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California: Illegal Aliens
**************************************** * INS - Investigations - California * * San Diego (619) 557-6011 * * San Francisco (415) 705-1251 * ****************************************
Another high-speed chase occured on May 29, 1997 after a rented vihicle sped past the San
Clemente checkpoint. Speeds up to 107 m.p.h. were reached before the vehicle exited the
freeway and the driver and passenger (both females) fled. Both were apprehended and four
aliens were found in the trunk. One said that each had paid $300 to be transported across the
border.
(Source: Los Angeles Times, May 30, 1997)
A series of shootings at the Border Patrol from Mexico took place in late May in the San Diego
area, where there is new front-line stationing of border control units, with two agents wounded
and several bullets hitting vehicles. U.S. authorities have asked the Mexican government to
cooperate in trying to find those responsible for these serious incidents.
(Source: AP, June 1, 1997 and earlier news accounts)
The INS estimates that the number of resident illegal aliens in California as of October 1996 is 2,000,000. That compares with the INS estimate that in October 1992 the number of illegal aliens was 1,441,000. However, the INS says that the illegal alien population has not increased by 40% over the past four years. Rather, the INS now states that it underestimated the illegal alien population in California in 1992 by 159,000 so that the four-year rate of increase was only 25%.
The U.S. Border Patrol reported that over one million illegal aliens were apprehended along the
California/Mexico border during FY'93, but for every illegal immigrant apprehended another
two million slip through the border.
(Source: Governing Magazine, 6/92)
According to official INS statistics, the number of illegal aliens apprehended at the border in San Diego declined by about 8% in FY'96. By contrast, the El Centro sector had an increase of nearly 80%. Overall, San Diego apprehensions are down 10% from the FY'91 level, while they are up 120% in El Centro.
In the Fresno area, employer sanctions cases -- penalties against employers for hiring illegal
aliens -- averaged about one per week through 1995, when the responsibility was shifted from the
Border Patrol to the Fresno INS office. John Crockford, Agent-in-Charge of the Fresno Border
Patrol office comments that "We always knew that agriculture had a high percentage of
illegals...60 percent of the average work crew.... We're not sure what percentage in construction
are illegal, but we were surprised when we did construction-site enforcement how many people
would run."
(Source: Fresno Bee, February 28, 1997)
Simi Valley has adopted a joint approach between the local police and the Border Patrol to
combat serious gang related violence. Since late 1995, 11 anti-gang sweeps have resulted in 102
arrests, including 83 illegal aliens who were deported.
(Source: Los Angeles Times, March 10, 1997)
In the most recent of an increasing number of incidents involving alien smugglers trying to evade
apprehension by the Border Patrol or police and crashing, a driver was apprehended in Oceanside
on March 10 and charged with drunk and reckless driving, speeding, evading arrest, and not
having a drivers license. Salvador Sanchez Lopez was transporting at least 10 suspected illegal
aliens when he sped at 90 miles per hour in an effort to evade arrest by the Highway Patrol. He
eventually jumped out of the truck, leaving it to crash into a parked car. The passengers fled.
(Source: San Diego Union Tribune, March 5, 1997)
Since November 1996, Anaheim has had an experimental program in which INS officers identify
illegal aliens in detention in the city jail. In the first four months of the program, the INS
identified 344 criminal illegal aliens for deportation. This number constituted over 17 percent of
the total arrestees during the period.
(Source: Los Angeles Times, March 18, 1997)
As of late April, the number of deportable aliens idntified at the Aneheim jail had grown to 665,
10.6% of all prisoners processed. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) and eight other
Congressmen have introduced a bill to require permanent INS deployment to selected local jails.
(Source: Los Angeles Times, May 1, 1997)
A local organization, Immigration Control Advocates of Silicon Valley, has been waging an
effort to force local government authorities to screen out illegal aliens from benefit programs. In
January they led the El Camino Hospital District board to terminate a grant to a center that
provided services to day laborers in Mountain View and Los Altos, because it did not screen its
clients. But, in April they lost a similar effort to get the Mountain View city council to deny
public funds to agencies that did not screen out illegal immigrants. Their effort was met by a
much larger number of people opposing the measure, including two illegal aliens. Service
providers argued that the screening requirement would reduce their ability to provide services,
and the council's attorney assured members that they would violate no law if they refused to
impose a screening requirement.
(Source: San Jose Mercury News, April 18, 1997)
Another high-speed chase of an alien smuggler resulted in the apprehension of at least 28 persons
after a vanload of illegal aliens was pursued from near Moreno Valley into Los Angeles county
at speeds up to 95 mph. The van was stopped when it left the highway and ended up in a
residential cul de sac.
(Source: UPI, April 23, 1997)
In Irvine, the INS apprehended 42 workers at construction sites on May 6, 1997. In Orange
county, the number of employers fined for immigration violations was 24 in 1996, 19 in 1995 63
in 1994, and 30 in 1993.
(Migration News, June, 1997)
INS work site raids in the San Francisco area (Walnut Creek, Antioch, Concord and San Ramon)
have targeted car wash establishments. Recent raids have netted 55 Mexican illegal workers.
Managers have asserted that Americans won't take these low-wage jobs, but an INS
spokeswoman says that after news accounts of one of the raids appeared the car wash owner
admitted to having been "swamped" with American job applicants.
