Border Patrol Plans New I-5 Checkpoint : Increased Vehicle Inspection for Drugs, Aliens Is Aim; No Money for Station Yet

Federal immigration authorities, seeking to bolster the detection of smugglers driving north with loads of illegal aliens or narcotics, unveiled preliminary plans Tuesday for a major new U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint on Interstate 5.

The planned $15-million facility--still at least three years away--would be inside Camp Pendleton and would replace the existing checkpoint, which immigration officials say is so overburdened that most smugglers can drive through undetected. Motorists have often expressed frustration with long traffic tie-ups at the checkpoint, a problem that Border Patrol officials say would be alleviated by the new facility.

“We just can’t do the job right” with the existing checkpoint, said Harold Ezell, western regional commissioner for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, parent body of the Border Patrol.

Nationwide, the Border Patrol maintains checkpoints on about two dozen major thoroughfares leading from the 1,900-mile southern border.

The checkpoint on the northbound lanes of Interstate 5, situated within Camp Pendleton and near the Orange County line, is the busiest in the nation, with about 225 aliens being arrested each day and as many as 5,000 cars passing through each hour at peak times.

The current checkpoint operation consists of Border Patrol agents standing on the freeway, slowing traffic and scanning cars for suspected illegal aliens. If none are detected, the agents wave motorists on. The officers have the authority to request identification and search vehicles suspected of smuggling aliens.

Though designed to detect illegal immigrants, checkpoint agents have increasingly been making large seizures of drugs, cash and weapons.

Federal authorities revealed the plan for a new checkpoint during a news conference called Tuesday to commend six agents who on Aug. 7 stopped and searched vehicles that were later found to contain 477 pounds of cocaine, 60 pounds of marijuana and 22 semi-automatic pistols.

U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), who attended the event, lent his support to the idea of a new checkpoint and voiced the hope that the anti-drug campaign in Congress would help make available the $15 million needed for construction.

“It seems to make a great deal of sense,” Wilson said of the plan for an expanded checkpoint.

Officials stressed that the plan is still in its preliminary stages, and the facility could probably not be operational for three years. But, they added, the Marine Corps has agreed to give INS about five acres of Camp Pendleton for the new station.

So far there are no design plans and, most importantly, no money budgeted for the facility, which would be built about 3 1/2 miles south of the existing checkpoint. To man the proposed facility, the Border Patrol would probably have to nearly triple its current 70-person contingent at the checkpoint.

The California Department of Transportation, which would have to approve plans for new exits and entrances off the highway, has not received a formal application, a spokesman said.

The new checkpoint would require motorists to leave the highway and fan out into 15 to 18 inspection lanes. Nonetheless, officials insisted that the additional lanes would actually allay the sometimes-monumental traffic tie-ups that now plague the checkpoint.

“Traffic would move much, much quicker,” said Alan Eliason, the Border Patrol’s chief agent in San Diego. “We’ve got to relocate this checkpoint, and once we do we will control this highway.”