HOMELAND SECURITY NOMINEE'S RECORD WITH HISPANICS IS DRAWING FIRE

Allegations that the U.S. Customs Service has a track record of
discriminating against its Hispanic agents seem to have hit a nerve in
the Hispanic law enforcement community nationwide.

The discrimination charges are raised as part of a pending
class-action lawsuit filed this past spring by a group of Hispanic
Customs agents.

That tension is now being focused on a recent nominee for a high-level
post at the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS): Asa Hutchinson,
who is currently the administrator of the Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA).

Hutchinson, a former Republican congressman from Arkansas, has been
tapped by President George W. Bush to serve as the Undersecretary for
Border and Transportation Security within DHS.

However, a major Hispanic law-enforcement group - the Hispanic
American Police Command Officers Association (HAPCOA), is raising some
serious concerns about Hutchinson's track record at DEA, particularly
as it relates to his treatment of minorities.

HAPCOA, which has about 1,100 members in the United States and Puerto
Rico, represents command-level Hispanic law enforcement officers
working on the local, state and federal level.

Among the charges made in a recent resolution adopted by HAPCOA are
that Hutchinson has "been a party to continuing an insidious 'good old
boy' network (in DEA) thus perpetuating an atmosphere of distrust,
reprisal and retaliation against minority employees for exercising
their rights. ..."

HAPCOA also has adopted a resolution backing the Hispanic agents who
have filed a class-action discrimination lawsuit against U.S. Customs.

DEA officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge -
who has been nominated to serve as the first secretary of DHS - says
he is not familiar with HAPCOA's charges against Hutchinson.

"Mr. Hutchinson is a man of integrity and has done an excellent job at
DEA," Johndroe stresses.

According to DEA sources, Hutchinson is slated to move into his new
DHS post in late January.

DHS, which will be launched officially as of Jan. 24, 2003, will be
fashioned out of the combination of some 22 federal agencies. By the
end of 2003, the various agency puzzle pieces being brought together
to form the new department are scheduled to be in place. However,
blending the diverse cultures of these agencies - and their more than
170,000 employees - into a cohesive operation is likely to take years,
according to observers.

As head of border and transportation security at DHS, Hutchinson would
oversee U.S. Customs, the Transportation Security Administration,
Border Patrol and a number of other federal agencies that are being
reshuffled and/or reorganized as part of the creation of the new
bureaucracy. His nomination is subject to confirmation by the U.S.
Senate, according to Johndroe.

Several federal law enforcement sources say failure to address racial
tensions in the workplace inevitably hurts morale, which, particularly
in the case of the new DHS, could pose a risk to national security.

"Morale goes down if people feel they're being treated like garbage,"
stresses one federal agent - who asked not to be named because he
feared he would be retaliated against for talking to the media. "Does
that (poor morale) jeopardize the safety of the country? Yes.

"No one would blow a case, such as a terrorist investigation, on
purpose, but you can be so demoralized that you're not working at 100
percent." The resolutions

HAPCOA adopted a resolution in late August voicing support for the
Hispanic agents who are suing the U.S. Customs Service.

That federal lawsuit was filed in May 2002. The class-action
litigation, which encompasses an estimated 400 current and former
Hispanic customs agents, alleges that Customs has a long history of
discriminating against Hispanics. That discrimination, the lawsuit
claims, includes denials of promotion, lack of training,
disproportionate assignments to dangerous undercover work, and failure
to compensate Hispanics for their Spanish-language ability.

Customs is fighting that litigation, claiming the allegations are
without merit and not supported by the statistical evidence.

The HAPCOA resolution calls on the President of the United States and
the Commissioner of Customs to "take quick and effective action to
ensure justice and equal and fair treatment in promotions, training,
transfers and disciplinary actions for all Hispanic special agents in
the Customs Service."

A similar resolution also was adopted in the summer of 2002 by HAPCOA
in relation to DEA. In particular, the resolution singles out the
agency's administrator, Hutchinson, alleging that he "led the members
(of HAPCOA) to believe that he supported fair and equal treatment of
Hispanics in the DEA, and that he would change the culture in DEA that
is notorious for discriminatory practices and disparate treatment of
Hispanics."

However, the resolution, dated Aug. 23, 2002, claims Hutchinson failed
to live up to his promise - which he made at HAPCOA's 2001 annual
conference. Among the charges in the resolution are the following:

"WHEREAS, in the year since Administrator Hutchinson addressed the
HAPCOA members, treatment of DEA Hispanic employees has further
deteriorated;

"... WHEREAS, under the current senior management of the DEA, three
former Chairpersons of the Hispanic Advisory Committee, all members of
the Senior Executive Service of the United States and members in good
standing of HAPCOA, including two National Presidents, have been
involuntarily reassigned, demoted, retaliated against, denied
promotions for which they are qualified or denied due process;

"WHEREAS, Administrator Hutchinson has ignored the advice and counsel
of minority senior managers in both DEA Headquarters and the DEA Field
Divisions. ..."

