ACTIVISTS ENDORSE INS GANG SWEEPS ROLE.

Byline: Enrique Rivero Daily News Staff Writer

Latino activists say they are satisfied that the new role the Immigration and Naturalization Service will have in joining police-led gang sweeps is within legal guidelines.

Under an agreement reached between the city of Simi Valley and the INS on Tuesday, officials for the INS said the service plans to independently establish a cause for entering a home where illegal immigrant suspects are living before accompanying police on any raids.

That suits Simi Valley lawyer Daniel R. Gonzalez just fine - provided the service sticks to that policy.

``All we were asking them was to do their job lawfully and it appears that they are - we are satisfied with that position,'' said Gonzalez, a lifelong Simi Valley resident and member of the Mexican-American Bar Association's Ventura County chapter.

But he added that whether the INS sticks to that policy remains to be seen.

``Until I see the guidelines the city and the INS will work under, no one can say whether they're going to do the job lawfully or whether it's going to be the same business as usual.''

The INS two weeks ago told the city it was suspending its practice of going on the raids following the discovery of an obscure, 17-year-old policy that appears to restrict when the INS could conduct residential raids.

City officials and Congressman Elton Gallegly, R-Oxnard, immediately began lobbying to have the INS continue participating in the raids, saying the practice was an effective crime-fighting tool. One of the city's largest gangs, they say, includes many illegal immigrants.

Tuesday's meeting involving city and INS officials and Gallegly was held to determine how the agency could continue participating in the police-led gang sweeps.

Officials would not reveal details about how the INS would continue working with the city. But an INS official said Wednesday that existing policy allows the agency to accompany police provided it has established a reason for participating.

``There are many instances, even within this policy, that allows us to go into residences if we can establish certain facts that would give us reason to believe that there are illegal immigrants occupying those places,'' said Alan Dwelley, assistant chief patrol agent for the agency's Livermore Border Sector, which oversees Ventura County. ``This would give us the ability to go there on those operations.''

The practice of INS agents joining Simi Valley police on residential raids had been roundly criticized by activists such as Gonzalez, who argued that it constituted a violation of civil rights.

``Our objection had been to the INS unlawfully being involved in these raids without first having their own probable cause,'' he said. ``In other words, the police can't do the INS's work for them.''

Dwelley denied that the INS's participation in the gang sweeps was ever illegal.

``As far as I'm aware of, there was nothing illegal about these operations at all,'' he said. ``We had a question about that policy issue and we have kind of worked through that and feel like we're on firm ground with what we've decided to go with here.''