Olvera, 48, a father of five, was brutally beaten during an INS raid on a house in Bryan, Texas, on March 25, 2001. He was denied medical attention for several hours and died in a Houston hospital nearly a year later.

Martha Olvera, Serafín’s sister-in-law, explained the case at an October 6 Militant Labor Forum here. She reported that a five-count indictment unsealed in Houston accused INS agent Carlos Reyna of beating Olvera, and Richard Henry Gonzales of dousing him with pepper spray. Reyna, Gonzales, and Luis Rey Gomez are also accused of denying Olvera medical care after his injury had caused paralysis.

They were charged under Section 242 of the federal civil rights code, which prohibits law officers from depriving people of basic rights based on their nationality or race. Each count carries a maximum 10 years in prison and $250,000 fine.

The indictments are a result of the family’s fight to tell the truth and have the INS cops brought to justice. The Olvera family had insisted that INS officials be tried for murdering Serafín. Federal law, however, does not allow the prosecution of federal cops on murder charges.

"The raid happened at 7:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, a year and half ago." Martha Olvera said. "Serafín had been working on a construction job in Bryan and was sharing a house with several others. When they came in, Serafín was washing. Hearing that people had come in, he called out in English. He was then confronted by three immigration cops who said, ‘So this Indian speaks some English.’

"Then they beat him, tied his hands and legs, and one of them jumped on his back, breaking his neck and vertebrae. When he yelled out, ‘You broke me,’ the cops laughed and continued the beating. When he was handcuffed and paralyzed from his injuries, they pepper-sprayed him directly in his mouth, nose, eyes, and all over his body."

Later that day, after the cops had "processed" the workers at a local INS station, they loaded them all on a bus to be transported to Mexico. A nurse at the station refused to transport Olveda, telling the cops that he was in critical condition and had to be taken to the hospital.

It was late in the afternoon when Serafín Olvera was transported more than 100 miles from Bryan to New Braunfels and admitted to the hospital. There he was diagnosed as having two broken vertebrae and was immediately airlifted to Wilford Hall Medical Center in San Antonio so doctors could treat his quadriplegic condition.

Initially the INS remained silent about the raid. On March 28, 2001, INS officials told the Bryan-College Station Eagle the agents used "minimal force" while arresting Olvera. The cops also initially claimed that Olvera was injured at work days earlier.

With Olvera’s injuries so severe that he could neither speak nor write, family members devised a system of eye movements to help him tell the story of the raid. "Eventually we were able to locate a number of the others who were arrested and deported that day, and they all agreed to come back to the United States to testify for Serafín," the speaker at the forum said. "We demanded that the U.S. government pay 100 percent of his bills and we also filed a suit against the United States while he was still alive."  
 
‘Put INS on trial for what they did’
According to a medical examiner’s report released earlier this year, Olvera died from complications caused by blunt force trauma to the neck on March 25, 2001, the day of his arrest. "After his death, we demanded that the government put the INS on trial for murder because that’s what they did--they murdered my brother-in-law. And we will not stop fighting this until we have brought those guilty to justice," said Martha Olvera.

The Houston Chronicle reported September 25 that the three indicted cops for the beating case each posted $30,000 bond in San Antonio. Ruben Perez, the assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting the case, said he is aware of only one other case in recent years in which an immigration officer has been indicted on civil rights charges in the Southern District of Texas.

Speaking on the panel with Martha Olvera was the Socialist Workers candidate for governor of Texas, Steve Warshell. "These attacks on immigrants are not aimed just at ‘foreigners’--they are intended as a lesson for all working people," Warshell said. "Their anti-working-class offensive here in the United States--including the ‘homeland defense’--is the other side of the U.S. rulers’ war against working people abroad. Their brutal treatment of workers and farmers overseas simply shows working people here what lies in store for us.

"The Olvera family deserves everyone’s support in their fight for justice. We know, like millions of workers know, that a victory for the Olvera family in this case will not end murders by the INS. To do that it takes action by millions. But it can get to the truth and it can be a blow against the bosses and their government for workers and farmers."  
 
 
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