San Ysidro

Responding to complaints of border traffic backups as long as two hours, officials of the U.S. Customs Service and U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service vowed Thursday to work together to assure a smooth flow of traffic from Mexico to the United States.

“We’re trying to facilitate people as much as we can,” said Harold Ezell, INS commissioner for the western region.

However, Ezell and Quintin L. Villanueva, the regional customs chief, acknowledged at a joint press conference at the border that there were no guarantees that border delays will not once again reach two hours, as they did earlier this month. For now the addition of two INS inspectors at the border has cut delays to an “acceptable” level of about 30 minutes, officials said.

One reason for the traffic backups is that Customs is using more of its inspectors for drug enforcement and fewer are posted at the border. Ezell said his agency will try to continue making up for the reassignment of Customs inspectors.