The trial of La Migra: raids, racism and the I.N.S. (Immigration and Naturalization Service)

Nation, The, May, 1989 by Shorris, Earl

In a modern, undistinguished courtroom in San Jose,

California, more than a hundred Mexican and Mexican-American witnesses, some of them trembling, have turned the tables on the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. La Migra is on trial, accused of a pattern of discrimination and racial harassment, physical and verbal abuse of workers, entering workplaces without -proper warrants and seizing people without reasonable cause for suspicion.

The trial began in January and is expected to last through the summer. On the surface it is a straightforward battle over violations of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments by a rogue agency of the Federal government. The plaintiffs are asking the court to make permanent a 1986 injunction barring the I.N.S....