(Source: Contra Costa Times, August 26. 1997)
In Costa Mesa to the south of Los Angeles, the INS apprehended 22 illegal aliens on September
9. The illegal workers were employed at two restaurants, Wolfgang Puck Cafe and Birraporetti's.
Most of those apprehended were working as cooks or in food preparation. Eleven agreed to
leave the country voluntarily and the other 11 sought a hearing. The Puck management said as a
result of the raid they were reviewing all 1,700 employee records.
(Source: Orange County Register, September 10, 1997)
Young female illegal immigrants from Asia were found on September 11 working as "sex slaves" to repay the cost of their being smuggled into the United States in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Westminister police uncovered the Asian operated prostitution ring in Midway City and arrested six people. The first indication of the operation of the ring was found in March 1996 when Westminister police investigating a robbery found six Thai illegal alien prostitutes. That discovery led to two other houses being used by the ring. (Source: Los Angeles Times, September 13, 1997)
A Costa Mesa investigation led to the prosecution of four persons for falsifying driving test
procedures, to document illegal aliens with valid California driver's licenses. The four worked
for a driving school and for the Department of Motor Vehicles. They falsified the testing process
and the U.S. birth certificate verification process for up to $1,000 per illegal alien applicant.
(Source: Associated Press, December 10, 1997)
On December 10, two vans coming from Mexico ran the Otay Mesa border crossing point in the
southbound lanes and made a dash to elude the Border Patrol. California Highway Patrol
vehicles took up the chase and eventually lost one of the two vans in Chula Vista, but finally
stopped the second van in Riverside County. The driver fled and escaped. In the van were 33
illegal immigrants. No one was injured.
(Source: Los Angeles Times, December 11, 1997)
According to state officials, there are about 70,000 pregnant illegal aliens in the state who are
receiving state-subsidized prenatal care. The cost of this program to the state is estimated at
$83.7 million over the past year. The state is attempting to comply with the voter initiative that
mandates a cut-off of this service to illegal aliens. Stephen Frank, of Simi Valley, an activist
who worked for the 1994 ballot measure, hopes that the cut-off of services will lead the illegal
aliens to return home for the care they need.
(Source: Los Angeles Times, January 4, 1998)
Despite being required by law to staff INS agents on a full-time basis at the Anaheim jail, until
early October the INS was maintaining a part-time schedule that allowed screening of only about
40 percent of arrestees to determine if they were illegal aliens who should be deported. With a
second shift now added, the INS should be able to screen about 80 percent of the arrestees.
Before the increase, the INS would identify about 100 illegal aliens per months at the jail.
(Source: Los Angeles Times, October 10, 1998)
Investigators from the Fresno INS office are pursuing a new strategy toward illegal aliens that is
likely to inconvenience them more than deter them. The policy is to work with employers to
identify illegal alien workers and to train the employers how to recognize counterfeit work
documents. The INS identified over 1,000 illegal alien workers in 14 agriculture-related
enterprises over a two month period in the Coalinga, Caruthers and Sanger area. The employers
were advised which documents were false, and most of the illegal aliens left the businesses.
Follow-up operations by the INS found only 26 of the identified workers still on the job, and
they were apprehended for carrying counterfeit green cards. The INS claims that it must pursue
this strategy for lack of detention space. (FAIR Comment: This strategy would work only if
identified illegal alien workers were unable to use the same false documents (or new ones) to get
another job, and if employers -- after the training -- were made accountable for further hires of
illegal aliens, both of which at present seem very unlikely. Therefore, this strategy appears to be
designed to give the appearance of efforts to stop the tide of illegal aliens and detract from
actions likely to stem it.)
(Source: Fresno Bee, Oct. 14, 1998)
The INS arrested four alien smugglers in San Gabriel after finding Mexican illeagal alliens
locked in a house awaiting payment of $1,200 for each of the 10 smuggled aliens.
(Source: AP, Nov. 10, 1998)
The 1994 launching of Operation Gatekeeper in San Diego to better control the border has had
the effect inter alia of causing greater numbers of illegal border crossers to attempt entry
in the more sporadicaly patrolled border region east of San Diego. The terrain is much more
desolate and this shift has led to increased deaths and serious cases of exposure among illegal
entrants. For example in Imperial County, the number of illegal alien deaths doubled in 1998 to
nearly 100. The County has incurred correspondingly increased expenses -- more than $1
million -- for related autopsies and medical care. As a result, Imperial County declared an
immigration emergence on November 10 seeking federal government funds. Gov. Wilson
announced immediately afterward that he endorsed the action and urged the state's congressional
delegation to take up the issue in Washington.
(Source: AP, Nov. 11, 1998)
One of the largest fake ID rackets ever busted by the INS was raided in Los Angeles on
November 10. As many as 2 million fake government ID cards, credit cards and traveler's
checks were seized. The group running the operation was composed of illegal aliens. The raid
was the culmination of operations that began in August that had led to the arrest of 12 people.
(Source: AP, "Agents find 2 million counterfeit ID cards," Nov. 12,
1998)
Recriminations between INS and Anaheim Police
The Anaheim police think the INS is trying to downplay the success of the INS screening
program for alien prisoners who may be deportable. The INS says that there have been just over
1,000 deportations from the program since 1996. The Anaheim officials say that over 3,000
deportable aliens have been identified by the screening. [FAIR Comment: The probable
explanation of the discrepancy is that INS isn't deporting all of the aliens, even if they are
illegally in the country, unless they fit the INS priorities in terms of the seriousness of the crime
committed.]
(Source: Orange County Register, June 14, 1999)
