PAUL BRINKLEY-ROGERS

 The April 22 photo of a commando-garbed Border Patrol agent pointing a submachine gun in the direction of 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez in Little Havana shocked and angered many.

 But advocates for immigration rights say the scene was rare only in that it involved Cubans, who are not usually the target of enforcement actions by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Elsewhere, such tactics are increasingly common, the advocates say, the result of a decade of congressional actions that have turned the INS into the federal government's largest law enforcement agency.

 Boasting more armed agents with arrest powers -- 16,552 -- than any other federal agency, the INS now surpasses the Bureau of Prisons (12,587 agents), the FBI (11,285) and U.S. Customs (10,359) for firepower.

 And that has meant more raids nationwide that have drawn complaints from advocates. Two recent examples:

 Izabel Solis, 21, was at night school when five INS agents with guns drawn entered her Encinitas, Calif., home in February looking for a man who did not live there. They questioned her frightened brothers and sisters -- ages 5, 7 and 11 -- then arrested her father, Felipe Solis, after they learned that he had once served time for attempted arson. The agents did not have a search warrant, but they left a business card.

 ``I went to Washington to try to do something for my dad,'' said Solis, who said she will have to drop out of the University of California to replace her father as head of the household because he is under a deportation order. ``They [members of Congress] said the law is the law. An alien is an alien. That's it.''

 On Jan. 20, an armed INS team arrived at an air base in San Antonio, Texas, and ordered 40 computer programmers recruited from India to the floor. They had been working since 1996 on human resources systems serving 350,000 servicemen worldwide. The reason for the raid: their visas only allowed them to work in Houston. The programmers claim some agents drew their guns, but the INS denies that.

 India's ambassador protested. But the INS concluded it had done nothing improper. Said Russ Bergeron, an INS spokesman: ``They carry weapons to protect themselves. It is a gross mischaracterization to claim [a gun] is a weapon of intimidation.''

 DOCUMENTATION

 Advocates for immigrants disagree. Dozens of groups, led by the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, which includes 70 member organizations, are documenting cases. But despite clamor from the nation's largest Hispanic organization -- the National Council for La Raz -- lawyer groups and several churches, Congress has not been persuaded.

 During the call for hearings into the Elian Gonzalez raid, many of the groups said they would support such hearings -- if they were broadened to include complaints about INS tactics in general. But with polls continuing to show little appetite for hearings among the U.S. population at large, the hearings seem increasingly unlikely.

 INS officials defend their actions, denying that agents are heavy-handed or out of control. ``We are doing things according to law,'' said INS spokeswoman Maria Cardona.

 The problems go beyond excessive use of firearms, advocates claim. Group after group claims to have evidence of abusive tactics, including hitting, kicking and sexual assault.

 ``You would not believe what is going on,'' said Miami immigration lawyer Tammy Fox-Isicoff, a former INS trial attorney.

 As an example, she recalls the case of a Haitian client who lives in Palm Beach County who was told to come to the INS offices to pick up residency papers. When he arrived, agents arrested him for being an illegal alien.

 ``We have reported that to the office of the inspector general,'' Fox-Isicoff said. ``Sometimes I think there is no supervision of what these agents do. You've got a bunch of renegades, running amok out there.''

 POLICE FUNCTION

 Grass-roots monitors have long lists of children left in the United States because parents have been deported. Wives are often unable to keep up the mortgage payments after their husbands have been taken away. Kids are forced to leave school. Jobs are lost.

 Advocates claim the INS has lost sight of its service function -- issuing visas to foreigners -- and instead is focused on its police function.

 Cardona disputes that. The agency has reduced its backlog of immigration applications from 1.8 million to 1.3 million in the last year, she said.

 Bergeron said use of force is governed by ``the same standards as those used by the Justice Department, which frequently mirror standards used throughout the United States by most law enforcement agencies.''

 A raid team may go in with guns drawn if it is executing a ``criminal search warrant'' looking for an alien with a history of crimes, he said. A search warrant is not needed if the team is merely trying to apprehend someone without a criminal background, and its members usually holster their weapons.

 Bergeron said that these arrest attempts rarely approach the paramilitary intensity of the raid on the Gonzalez home in Little Havana where body armor, helmets and assault rifles were used.

 `HIGH-RISK TEAM'

 That raid, he said, was done by an elite ``high-risk entry team'' made up of Border Patrol agents based in El Paso, Texas. Most of the 20 Border Patrol sectors -- but not Miami -- also have ``special teams.'' He said they are necessary because 80 percent of the 18,000 aliens in INS custody are criminal suspects.

 The INS, however, does not track the number of search warrants it obtains or the number of times its agents draw their weapons.

 Matt Talmer, of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, blamed an ``internal cultural problem'' for an increase in tough tactics.

 Legislation in 1996 ``criminalized'' immigration laws, he said, ``significantly expanding the types of offenses people could be deported for.'' The laws require mandatory detention of people who have been convicted of those crimes and allow INS to resurrect old convictions, contributing to a mentality of ``we're going to kick out all those immigrant criminal so and sos.''

 An INS internal audit for 1999 indicates that 442 of the 3,458 complaints against INS employees involved allegations of abuse of alien detainees, including physical abuse, illegal search and seizure, unlawful detention and sexual misconduct. The audit said less than 10 percent of the allegations resulted in criminal investigation, and only one resulted in a prosecution.

 HISPANICS RESENTFUL

 Cecilia Muñoz, vice president for policy for the National Council for La Raza, said the increased use of arms by the INS is a source of resentment among Hispanics.

 ``The consistent element seems to be the inappropriate and excessive use of force, and instilling fear,'' she said, ``instead of helping qualified people become U.S. citizens.''

 The council, she said, became determined to effect reforms after INS raids in 1997 on migrants living at a Crescent City, Fla., trailer park, and at a Salt Lake City tortilla factory. Tips that guns and drugs were present led to the operations, but no contraband was found, she said.

 At Crescent City, agents did not display search warrants when they came crashing through doors with their guns pointed at residents, she said. At the tortilla factory, ``75 armed local and federal officials threw people on the floor. A pregnant woman on the floor had a gun pointed at her head.'' No one was arrested, ``but nobody apologized.''

 Diana Navarro, who lives in Orange County, Calif., saw her husband, Alberto, a 36-year-old truck driver born in Mexico, ordered deported on Jan. 6. She has since organized a support group of 110 women whose spouses have been arrested by the INS.

 Police found there was an outstanding felony warrant, 14 years old, when her husband was ticketed for a driving violation. Paperwork had been lost, she said, showing that her husband served in a work furlough program instead of going to jail.

 That was sorted out, she said.

 But soon after, INS sent a letter inviting her husband to visit to discuss his application for permanent residency. He was arrested.

 ``It was entrapment,'' Navarro said. ``But they say it is legal. . . . And that comes from people who drag men out of bed by the hair in front of their wives, who don't knock first and kick in the door.''

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald