said. “It’s an extreme. What they did seems like it’s outside the rule of law.”