Texas Town Shuts Down INS Office, Assails U.S.

HARLINGEN, Tex. — City officials, citing health and fire code violations, today evicted the Immigration and Naturalization Service from a building where it processes thousands of political asylum applicants.

The city fire marshal and police cleared the building of INS personnel and immigrants at about 10 a.m. and chained and padlocked two main entryways. Another door was sealed with duct tape.

“We are finally forced to take this drastic action,” Mayor Bill Card said. “It’s a situation where we have not been able to get the cooperation and the attention of the federal government.”

The City Commission also voted to sue the federal agency. Card said his city will seek a state district court injunction to keep the INS building closed. Both votes were unanimous.

“We don’t know what is happening,” said Juan Francisco Mayrena, a Nicaraguan amnesty applicant who was waiting in a van packed with about 15 other Central Americans.

On some nights, scores of Central Americans sleep outside the INS building and the grounds are strewn with litter. Nearby vacant lots are dotted with human waste, Card said.

Seating inside the building exceeds a maximum set under city fire codes, Card said.

“It’s unsanitary. It’s a nuisance. And we’re not going to allow it to be operated any further.”

The INS has been processing about 2,000 primarily Central American political asylum applicants weekly in this city 25 miles north of the border city of Brownsville.

Hundreds of Central Americans began piling up at the southern tip of Texas after Dec. 16, when the INS began a policy of restricting asylum applicants to the INS’ Harlingen district while their cases were being reviewed.

U.S. District Judge Filemon Vela in Brownsville on Jan. 9 issued a temporary restraining order forcing the immigration service to once again allow asylum applicants to travel on to their U.S. destinations to pursue their claims for refugee status.