Illegal Alien Arrests Drop; New Law Cited

The number of illegal aliens caught attempting to enter the United States from Mexico plunged nearly 18% in November--the month in which President Reagan signed the sweeping immigration bill--from the record level of a year ago, immigration chief Alan C. Nelson says.

And the unexpected decline turned even sharper in the first week of December, when nearly 20% fewer illegal aliens were apprehended along the nation’s southern border, according to the latest figures from the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

“We’d like to think this is the beginning of a trend,” Nelson said in an interview this week, “but it’s too early to make that judgment.”

Most of the factors cited by Nelson and INS analysts in trying to explain the rare downturn in arrests relate to enactment of the law, which offers amnesty to millions of illegal aliens already in the United States but outlaws knowingly employing aliens not covered by the amnesty.

At the same time that the number of illegal aliens may have declined, they said, certain provisions of the new law may be making it harder to apprehend those who are here.

For example, an INS analysis of the reduced arrests noted, inspections of farms and ranches where illegal aliens are believed to work have been cut because of the law’s requirement that a court warrant be obtained before such searches are conducted.

In addition, Nelson said, illegal attempts to cross the border have been discouraged by stepped-up Border Patrol efforts and the higher-than-usual water level of the Rio Grande, the river that runs along much of the border’s eastern sector.

76,431 Seized Last Month

Last month, the Border Patrol apprehended 76,431 illegal aliens along the U.S.-Mexican border, compared to a record 92,658 in November, 1985, according to the INS. In recent years, comparable figures were 62,683 for 1984; 64,349 for 1983, and 55,624 for 1982--indicating that despite the large drop, last month still represented the second-largest November ever for numbers of illegal aliens caught at the border.

Nelson rejected the suggestion by some critics that illegal aliens’ perception of the INS as an enemy is likely to discourage them from taking part in the amnesty program.

“They ought to be afraid of us, and they ought to be concerned with the immigration service,” he said. “If they’re not, we’re not doing our job.” The “prime obligation” for improving the relationship between the agency and illegal aliens belongs to the immigrants themselves, he said.

“These people have to become part of the legal American public--the legal public,” he stressed. “They’ve got to learn that they must trust the government and work with the government. They’ve got to become part of the community, pay taxes and vote and all those things, once they become citizens.”

Adjustment Seen Necessary

Nelson also said that the immigrants “have to make that adjustment and say, ‘OK, we’re here in the United States. We’ve been here five years . . . and we can recognize the government. . . .’ ”

Also, he said, volunteer agencies and church groups, such as Catholic Charities and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, have a “major responsibility” for acting as a “bridge” between the INS and illegal immigrants.

Traditionally, these groups have helped educate immigrants about immigration law and have often championed immigrants’ rights in cases involving the INS.

Some advocates for illegal aliens have urged the INS to undertake what they have termed an “attitude adjustment” program to make its officials more sensitive to the concerns of immigrants.

Responding to such suggestions, Nelson said: “We think we’ve got pretty good training, and we’ve got pretty good procedures.” He defended INS officials as already “very sensitive.”

Meanwhile, Nelson described as “very, very productive” the meetings on the new law that he and State Department officials held in Mexico last week with Mexican President Miguel de la Madrid and other government officials.

Steps Not Outlined

But he did not name any steps that Mexican officials said they would take to help decrease the flow of illegal immigration. In fact, he noted, there was no agreement on the U.S. desire to send illegal aliens back to their homes in the interior of Mexico, rather than simply returning them to the economically depressed Mexican border cities.

“We’re still discussing it,” Nelson said. He said he had assured Mexican officials that there would be no mass deportations of illegal aliens and “no militarization of the border.”