Border Patrol Displays 2,875 Aliens Seized in North San Diego County

In a weeklong operation that concluded Friday, the U.S. Border Patrol arrested 2,875 illegal aliens in northern San Diego County and vowed to continue a scaled-down campaign against undocumented laborers who come here seeking fieldwork and other employment.

“We’re going to have better pressure in this part of the county,” said Harold Ezell, Western regional commissioner for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, parent body of the Border Patrol.

The sweeps began Monday morning in response to complaints that the foreign workers were harassing residents, littering and “being a general nuisance,” according to the Border Patrol.

Amid a carnival atmosphere, officials displayed the latest apprehended aliens Friday in an Encinitas parking lot that had been turned into a makeshift Border Patrol processing facility.

As reporters took notes and snapped pictures, the aliens, the vast majority of them Mexican men, sat huddled in their stocking feet, occasionally cheering newly arrested colleagues as they were brought in to join the group.

The Border Patrol, in evidence with dozens of agents and a complement of vans, buses, horses and a helicopter, had ordered the men to remove their shoes as a precaution against escape.