Fate of Chinese Youths Raises INS Concerns

At least two Chinese immigrant youngsters were turned over to smugglers by the attorney who bailed them out of Los Angeles County juvenile hall while they awaited asylum appeals, according to a Chinese community activist and U.S. immigration authorities.

Others have had their claims bungled by lawyers who took on their cases but quickly abandoned them, filling out forms improperly or failing to show up in court.

The stories underscore the vulnerability of the young immigrants, smuggled in crowded boats to shores from Baja California to the Bay Area before immigration agents caught them several months ago and placed them in Los Angeles County probation facilities.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service is escorting some of these youngsters to their families in New York in an effort to protect them from the smugglers, to whom they owe money. The agency also is drafting an agreement with two East Coast social service organizations to screen those gaining custody of the youngsters as soon as possible, an INS spokesman said.

Two teen-agers now with relatives in New York, where most of the young immigrants were headed when arrested, told a Chinese community activist that Los Angeles attorney Cathy Tao bailed them out of detention but then turned them and a third boy over to people who kept them locked in a Los Angeles-area home for three days last month.

The boys, who said they were unharmed, told the activist the smugglers put them on a plane to New York after their families paid off their smuggling debts. The activist could not reach the third boy.

Tao denies any wrongdoing or links to smugglers and says she turned over the teen-agers to people she believed to be relatives.

The activist, who asked not to be identified because he feared for his safety, has been visiting the youngsters in detention and helping them with their asylum forms. He said several told him that Tao and at least two other attorneys who have been visiting the youngsters are linked to smugglers.

The activist gave the same information to INS officials, who said they believe the attorney turned the three boys over to smugglers and that at least three Los Angeles attorneys have “a working relationship with the smuggling organizations.” INS officials would not name the attorneys.

“We view (the activist) as quite credible,” said INS spokesman Verne Jervis in Washington. “Through our own resources, we are checking the information.”

Ninety youths smuggled to California from China’s Fujian province more than two months ago remain in Los Angeles County’s juvenile halls, and 71 are free on bond, Jervis said. The vast majority have had their first asylum hearings; those who lost are appealing, and the INS is appealing many of the cases of those who won. Only one other Chinese juvenile, being held in Miami, is in INS custody outside Los Angeles.

Although anyone can post bond for an adult, Jervis said, the INS will only release minors to relatives or legal guardians, or to someone authorized by those individuals to pick up the child.

Tao said she has arranged the release of four minors but turned over three of her clients to people verified by the INS as relatives of the teen-agers. A member of her staff put the fourth on a plane to New York to meet his father’s friend, who had INS authorization to pick him up.

“I deliver the children to the relatives. . . . Ultimately I cannot know whether the people who say they are the relatives are in fact the relatives. I can only do my best,” Tao said. “I do not appreciate, now that (the INS) is finding out that these children may have been turned over to smugglers, that they are now pointing the finger at me.”

Tao added that she is not surprised that smugglers have made contact with some youngsters and adults after their release, because the families had promised to pay them for the journey.

The INS is so concerned about the situation that detention officers are now escorting juveniles bailed out by the three suspect attorneys to their families. Since Aug. 6, they have brought three juveniles to New York, Jervis said.

The same Asian crime syndicates now trafficking in human cargo have been linked by law enforcement agencies to prostitution rings, illegal gambling dens and drug-running operations in the United States, many of them in New York City and the San Gabriel Valley.

Law enforcement officials and Chinese community members fear that some of the children whose families are unable to pay off their smuggling debts will be conscripted into these crime rings as indentured servants.

Attorneys with apparent links to smugglers have gained access to the juvenile halls by posing as members of the Chinese community and members of a church congregation, Jervis said.

After family members posted bond and he was released from Central Juvenile Hall, one 16-year-old told The Times through a translator that several attorneys who he believed were linked to smugglers came into the facility.

“One time an attorney tried to get all our names and (INS identification) numbers from the guard, but he wouldn’t let her,” said the teen-ager, who asked to be identified only as Lin. “Another came in and said: ‘I’m from the boss, and for those of you who don’t have relatives or lawyers, you can give me your names and A-numbers.’

“Several groups of them came, but I have my own relatives and I knew they were helping me, so I never approached them,” said Lin, who added that he got a “special deal” on his smuggling fee through a friend of his mother’s and only needs to pay $12,000, about half the running rate for a trip from Fujian province.

Last month, some callers posed as activists to gain telephone access to the children, and then grilled them for their identification numbers and release dates, youngsters told Chinese community advocates.

According to a representative of a Los Angeles bonding company, a Chinese group from Orange County that refused to identify itself attempted unsuccessfully to gain custody of a group of minors about two months ago.

The representative said the Chinese group approached him and said they wanted to bond “all the minors out.” They filled out paperwork for eight girls, but the INS denied their request. The group then returned with a Chinese man who they said was a priest and tried to persuade the INS to release the girls to him, the bond representative said.

When the INS refused again, the group abandoned their effort.

“There are smuggling organizations that are trying to get to these kids. We certainly agree on that,” said Donald Looney, deputy district director for the INS in Los Angeles.

Looney said the agency is investigating several suspect groups that have tried to get their hands on the youngsters.

Other youths have been represented by attorneys who later abandoned their cases, in some instances automatically losing the immigrants’ first rounds in court.

Marina del Rey attorney Steven L. Dobbs took on the cases of the same eight girls that the Orange County group had attempted to post bond for, along with several other cases. He arranged the release of one girl but then dropped all their cases after he said the group that hired him stopped paying.

“Some Chinese group contacted us. They said: ‘Help us out, help us out,’ ” Dobbs said. “After we got one out, they wouldn’t pay any more. . . . So we dumped them.”

When Dobbs failed to show up in court, the immigrant advocates said, the girls automatically lost their cases, which then went to appeal. Those appeals are pending.

The group also hired Dobbs to try to get bail lowered for seven smuggling vessel crew members now in jail in San Diego, Dobbs said. But he said he never got paid after traveling to San Diego to interview them and dropped their cases, too.

As part of this work for the group, Dobbs said he submitted a letter to the INS purportedly from the family of the one girl who was released, authorizing one of the Los Angeles men to gain custody of her. But Dobbs admitted that he did not know if the people were actually family.

“Who knows if they’re Chinese Mafia or the family? They didn’t identify themselves,” he said.

The Los Angeles man submitted an affidavit to the INS stating that he was a responsible married man with grown daughters in college who would ensure that the youngsters wouldn’t “get into the wrong hands,” Dobbs said.

Dobbs refused to identify the group that hired him, adding that their motives did not concern him.

Dobbs also filled out forms for at least three boys improperly, causing the judge to automatically order them deported, the Chinese community sources said.

Dobbs did not comment on this case, but an INS official confirmed that trial attorneys for the agency are reviewing three cases of youngsters who had been represented by Dobbs to determine whether to reopen them on grounds that their lawyer might have bungled their documents.