INS Agents Admit To Racial Profiling

October 29, 2000

INS Agents Admit To Racial Profiling

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By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 11:23 p.m. ET

DALLAS (AP) -- Federal agents used racial profiling against Indians and Pakistanis during a high-profile investigation into immigrant smuggling in the 1990s that won accolades from top federal officials, agents involved in the investigation said in court depositions.

Operation Seek and Keep was lauded by Attorney General Janet Reno in a 1998 Washington news conference for stopping an international ring that had taken in $220 million and smuggled 12,000 people, mostly from South Asia. The operation led to the indictments of more than 30 people.

Immigration and Naturalization Service supervisors in Dallas who oversaw parts of the investigation testified last week that they photocopied phone book listings of Indian restaurants and Dunkin' Donuts franchises and ordered INS agents to check the identities of Indian and Pakistani workers in a three-day search for those smuggled in, according to the depositions obtained by The Dallas Morning News and reported Sunday.

Most of those arrested turned out to be Mexican nationals, but several Indian nationals also were arrested, according to two INS agents who participated in the operation.

The information about the sweeps emerged from a federal personnel discrimination complaint filed by three INS agents who claimed they were excluded from the operation and lost subsequent promotions because they are white.

In the depositions, Supervisory Special Agent John W. Page and District Director Bill Harrington said they were acting on no specific investigative lead or probable cause when they ordered the identity checks, the absence of which some civil-rights experts say indicates racial profiling.

The supervisors also acknowledged they proceeded with the operation even though some agents raised questions about its legality and political sensitivity.

The Texas American Civil Liberties Union called the episode a flagrant case of racial profiling that needlessly terrorized those in the restaurants.

About 50,000 Indian and Pakistani-Americans live in the Dallas area.

Dallas INS spokesman Lynn Ligon said INS supervisors were acting on investigative leads turned up by wiretaps during the operation, which indicated that unspecified restaurateurs may have hired smuggled immigrants.

``There was information that indicated that these people were going to these types of places and maybe to some of the doughnut locations,'' Ligon said. ``Would you send your agents out to German restaurants? I don't see it being a major offense to take a list out of the phone book of restaurants where you strongly suspect these people may be.''

But Page, the Dallas INS case supervisor who ordered the sweeps, said in his deposition that the wiretap information did not contain specific investigative leads about people and restaurants. He said he was aware at the time that the operation might be questionable.

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