Photo by Jessica CalkinsThe immigration applications of about 1,000 Orange County residents gather dust next to boxes of Butterfingers and manila folders in a storage room at Catholic Charities in Santa Ana. Elsewhere in the city, another thousand are stored inside flimsy boxes at the Orange County Congregation Community Organization (OCCCO) offices. Still more are stacked in the aisles of the Santa Ana offices of the Orange County Human Relations Commission (OCHRC).
Since June, the three nonprofit organizations have administered about 4,000 asylum cases once handled by La Guadalupana Immigration Services, a Santa Ana notary business shut down in March when authorities arrested owner Roberto Fernández and three others. The DA charges that La Guadalupana falsely promised to guide immigrants through the complex immigration process in exchange for several thousand dollars each. The money is gone, but Orange County district attorney officers seized hundreds of boxes containing original personal documents La Guadalupana collected from its clients. Despite the importance of the papers—they include birth certificates, green cards and visas—the DA's office was set to destroy them months ago, until Catholic Charities, OCCCO and OCHRC offered to take custody of them.
But time is running out. The organizations, which promised to maintain the files until Aug. 29, say they're overwhelmed and will dump the papers soon.
“[The DA] couldn't do anything with them. They claimed they had no facilities or manpower, but we don't either,” said Eli Reyna, director of community relations for OCHRC. “But we gladly took them and have put in extra hours and even gotten volunteers to look through the files and make them available for their rightful owners. It's a responsibility we have to do, and do it happily. But we can't keep doing it forever. We're already crowded as it is here.”
Through Spanish-language TV and radio spots, as well as canary-yellow placards placed in and around Santa Ana by the OCHRC, La Guadalupana victims have been told to visit the offices of the three nonprofits—alphabetically designated according to location—and pick up their documents. Success in locating victims has been spotty. Reyna says many immigrants are fearful that the alert is a sting run by the INS.
Still, Salvador Sánchez of Anaheim, who heads a group of La Guadalupana victims seeking a permanent space for the files and has haunted the three sites almost daily for the past three months, says it's critically important to keep trying. “Those files are the only evidence, the only weapon that victims have against being deported,” the wiry 50-year-old said. “And the documents might be thrown away? First, they'll have to destroy me before destroying these documents.”
Sánchez understands the plight of the nonprofits but has no sympathy for the DA, whom he blames for the file backlog. According to Sánchez, the DA picked at random from the boxes found in La Guadalupana's offices files they would use in their prosecution of Fernández. A trial date has yet to be set, and the DA has disavowed any responsibility for the papers.
“That's not right,” Sánchez said. “If the DA was going to prosecute the case, they should have kept custody of all the files, not just keep some of them and want to throw the rest out.”
Others agree. “My understanding is that all of these documents are worthless to the DA,” said Lisa Ramirez, director of legal services for Catholic Charities. “We're not going to destroy them ourselves—that's not our job. Now it's a matter of practicality to see what's going to happen to the documents, because the DA considers them trash.”
José Morfín, a representative from the DA's office in charge of the La Guadalupana case, refused to comment on the matter. And that, said Sánchez, is indicative of the problem.
“I've called him on various occasions for updates regarding the papers, but he hasn't returned my calls,” Sánchez said. “When I asked him if the documents were going to be destroyed, he said that it wasn't the DA's problem anymore.”
It may not be a problem for the nonprofits for much longer. Reyna says her organization is “not planning to destroy [the papers], but we have to decide what to do soon.” She said the three groups would meet Sept. 3 to determine the fate of the files, but placards around Santa Ana make clear their eventual fate. In bold, black letters, La Guadalupana's victims are informed that papers must be picked up by Aug. 29. Those that aren't, it says, “Will Be Destroyed.”
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