One by one, handcuffed and dressed in prison blue, the young men were taken into the small hearing room in the Los Angeles County Men's Central Jail. In less than 15 minutes all but one returned to their jail cells with deportation papers in hand, ready to be placed on the next bus to Mexico and Central America.

These men, all serving up to a year in County Jail, were among the first to take part in a program that brings to the jail a federal judge and agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Service for deportation hearings.

Although similar programs are in place at state and federal facilities, this is one of the first to be instituted at the county level. The program started Sept. 10 in order to speed up deportations for immigrants convicted of crimes ranging from selling marijuana to dealing firearms.

INS and Los Angeles County officials said they launched institutional hearings to prevent the release of deportable criminal immigrants before the INS could schedule deportation hearings. In the past, many of those released failed to show up for their deportation hearings or returned to jail on new offenses. According to a countywide law enforcement report released in July, criminal illegal immigrants make up 11% of the County Jail population and cost Los Angeles County taxpayers more than $75 million annually.

But civil rights advocates have blasted the program as little more than an effort to scapegoat foreigners for societal problems. They argue that the speeded-up process makes it difficult for inmates to obtain counsel and makes it virtually impossible to produce evidence that might persuade a judge to decide against deportation. Moreover, the deportation orders can be applied to legal residents as well as illegal immigrants.

The hearings grew out of federal legislation. As part of its anti-drug program in 1988, Congress enacted legislation to expedite the deportation of immigrants convicted of "aggravated felony," which at the time referred to trafficking in drugs and firearms and crimes such as murder.

The 1990 immigration reforms expanded the list of crimes that render immigrants deportable and ordered that deportations be speeded up.

The most important result locally, said John Brechtel, INS assistant director of investigations, was the institution of deportation proceedings in County Jail. The Central Jail and a jail in Washington are the only local facilities to have launched an Institutional Hearing Program, said Brechtel, who represents the INS on the countywide committee.