Rights Groups Initiate Probe of Alien Abuse

Seeking to heighten awareness nationwide about anti-immigrant violence, a delegation of activists from throughout California gathered in San Diego Wednesday to launch an intensive, three-day fact-finding inquiry into widespread reports of abuse against Latinos along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Participants likened contemporary treatment of immigrants to abuses faced by blacks in the South before the civil rights movement forced change. Pro-immigrant advocates are seeking similar reforms.

“I think the existence of this delegation here today represents a maturation of the civil rights movement,” Robert L. Demmons, a member of the San Francisco-based Civil Rights Coalition, told a news conference announcing the group’s plans. “Immigrant rights have not been a popular issue in this country.”

Activists have contended that abuses against immigrants are rising nationwide, but particularly in the San Diego area, the principal entry zone for illegal aliens en route to the U.S. interior.

In particular, critics have assailed what they characterize as brutal acts by the U.S. Border Patrol, which has more than 700 agents assigned to the San Diego area, the largest such contingent nationwide. A Border Patrol shooting last November of a Mexicali teen-ager who was perched on the border fence has drawn angry denunciations from both sides of the boundary.

Patrol officials respond that their agents act with great restraint, despite many attacks against them, and only resort to deadly force to save the lives of themselves or others.

In the case of the Mexicali teen-ager, the agent says he only fired as the youth was poised to toss a rock at him, according to officials.

Activists are also concerned by what they say is a rising number of so-called “hate crime” attacks--those motivated by race--against immigrants.

Just as the civil rights activists of the 1960s sought to disseminate information nationwide about the effects of segregation in the South, organizers of the border delegation say they hope that focusing national attention on the plight of immigrants will eventually put pressure on lawmakers to take action aimed at reducing abuses.

“One of our goals is to make sure the rest of the state and country is aware of what’s going on here at the border,” said Manuel A. Romero, regional counsel in San Francisco with the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, one of the sponsors of the border inquiry.

The hope, Romero said, is that constructive solutions will emerge once the delegation issues its report, which is expected in several months.

One likely recommendation, activists said, is the creation of civilian oversight boards to investigate alleged abuses by Border Patrol agents and other law enforcement agents.

The civil rights group now meeting in San Diego--known formally as the California Border Violence Delegation Project--is slated to hold community forums in San Diego and Tijuana through Friday, as well as meeting with U.S. and Mexican immigration authorities. The delegation is composed of about 50 people representing civil rights, church, labor and community groups statewide.