The resolution calls on the U.S. Attorney General to appoint an
oversight committee at DEA to ensure that the concerns of minority
employees within the agency are properly addressed and resolved.

"HAPCOA also calls upon the President of the United States and the
Attorney General to exercise appropriate and firm oversight over the
Administrator of the DEA in order to end the institutional racism at
the DEA, and thus ensure equal treatment and equal employment
opportunities for qualified Hispanics in our nation's lead federal
drug enforcement agency," the resolution concludes. The President

HAPCOA also sent a letter to President George W. Bush in early
September 2002, which was signed by current HAPCOA president Arthur R.
Parra Sr. - who is a captain in the Chicago Police Department.

Parra says HAPCOA members adopted the resolutions and sent the letter
to Bush out of a sense of "frustration." He says Hispanic federal
agents have tried to cultivate a working relationship with their
agencies, but "it hasn't worked."

"We have made numerous pleas to get a resolution to this problem,
which has been going on for years, but we're at a stalemate," adds
Parrah, speaking for HAPCOA. "We wish we could do this another way.
These agents love their country. They are only asking to be treated
fairly."

HAPCOA's efforts may finally be attracting some attention in
Washington, D.C. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) plans to
weigh in on the issue soon, according CDC Chairman U.S. Rep. Ciro D.
Rodriguez, D-San Antonio.

"The CHC is concerned about these issues because they affect Hispanic
employees, but also because they affect the work of the federal
government," Rodriguez said in a prepared statement. "When the Caucus
meets in January of next year, we will be setting a new agenda and
this important issue will be at the top of the list. ...How does the
federal government hope to attract Hispanic employees if it appears
that current workers are being treated unfairly?"

The purpose of HAPCOA's letter to President Bush was to make him aware
of the group's resolutions concerning Customs and DEA and to also seek
his help in bringing about needed changes to address the
discrimination confronted by Hispanic federal agents.

"The association's membership feels that the institutional racism and
rampant discriminatory practices continually directed against Hispanic
Americans by federal law enforcement agencies will no longer be
tolerated, and based on your relationship with Hispanic Americans
should be addressed at your level," HAPCOA's Sept. 3 letter to
President Bush states. "... It is disturbing for us to find that in
addition to the above referenced (Customs) class action ... and the
discrimination affecting Hispanics in the Drug Enforcement
Administration, Hispanic Americans in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco
and Firearms ... as well as in the Immigration and Naturalization
Service ... are also seeking resolution to class-action complaints
charging violations of their civil rights.

"... On behalf of our National Executive Board and our members I ask
that you and your office intervene and accelerate the necessary
changes to bring about a more united America."

Sandalio Gonzalez, special agent in charge of the DEA's El Paso,
Texas, Field Division, says the letter sent to the president in
September has even greater relevance now, given that Hutchinson has
been nominated to take on a high-level post at the new DHS.

"One of the resolutions (of the DEA's) hits Hutchinson pretty hard,
and he is going to be over Customs (at DHS)," Gonzalez explains.

Gonzalez, who was national president of HAPCOA when the Customs and
DEA resolutions were drafted in late August 2002, says the White House
has not responded to HAPCOA's Sept. 3 letter.

"Our association (HAPCOA) is on the White House guest list, and I've
been to two meetings at the White House as head of HAPCOA," Gonzalez
says. "It's kind of like they use us when it's convenient, but when
HAPCOA raises an issue that is ugly, then they want us to go away. But
this issue is not going away."

Gonzalez also served for a number of years as chairperson of DEA's
Hispanic Advisory Committee, or HAC, which was established as part of
a 1992 settlement agreement in an employment-related class-action
lawsuit filed against DEA on behalf of Hispanic agents. HAC was
created to bring the concerns of Hispanic employees directly to the
attention of the DEA Administrator.

HAC's charter, according to the HAPCOA resolution, was not extended
under Hutchinson's reign at DEA.

"Whenever a minority agent files a complaint against the government,
they always fight it," Gonzalez says. "Never do they say, "You're
right; let's fix it.' Are we always wrong?"

When contacted by the Business Journal, White House spokesman Taylor
Griffin said he was not familiar with the letter HAPCOA sent to the
White House. However, he promised to look into the matter. He failed
to provide additional comment by the Business Journal's deadline.