Ezell Combines Business, Immigration Advice

Harold Ezell, the colorful and combative former top immigration official in the West, says he has found a new business opportunity by combining investment advice and immigration services in one company.

But some of the many critics he gained during his seven-year tenure in the Immigration and Naturalization Service say that his new job smacks of profiting from public service.

Government officials, however, say Ezell appears to be within the law.

Ezell has dovetailed his experiences as chief guardian of the U.S. border into a consulting firm that helps foreign business people invest in this country--and then emigrate to the United States if they wish. This way, said one of Ezell’s associates, the wealth built up by foreign investors stays in this country.

Ezell, contacted in Seoul, South Korea, where he was traveling to drum up more business, said that he sees no need to stay out of the immigration arena just so he doesn’t give the appearance of profiting from his expertise.

“Should someone like Ronald Reagan never make a statement about foreign policy, or make speeches and get paid for those speeches?” he said.

Ezell said his company, the Ezell Group, would use the services of a law firm to serve as the link between his clients and the INS.

But some of the Ezell’s biggest critics were surprised to learn about his new business, and said it was improper.

“Isn’t that ironic,” said Amin David, president of Los Amigos of Orange County, a group of Latino business people. “Instead of chasing (foreigners) he is going to entrap them with the allurement of settling here and showing them how to work the system.

“It would appear very obvious that he would be tapping the connections that he made during his reign of terror on the Latino community,” he said.

Ernesto Reyes, an attorney who works with immigration law, said of Ezell’s new concern: “The fact that he was the regional commissioner gives an aura of impropriety, to the detriment of the people trying to get visas approved. As a consequence I think those people will suffer.”

Reyes, supervising attorney for the Los Angeles Center for Law and Justice, said he was speaking personally and not as a representative of the center.

As western regional INS commissioner from 1983 until President Bush accepted his standing resignation last May, Ezell drew the ire of numerous civil rights organizations and others for his public statements.

In August, 1988, Ezell appeared at a Honolulu party hosted by Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, danced with Mrs. Marcos and led a prayer asking for the exiled couple’s safe return to the Philippines.

His critics charge that he was especially strict in guarding the border against illegal immigration from Latin America. In 1988, when Border Patrol agents entered a church in Orange during a Roman Catholic Mass and arrested seven illegal aliens, Ezell later called the raid “regrettable” but not improper.

When he was honored last year by a Latino group in Bellflower, local Latino leaders were infuriated and turned out to picket the event.

Other Latino leaders called for Ezell’s ouster, U.S. Sen. Alan Cranston said in 1987 that he should be fired, and some Administration officials in Washington said that they were embarrassed by his behavior.

Ezell, a former executive with a fast-food company, had talked about possibly running for office when he left the INS last May. Ezell said he decided instead that foreign investment and immigration could be a lucrative venture.

Duke Austin, an INS spokesman in Washington, said that while he was not familiar with Ezell’s new business, the Ethics in Government Act stipulates that “you can’t have any interaction with your former agency for at least one year, and can’t have any relations with that agency on a contractual basis.”

“But it doesn’t mean you can’t go out and utilize the expertise that you have as a consultant,” he said.

Ezell, who is not publicity shy, said that he has no direct contact with the INS.

“I don’t, I don’t, I don’t,” he said. “I can’t do that for a year. I know that very clearly and so does everyone else. If there’s any immigration business to be done, it’s done by one of my associates” who is a lawyer.

One of the directors on the board of the Ezell Group is Ting Hui, president and chief executive officer of Video Pioneers Corp. of Santa Ana. Hui said that he met Ezell last year when the INS regional office rented studio space from his video company to produce their own videos. But Hui said that he and Ezell did not talk about forming a company until after Ezell left the INS.

Hui said that he and Henry Y. Hwang, chairman and president of Far East National Bank in Los Angeles, helped Ezell come up with the idea of the new company. All of them have seen a growing number of foreign investors coming to the United States and profiting, he said, especially those from the Pacific Rim. Hui said that they decided they would set up a firm to help the foreigners invest, but would try to keep the wealth in America.

“We thought, why should we let the foreigners come in and invest and take their wealth back to their homeland?” Hui said. “We might as well get them to invest here, and keep them here so that American dollars will not leave the country. That is the whole mission of the company, in essence.”