300 Protest Illegal-Immigrant Sweeps at LAX

More than 300 immigrants and their advocates descended on Los Angeles International Airport on Thursday in a spirited but orderly rally to denounce federal sweeps that snared scores of illegal immigrants at the airport last week.

“We are here today to demand that current and future INS raids and sweeps cease immediately,” said Angelica Salas, a rally organizer who addressed supporters and the media from a patch of grass in front of the futurist Encounters restaurant.

Participants--toting placards proclaiming “Raids Disrupt Families” and “Immigrant Does Not Equal Terrorist,” among other messages--marched amid tight police security to the terminal curb, as jumbo jets roared overhead and the aroma of jet fuel permeated the air. Traffic snarled briefly as demonstrators crossed the street, but officials reported no major disruption to operations at the nation’s third-busiest airport.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service sweeps, widely publicized in the Spanish-language media, have stunned Southern California’s undocumented masses, who have grown accustomed to living relatively normal lives despite their lack of legal residency status. Community representatives have even reported some parents keeping their children out of school--the kind of paranoia last evident during the polarized battle over Proposition 187, the 1994 initiative that targeted illegal immigrants.

“People are just very nervous now,” said Miguel Ortega, a 42-year-old airport janitor who was among the dozens expressing their outrage. Unions, churches, immigrant organizations and allied groups brought in most of the marchers, who chanted slogans in Spanish as Korean drummers pounded out a protest beat.

Advocates fear a change of the unwritten rules of engagement that have left Los Angeles and other areas in the U.S. interior as virtual safe zones where INS interference is minimal. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have provided an ominous backdrop: Airport security has been tightened, and many see diminished public support for immigrants--even the vast majority in no way linked to terrorism.

“First they came for the Muslims, for the Arabs,” warned James Lafferty of the National Lawyers Guild, referring to the roundup of more than 1,000 Middle Eastern and South Asian men after Sept. 11. “Now they are coming for the Latinos and every other immigrant of color.”

The INS said it is not changing the rules, but officials said the protests will not alter their approach.

“We welcome their opinion, but we will continue with our operations wherever they’re needed,” said Francisco Arcaute, INS spokesman in Los Angeles.

The INS, the focus of intense criticism in Washington after a series of security gaffes, is being pulled in two directions: Immigrant advocates call for an end to raids and a sweeping amnesty for illegal immigrants, while some lawmakers and others say more raids and mass deportations are exactly what is needed.

“They should have been doing operations like this a long time ago,” said Yeh Ling-Ling, executive director of the Diversity Alliance for a Sustainable America, a Berkeley-based group that favors cuts in immigration. “Illegal immigrants know that once you’re in the U.S., you’re home free.”

Last week’s raids at LAX resulted in arrests of 183 Mexicans and one Guatemalan, according to the INS.

A separate set of INS sweeps targeting airport workers has resulted in more than 200 arrests of undocumented employees at airports in California and elsewhere in the West.

The 184 arrested at LAX last week had been recently smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border and were seeking to board domestic flights to Chicago, New York and other destinations, officials said.

Civil rights advocates said the arrests were the result of racial profiling. The INS denied such tactics, contending that the smuggling rings targeted happened to be moving Mexicans, who account for the great majority of illegal immigrants.

Southern California is home to more than one quarter of the nation’s more than 7 million illegal immigrants, according to estimates.

The raids underscored LAX’s role as a major trans-shipment point for illegal immigrants en route to jobs and families in other U.S. cities and towns.

No one knows with certainly, but one estimate had as many as 6,000 recently smuggled illegal immigrants using the airport daily during peak seasons.

Officials acknowledged that alert smugglers quickly adjust and move their clients to other airports, so the long-term impact of the sweeps is negligible.

Though small scale so far, the raids demonstrate the potential vulnerability of a Southland economy built in part on the labor of millions of illegal immigrants.

“The question is: Are these people being picked up really threats to the economy, or are they one of us?” asked Jack Kyser, chief economist for the L.A. County Economic Development Corp. “Are they just here to do a job and send money home?”