Illegal Aliens United States

It sounds simple enough: Every time a business hires someone, the employer first dials a toll-free telephone number to verify the immigration status of the new worker. Just like the process that occurs at the cash register when a customer hands over a credit card, a central computer would instantly relay back a thumbs up or down.

Public enemy No. 1 in the eyes of the Border Patrol. Crafty, nocturnal, predatory, a lifeline to the desperate, a smuggler of illegal immigrants. Coyote. Two bloody incidents in the span of a week--the videotaped beating of two suspected illegal immigrants Monday in South El Monte and the deaths of seven suspected illegal immigrants Saturday morning near Temecula--have thrust the illicit but thriving business of immigrant smuggling into the public spotlight.

After the deaths Saturday of seven suspected illegal immigrants as their speeding truck flipped into a gully, federal officials vowed an unstinting investigation to find and prosecute the smuggler they hold wholly responsible for the tragedy. If the smuggler is ever found, the extent to which he can be held legally responsible may hinge on the outcome of a little-noticed smuggling case that goes to a federal judge in San Diego on Monday for sentencing.

Under jalapeno pepper cans stuffed with withering lilies, the dirt is still fresh on the Chavez Munoz brothers' graves--as fresh as Pedro Fabian Huaroco's limp and the lingering pain from the Temecula truck wreck that crippled him and fatally crushed his three childhood friends April 6. As yet another van crammed with illegal immigrants crashed Friday, killing two and injuring 19 in Alpine, Calif.

In a rare multi-party accord, lawmakers in Mexico pushed the treatment of Mexican citizens in the United States to center stage in U.S.-Mexico relations Tuesday, demanding that President Ernesto Zedillo's government make public a detailed list of "human rights violations" committed against Mexicans in the United States in the past five years.

Hundreds of thousands of foreigners who entered the United States illegally could face removal from the country without judicial review under the anti-terrorism bill approved this week by Congress. The measure, which President Clinton is expected to sign next week, sharply curtails the immigration hearings process and federal court reviews of deportation and exclusion decisions.

Three alleged smugglers of illegal immigrants were indicted Wednesday as part of a fraudulent document ring that authorities say was making an average $30,000 a month. The ring allegedly sold phony documents that allowed illegal immigrants to enter the United States through the San Ysidro port of entry rather than attempt the arduous overland trek. "These indictments are a major blow to alien smugglers who have operated in the San Ysidro area for years," said U.S. Atty. Alan Bersin.

U.S. immigration authorities are beefing up enforcement at California border crossings to halt the "post-holiday rush" of illegal immigrants who go home to Mexico for Christmas and return to the United States after New Year's. Hoping to deter the flood of illegal immigrants who surge into the United States from January until March, the Immigration and Naturalization Service is warning that this time it will be much more difficult to come back.

The head of the Immigration and Naturalization Service has dispatched an investigative team here to probe allegations that supervisors for the U.S. Border Patrol are falsifying arrest reports in an effort to show Operation Gatekeeper is a success, officials said Friday.

House Republican leaders reversed course on one of their most controversial immigration reform proposals Thursday, dropping plans to force border-state employers to verify the work status of new hires and instead creating a voluntary program until problems can be worked out. The last-minute change would remove an especially divisive element from the bill just before it goes to the full House for a vote the week of March 18.