Border Patrol Downplays Cut in Alien Arrests : Reduction Blamed on Section of New Law Limiting Farm Raids

A decline in farm arrests traceable to a little-noticed provision of the new immigration law is probably largely responsible for a recent drop in apprehensions of illegal aliens in San Diego County, according to the U.S. Border Patrol.

There were 17% fewer arrests in the San Diego sector in December, 1986, than in December, 1985, Border Patrol officials said, but they downplayed the decline because arrests normally lag at the end of the year. They said the real test should come after mid-January, when there usually is a surge in illegal entries.

Border Patrol officials also said there is no evidence that the new law has dissuaded foreigners from attempting to enter the United States illegally through Mexico.

“The aliens are still out there, and they’re still coming in and they’re still being moved north,” said James Grim, deputy chief patrol agent in San Diego. “We’ll see how it is after the 10th of January.”

The San Diego sector is the busiest Border Patrol station along the 1,900-mile U.S.-Mexico border, accounting for more than one-third of the record 1.7 million arrests of illegal aliens during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. The area is a principal entry point for aliens heading for jobs in Los Angeles and other U.S. cities.

Although the arrest numbers may vary greatly depending on Border Patrol staffing, seasonal fluctuation and a host of other factors, U.S. officials still consider the figures to be the most significant indicators of illegal entry into the United States. In recent years, there has been an almost continuous growth in such arrests, causing an outcry in Congress that eventually led to passage of the landmark new immigration law.

Since the immigration statute was signed into law Nov. 6, officials of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service have said that arrests of illegal aliens have declined by about 20% border-wide.The dip--reversing the long-standing upward trend--has led some officials to speculate that the new law may have deterred some illegal entry because foreigners may fear that they are more likely to be caught or that they will be unable to find jobs. Others have dismissed such speculation as absurd, given the wide disparity in potential income between the United States and nations such as Mexico.

In San Diego, Border Patrol officials say that the decline is more likely linked to a controversial section of the new law that limits agricultural raids. The provision, long opposed by INS officials but strongly supported by farm groups, requires that authorities obtain owners’ consent or search warrants before entering farms, ranches or other outdoor agricultural operations to seek illegal aliens. Congress included the section as a concession to influential farm interests who had bitterly resisted one of the law’s key provisions--legal sanctions against farmers and other employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens.

The new requirement is expected to make it more difficult for authorities to arrest undocumented laborers in agriculture, which is one of the principal sources of employment for illegal aliens. In San Diego, Border Patrol officials said the search warrant proviso has forced them to curtail activities in heavily agricultural North County until procedures are clarified for checking farms and ranches.

“We are not free to maneuver through the North County area as we were in the past,” said Alan Eliason, chief patrol agent here.

That change, Eliason said, probably accounts for much of the 17% decline in the number of illegal aliens arrested between Dec. 1 and Dec. 30, 1986, when compared to the same period in 1985. Between those dates, officials said, Border Patrol officers arrested 23,195 illegal aliens, compared to 28,097 during the same period in 1985.

North County farm workers, Eliason noted, exercise a “disproportionate influence” on apprehension figures in San Diego. The same agricultural laborers are often arrested time and time again as they repeat the cycle of entering the United States without papers, being arrested and being expelled to Mexico, and once more returning here illegally, he said.

Despite the overall drop in arrests, Eliason noted that the number of alien-smuggling cases--a significant indicator of illegal cross-border traffic--actually increased by almost 40% in the San Diego sector in December compared to the previous year. There were 240 smuggling cases during the Dec. 1 to Dec. 30 period in 1986, authorities said, compared to 172 such cases during the same period in 1985. Many aliens bound for the U.S. interior traditionally engage the services of professional smugglers.

“There is no lessening of the type of illegal alien who is coming in and is destined out of San Diego County,” Eliason said.