Crackdown on Smuggling Targets U.S. Drivers

Federal authorities have launched a national effort to curtail human smuggling by fining American drivers caught bringing in illegal migrants inside vehicles, but the program is coming under criticism for not going far enough.

Last fiscal year, 4,078 U.S. citizens were arrested at the two main gateways into California from Mexico, but because federal prosecutors say they don’t have the resources to pursue every case only 279 faced alien smuggling charges.

As a potential deterrent, U.S. authorities last week began fining suspected smugglers $5,000 for their first offense, $10,000 for the second.

“Since smugglers smuggle to make money, if we can hit them in the pocketbook we hope this can serve as a deterrent,” said Adele Fasano, Southern California director of field operations for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

But some observers say the fines won’t be enough to stem a problem that has bedeviled authorities since the number of car-smuggling cases started surging six years ago. San Diego County Supervisor Dianne Jacob, whose district abuts the border, said the lack of prosecutions, reported in Wednesday’s Times, is “astounding.”

Imposing fines probably won’t sway people from making illegal border runs, she said.

“The amount of money smugglers are making is huge. I don’t think $5,000 is enough to deter the smuggling. They ought to be locked up,” Jacob said.

Tijuana smugglers have been teaming with American drivers in response to a 10-year buildup along the 14-mile border with San Diego, where stadium lighting and double-fencing line the frontier.

With crossings between the ports of entry so difficult, migrants are increasingly smuggled in cars, often in trunks or special compartments attached to undercarriages.

The number of illegal migrants caught inside vehicles at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, the nation’s busiest, has quadrupled since 2000, from 10,600 to 40,033 in 2005. About half of the drivers are U.S. citizens.

“The numbers are at an unacceptable level,” Fasano said.

Federal prosecutors say a lack of probation officers, judges, courtrooms and detention space limit the number of cases they can pursue. About one-third of all resources of the U.S. attorney’s office in San Diego are devoted to immigration-related cases.

“It ends up becoming a numbers problem -- what we can actually handle without overwhelming ourselves in the courts,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Steven Peak, based in San Diego, said in a statement.

Prosecutors focus on pursuing cases in which drivers endanger the lives of migrants, Peak said.

In one case last year in San Ysidro, Maximo Orosco, an 80-year-old World War II veteran, was caught smuggling a man in a homemade compartment he had affixed underneath his van.

“What I did was wrong, and it will never happen again. I feel real bad about it,” Orosco told a federal judge at a hearing in San Diego late last year.

He was sentenced to six months’ house arrest in his home.

Next month, U.S. lawmakers are scheduled to begin debating a bill that would bolster border enforcement efforts, including one measure that would add 250 federal prosecutors and immigration judges.

“This is a legitimate problem that needs to be addressed,” said Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon) in a statement. Hunter supports bolder efforts to control the border.

“We know that alien smuggling is a profitable business,” Hunter said, “and as long as an incentive exists and the likelihood of punishment is small to nonexistent, this activity will certainly continue.”

The proposed border buildup, however, fails to address the deeper forces behind illegal immigration, and stiffer penalties for drivers, some say, are not an appropriate, or just, way to deal with the issue.

Many people caught bringing in migrants are relatives trying to reunite families.

In one case last fall, a man caught with a Mexican girl in his car said he was bringing her across to be with her mother, according to a federal arrest record. He did it as a favor, he said, and refused payment.

Roberto Martinez, the past director of the border program for the American Friends Service Committee, said his group encountered many such cases.

“It’s not like smuggling drugs, heroin, cocaine or anything like that. It’s people,” he said. Vince Bond, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said not everyone will be fined under the penalty program.

Some people, he said, could pay less than $5,000 if they demonstrate that they can’t afford the penalty. People who have had their cars seized would also not likely face monetary penalties, Bond said.

Bond said six people had been fined since the program went into effect Friday.

Some critics doubt the effort will have much effect.

“Good luck trying to collect these fines,” said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform. “It’s a start, but the prospect of prison time would probably be more effective.”