This article originally appeared in the issue of February 5, 1977.

The Manzo Area Council has served its constituents in southern Arizona and northern Sonora for ten-years, but became involved in immigration counseling only a year and a half ago, when the Border Patrol became more aggressive in the Tucson area, waiting outside churches and stalking people at laundromats and schools. Cowan and her staff, untrained in immigration counseling, then toured the Southwest, visiting other centers and seeking advice from attorneys and community workers in Los Angeles, Phoenix and other cities. They eventually, drafted a proposal for federal funds which stipulated that they would be doing immigration counseling with two goals in mind: explaining to people without resources that they could not immigrate, and providing a comprehensive program for those able to immigrate by helping them fill out applications, gather documents and accompanying them to their appointments. Once their program was underway, they began to attract the unfriendly attention of the Border Patrol and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and that led to the April 9th raid.

The implications of the Manzo case are far-reaching, since thousands of agencies, attorneys and counselors offer such services from coast to coast. In addition, Cowan, and her assistants are receiving letters from schoolteachers, public health nurses, nutritionists and other agency personnel, asking if they, too, will have to check their clients' immigrant status before giving an injection, a free lunch or rendering any other services.

On November 26 the Los Angeles Times published a strong editorial referring to the prosecution of the Manzo 4 as "bad business." It said that the stated purpose of the raid was to uncover evidence that the counselors were helping aliens make illegal claims for welfare and food stamps. "But apparently," the Times continued, ''no such evidence was forthcoming. We are left to speculate whether a red-faced Border Patrol then may have sought to cover its embarrassment by going to court to "challenge the whole premise of counseling for illegal aliens."

The editorial also referred to the contradictions of federal law which punished those who counsel undocumented immigrants while ignoring those who exploit them, such as employers, merchants and unscrupulous landlords. "The respect for the system of justice can only be eroded by efforts to deny counsel to those who seek it," concluded the Times.

Meanwhile, the Manzo defendants are taking their case to the public, arranging speaking engagements and fund-raisers, and devising a strategy that will include a top-level meeting between sympathetic members of Congress and Griffin B. Bell, the newly appointed U.S. Attorney General, asking the latter to drop the charges and to curb the repressive practices of the INS which have grown to alarming proportions during the Nixon and Ford administrations.

Many observers of immigration law and procedures see the Manzo case as a recurrence of the periodic cycle of repression and scapegoating that is felt whenever the country is beset by economic crisis and inflation. While the raids continue in factories and Hispanic neighborhoods throughout the country (a soccer game and theatre were recently raided in Washington, D.C., with more than 100 arrests), several stringent immigration bills are now before Congress. The most comprehensive bill, H.R. 16188, sponsored by Rep. Peter W. Rodino, (D., N.J.) passed in the House on September 12, 1972 but is still pending in the Senate. It provides three steps before serious measures are taken against employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers. The employer is given two warnings for hiring the workers; if he violates the law a third time, he is subject to a $1,000 fine and/or one year in prison for each undocumented immigrant.

This bill, heavily supported by the AFL-CIO executive board, has met strong opposition from Chicano civil rights groups, who claim that putting the burden on the employer to discover the immigrant status of a worker can only diminish the civil rights of all Americans, especially those of Hispanic descent.

Another bill, by Rep. Joshua Eilberg (D., Pa.) was signed by President Ford on October 20, minutes before the termination of a ten-day period after which it would have received a pocket (automatic) veto. The Eilberg bill, pending in the House for years, had passed once, but was rejected by the Senate because of protests from Chicano and Latino groups. This time, in order to assure its passage, it was held in committee until the day before the 94th Congress adjourned, then sent to the full House as a noncontroversial measure and rushed through the Senate with no opportunity for debate or discussion.

Normally, the bill would have gone to the immigration committee of the Senate, but Sen. James O. Eastland (D., Miss.) asked that it be held at the desk by Speaker. Then, at the last moment, Eaktland asked that the bill be passed by common consent, since it simply "cleaned up a few routine immigration matters."

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