Illegal Aliens Add a Dramatic Backdrop to Antonovich Video

On the same day that a new poll showed him slipping, Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Mike Antonovich brought his campaign to a windy mesa overlooking the Mexican border in search of a little extra zing.

He found it. For a new television ad, Antonovich posed on the edge of a bluff Monday while a video crew recorded a few hundred Mexicans massing in a field below, waiting for dusk to dash up the canyon and illegally enter the United States.

Campfire smoke and a faint din of voices rose from the canyon, adding drama to the scene.

But it wasn’t until later, off camera, that Antonovich made any remarks likely to influence the outcome of the June 3 Republican primary.

In interviews after the taping was completed, Antonovich called for an end to U.S. aid to debt-ridden Mexico if officials there don’t halt the flow of drugs over the border.

The nightly invasion of illegals is a pipeline for drugs, Antonovich said, and “those drugs are just as dangerous as shock troops would be if they invaded this country.”

Halting aid might cause Mexico some economic distress at first, he said, but the action would eventually convince the government to get tough with drugs. Should the government refuse to act, he said, the Mexican citizenry would rise up and force the government to clamp down.

Drugs and illegal immigration are favorite issues for Antonovich, a Los Angeles County supervisor. Earlier in the Senate campaign he called for changes in federal law to allow troops to patrol the border alongside Immigration and Naturalization Service officers, and said he favors the death penalty for major drug dealers.

In interviews Monday, he mentioned Mexico and Colombia as nations that don’t do enough to stop the entry of drugs into the United States, and said he would make no exceptions for a close neighbor like Mexico or a NATO ally such as Turkey.

“They’re not an ally if they’re selling the drugs that are under mining this country,” Antonovich said. “There have to be no compromises with countries that are smuggling drugs into the United States.”

Before terminating aid, the foreign governments should be put on notice and given time to solve the drug problem, Antonovich said. Most nations would comply, he said.

In the television spot that will be shown statewide in the final weeks before the June 3 primary, a windblown Antonovich, in tweed coat and red sweater, links the entry of more than 1,000 illegals a night near San Diego to a possible terrorist threat posed by nations such as Libya.

With entry into the United States so easy, Antonovich said later, it would be a logical place for terrorists bent on attacking U.S. targets to cross the border. But he acknowledged there is no evidence that international terrorists have actually entered the United States from Mexico.

INS Official Present

Harold Ezell, Western regional commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, was on hand to watch the taping and praised Antonovich as an outspoken advocate of increased Border Patrol staffing. Ezell, who allowed Antonovich to rendezvous with his film crew after hours at a Border Patrol station, said he has invited all Senate candidates to visit the border and is not playing any favorites with Antonovich.

Technical work on the ad was donated by members of craft unions in the entertainment industry who back Antonovich’s stand against foreign production crews filming in the United States. Taping went smoothly given the gusty winds and impromptu location, although director George Dibie, president of the International Photographers of the Motion Picture Industries Guild, had taken some entertainment industry license.

Already Illegal

The mass of people gathering in the canyon below had actually already crossed a few hundred feet inside U.S. territory on an abandoned soccer field, near the Colonia Libertad section of Tijuana. But, Dibie shrugged, “That’s the border to us, you know.”

Monday’s shooting was scheduled long before a new California Poll, released earlier in the day, showed Antonovich receiving just 8% of the likely Republican vote. He trailed Bruce Herschensohn at 18%, and Ed Zschau and Ed Davis at 15%, and was tied with Bobbi Fiedler.

Antonovich shrugged off the new poll, saying he didn’t put much faith in the polls. But a campaign aide, perhaps venting a little frustration at the poll, looked down at the gathering aliens after the taping was finished and remarked to no one in particular, “Who has the Smith and Wesson?”