INS Agents Say They Can Rejoin Raids

SIMI VALLEY —  After some negotiation and legal study, U.S. Border Patrol officials said Tuesday they have found a way to resume arresting illegal immigrants they find during probation sweeps of gang members’ homes by Simi Valley police.

Details are still being hashed out on how, where and when Border Patrol agents will join future raids, said Robert Logazino, who oversees immigration law enforcement in Ventura County.

But the key is finding probable cause in each case that would allow Border Patrol agents to enter a gang member’s house during a police search, he said after meeting Tuesday with Simi Valley police officials, city leaders and U.S. Rep. Elton Gallegly.

“We’re going to make sure we conform with our policy guidelines and all, and I can’t deviate from that,” said Logazino, sector chief of the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s Border Patrol.

“If I have reason to believe someone is in the country illegally, we’ll identify the house where they live” before entering it during a police raid, Logazino said.

The INS halted its participation in the Simi Valley gang sweeps last month after unearthing a 17-year-old INS policy that forbids immigration agents from joining police in arresting “status offenders,” such as probation violators.

Such a raid in January drew criticism from Latino advocates who charged the federal agents were violating constitutional rights by rushing into homes without any firm proof that they would find illegal immigrants.

Simi Valley Police Chief Randy Adams confirmed Tuesday that future INS participation will hinge on probable cause, allowing Border Patrol agents to walk into a gang member’s house with police only “if they know of some specific criminal violation by people in the house.”

But Adams refused to give details on the Border Patrol’s role in his department’s next gang sweep.

“The only statement I’m making is we’re continuing to explore strategies on how to work cooperatively with the INS,” he said. “We’re certainly going to continue our gang sweeps, and we want to employ the services and resources of any and all the agencies we can in delivering a zero-tolerance policy for illegal gang activity in our city.”

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Gallegly, a Simi Valley Republican who slammed the INS last week for suspending its role in the gang sweeps, sat in on Tuesday afternoon’s meeting with INS, police and Simi Valley officials.

Afterward, he praised the Border Patrol agents, saying, “I’m encouraged, and I’m convinced that we’ll be able to continue to take criminal aliens out of our neighborhoods.”

Gallegly said his criticism of the Border Patrol was directed solely at INS officials in Washington, D.C., who handed down the order for agents in Ventura County to stick to the no-probationers policy, a relic of the Carter administration.

“These folks are dedicated law enforcement people,” he said of the local agents. “I see the frustration they have in doing the job they were sworn to do, only to be handcuffed by their superiors in D.C. because of political reasons. They’re dedicated to taking criminal aliens off the streets and taking them out of our society, contrary to the policies of the people in Washington.”

But Latino activists, who criticized the INS’ past role in the sweeps as racist and unconstitutional, gave the plan only lukewarm approval.

“Our primary concern is that they were violating the 4th Amendment [forbidding] unreasonable search and seizures. And the requirement the INS has, just like any other law enforcement, is probable cause,” said Simi Valley attorney Michael Rodriguez.

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“As long as they’re complying with the 4th Amendment, we’re pleased,” said Rodriguez, past president of the Mexican-American Bar Assn. of Ventura County.

But Rodriguez said he and other critics still worry that the raids discriminate against Latinos because they target only Latino gangs in a city that has had white and Asian gangs in its history.

Council member and former police chief Paul Miller has answered that criticism in the past, saying the two major gangs in Simi Valley today are made up primarily of Latinos.

“To the extent they have legitimate probable cause, there’s not much we can do about it,” Rodriguez replied. “However, to the extent that it’s being used in a race-based fashion, we have a problem with that.

“The U.S. Supreme Court in the past couple of years has held that the INS cannot use ethnicity alone to establish probable cause, except in border areas,” he said. “And this is clearly not a border area.”