Latinos Blast Grand Jury Call for Immigration Ban

SANTA ANA — A coalition of Latino leaders Tuesday demanded the censure of the Orange County Grand Jury for recommending a nationwide three-year moratorium on immigration to the United States.

“Calling for a three-year moratorium on immigration is not only unrealistic, it is un-American,” said John Palacio, Orange County leadership program director for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “Their recommendations add to the escalating anti-immigrant hysteria.”

Palacio and others said they would seek a meeting with Superior Court Judge Michael Brenner, who oversees grand jury operations, in an attempt to have the 13-page report, published last week, publicly condemned.

Brenner was out of town but Judge John Watson, who is filling in for Brenner, said he doubted that the coalition’s demand could be granted.

“I don’t know of any precedent that exists to tell the grand jury to be quiet,” Watson said.

Amin David, chairman of Los Amigos of Orange County, said the grand jury ignored all discussion of the economic advantages of immigration.

“Every Orange Countian is an immigrant or a descendant of immigrants,” David said. “That includes every member of the Orange County Grand Jury. If they are ashamed of themselves or their parentage, we are sad for them.”

In its report, the grand jury linked immigration--predominantly illegal immigration--with overcrowding of schools and housing, the spread of infectious disease and the county’s failure to win the drug war.

“The Hispanic community is outraged,” said Alfredo Amezcua, past president of the Hispanic Bar Assn. of Orange County. “According to this, it appears that the only thing immigrants are not to blame for are earthquakes. It is insane.”

Tom Dalton, co-chairman of the grand jury’s Human Services Committee, which authored the report, said the panel was “not going to back off from our report one bit.”

In an earlier interview, Dalton said the panel’s only quest was to make the public aware of how much services to illegal immigrants cost government.

Board Chairman Harriett M. Wieder on Tuesday characterized the grand jury report as “reflecting a lack of knowledge” of the immigration issue.