A cottage industry of lawyers is rising to represent illegal immigrants arrested in raids and help them avoid deportation.

By Hector Becerra
Times Staff Writer

The rise in human smuggling across Southern California is creating a cottage industry of lawyers who represent immigrants captured in police raids, legal help that federal authorities said has ultimately allowed some illegal immigrants to avoid deportation.

Until recently, immigrants arrested in law enforcement busts of "safe houses" rarely sought or received legal representation and either were detained while waiting to testify against smugglers or, more likely, simply deported back to Latin America.

But over the last year, a small group of immigration lawyers has begun showing up at safe houses during police raids.

The lawyers often hear about the raids through a network of neighborhood activists and union organizers who alert them when they see police moving in.

The attorneys have teamed with Latin American consulates to develop a list of those willing to work pro bono and who are available to represent immigrants when the raids occur.

"It is very important that they fight for the few rights they have and not to take the voluntary departures," said Ben Monterroso, the Western regional director for the Service Employees International Union.

Monterroso has used information from his contacts to let attorneys or consular officials know about raids.

Those arrested are taken to a detention center where they are notified that they have the right to legal counsel and to call their consulate.

Most are usually offered voluntary deportation, especially Mexicans who easily can be dropped off at the border.

The main exceptions are suspected criminals, who are automatically held for trial.

Federal officials said that immigrants who receive legal representation are far less likely to accept immediate deportation.

The lawyers secure the immigrant's release while they await deportation hearings.

Only about half of those released ever return for their hearings, the officials said.

"That's a disturbing statistic," said Virginia Kice, spokeswoman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service. "We want people to avail themselves of due process. But we don't want them to avail themselves of due process, and if they get an answer they don't like, they ignore it."

Officials suspect many simply continue on to the destinations in the United States where they had paid smugglers to take them.

The problem has prompted federal officials to consider electronic monitoring of undocumented immigrants while they await deportation hearings, Kice said. Some cities, such as Miami, already do this.

A raid by Los Angeles Police Department officers made in May shows how the process works:

LAPD officers converged on a Canoga Park house where 80 illegal immigrants were being held against their will by human smugglers.

A neighbor who saw what was happening telephoned Monterroso. The union official then called immigration attorney Jessica Dominguez, who was asleep when the phone rang.

Following the lights of a Los Angeles police helicopter, Dominguez made her way to the house and told police she was representing the immigrants.

Over the next few days, she talked to as many of the immigrants as she could, alerting them to their rights.

"I want them to be able to make decisions based on what they know," Dominguez said.

Traditionally, many immigrants have opted for voluntary deportation because it doesn't leave them with a criminal record, Kice said.

"The people who choose smugglers, who end up in drop houses, they had no reason to go that route, unless they thought they couldn't get into this country legally," Kice said. "If an individual ultimately doesn't have a very strong case, and they are ordered deported, that's noted in their record."

By having attorneys go out to the scene of immigration raids, activists believe the immigrants have the best chance of being treated fairly.

"If they want to go back, that's their right. No one can make them not sign," Dominguez said.

But she said many don't want to immediately go home — often because they have family members in the United States.

After the Canoga Park raid, officials said, the vast majority of the 80 immigrants was released pending detention hearings.

Similarly, almost all of the roughly 80 immigrants found in April at a Watts safe house were released.

Because a deportation hearing can occur six months after the detention, officials don't know how many will show up.

Dominguez said she never encourages her clients not to show up for their detention hearings, and that she tells them that if they don't appear, they could face criminal charges if they ever are picked up again.

Nationally, 13,448 immigrants failed to show up for deportation hearings last year, according to federal statistics. No statistics were available just for Southern California.

Michael Cutler, a former senior special agent for the INS in New York and a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, said the release of so many immigrants sends mixed messages.

"If they're not supposed to be here, they're not supposed to be here," Cutler said. "If you have 400,000 absconders out there you can't recapture, who you had in your hands, shouldn't that be instructive? Is your goal to enforce the law, or to make it look like you enforce the law?"

He said immigration officials have to be stricter about which immigrants they allow even to qualify for bail and release.

Immigration officials said they are trying to address the issue of those who skip out of hearings.

Denver and Atlanta are experimenting with a program called Operation Compliance — immigrants ordered deported by federal judges are automatically taken into custody instead of being released pending an appeal.

Ruben Beltran, consul general for the Mexican Consulate in L.A., said the key is to make sure immigrants know their rights. The consulate has passed out more than 75,000 cards advising immigrants to call the consulate if they are detained and not to sign any documents they don't understand.

Beltran said he is impressed by the efforts of lawyers and community activists to make sure immigrants are represented.

"The network the community has [in Southern California] is very, very impressive," he said.