Even Beefed-Up Forces Can’t Stem Rising Tide of Illegals : Harried Border Patrol Goes On the Offensive

The bright light from the helicopter illuminates a group of 15 illegal aliens who have just scrambled less than a mile across the U.S. border from Mexico.

Their cover of darkness lost, the group scatters, some seeking cover in a clump of nearby scrub brush.

Following the chopper’s lead is Rudy Barrera, bouncing along rugged Otay Mesa in a four-wheel-drive truck emblazoned with U.S. Border Patrol emblems.

“Rudy, I think you got a couple in that bush straight ahead,” squawks the chopper pilot over his radio.

Flushed Out of Hiding

Barrera stops and walks gingerly toward the scrub brush, barking orders in Spanish. One man runs off, but the agent ignores him and keeps walking.

Slowly another man rises from the clump, this time hands clasped atop his head. Three more follow. Barrera orders the four into the back of his truck and slams the self-locking door.

“See, the bird (chopper) only saw two,” Barrera tells a visitor. “We lost one and we still ended up with four.”

Barrera’s unexpected catch is just another illustration of the record number of illegal aliens entering the United States each month from economically depressed Mexico.

Nearly 600,000 will be arrested in the San Diego area this year, and at least that many will pass through undetected, immigration officials say.

Want Jobs, Peace

Most are Mexicans, but more and more aliens are coming from war-torn Central American countries and scores of other nations. They want jobs, and in some cases, peace.

In Barrera’s eight-hour shift on May 15, fewer than two dozen agents assigned to the Border Patrol’s Chula Vista station--the so-called corridor of illegal immigration--arrested 231 aliens. Chula Vista is one of three line watch stations covering the 16-mile San Diego Sector from the Pacific Ocean at the west to Otay Mountain to the east.

“Right now, the talk is that we’re 40% effective,” said Steven Rickman, a supervisor at the Chula Vista station. That means that for every 10 undocumented aliens sneaking into the United States, six are eluding capture.

Each month this year, a record in apprehensions has been set and May promised to be the same. The number of agents on the evening and overnight shifts at the Chula Vista station has been doubled with the addition of Border Patrol agents on a 33-day loan from Northern California for an offensive called “Operation Reconquest.”

Out of Control

But immigration officials know it will take more than a dramatic name and an extra 23 agents to retake the border that the regional commissioner of immigration says is out of control.

“It’s like trying to bail out the ocean with a teacup,” said Rickman, a 12-year veteran of the Border Patrol. “Everybody involved knows that it’s more or less losing as it stands.”

“It’s helped, but it’s not any drastic change as far as I’m concerned,” Barrera said.

What has changed is the boldness of the aliens, who in the past were generally a passive lot who would sit down on the ground when approached by a Border Patrol agent. Now, more and more, they pelt agents with rocks and broken bottles.

“We’ve always had some aggressive groups but not the intensity as it is now. They don’t obey commands and there’s a lot more running (from agents),” said Barrera, who has been nabbing aliens nightly for six years.

Repeated Arrests

Some of that is because there are more aliens to provide cover for those brave enough to make a break. Aliens caught once or twice know they have a chance of eventually eluding capture, said Ronald Guzman, an agent who processes the arrested aliens for voluntary return to Mexico.

“They continue until they finally make it,” he said. “We work this assigned (processing) area for two weeks straight, so we see them coming through again and again, mostly in groups.”

Most aliens are persistent because there is nothing to go home to.

In Mexico, it now takes about 500 pesos to buy a single American dollar. Two years ago, the rate was less than 200 to one. Mexico’s economic crisis has worsened as the price of crude oil has plummeted. Desperation is driving more and more people to the north.

“No one ever comprehended that it would be this bad. We’ve reached the saturation point,” Rickman said. “Our facilities are so small that we can’t hold all the people we take in.”

Legislation Pending

The answer to the tidal wave of aliens, says INS Western Regional Commissioner Harold Ezell, is legislation that would make it illegal to knowingly hire illegal aliens.

Sanctions against employers, Ezell said, would dry up the job pool that is attracting the aliens.

House Judiciary Chairman Peter W. Rodino Jr. (D-N.J.) has postponed committee consideration of such a bill while lawmakers are working privately to resolve a dispute over admission of temporary agricultural workers.

Some aliens who escape Border Patrol detection have far worse trouble waiting in the hills and canyons that line the border. The increasing number of aliens has brought more bandits to rob them.

“They prey on people from their own country: men, women, old ladies,” Rickman said. “They rape old ladies, young girls. They’re absolute vermin.”

The bandits also have adopted a more aggressive stance with the Border Patrol and a special Border Crimes Prevention Unit made up of agents and San Diego police officers.

Attacks on Agents Doubled

Attacks have doubled in the last year, as the bandits engage agents in shoot-outs or throw rocks and bottles at them, according to Border Patrol spokesman Ed Pyeatt.

“These bandits in the past have always dropped their weapons when they’ve encountered the Border Patrol,” said Rickman.

Pyeatt said he thinks part of the increasing violence is due to frustration of the bandits and aliens who are being caught repeatedly.

Whatever the reason, Barrera said he is especially cautious in the field.

“You have to take each alien and consider him as being a bad guy from the start,” Barrera said, “and you don’t trust anybody until they prove different to you.”