A New Breed of Border Crosser Is Adding to Delays

Long delays into California at U.S.-Mexico border posts have been common during the recent holiday period, a perennial problem that officials say was exacerbated this season by a different breed of border crossers: newly legalized residents under the amnesty program who have been flocking to Mexico to visit loved ones and afterward have joined the jammed traffic lanes heading north.

Motorists seeking to enter the United States during holiday weekends experienced backups as long as three hours or more at some border posts. At Calexico, the waits may have been a factor in the deaths of a mother and three young children who succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning early Monday while waiting in line in the back of a pickup equipped with a camper shell. The deaths, apparently unprecedented along the border, spotlighted the huge lines of vehicles that clogged border crossings during the holiday weekends, but officials say the upward trend has been evident for almost a year.

In fact, authorities reported that almost 74 million legal border crossers entered California via the U.S.-Mexico border during fiscal 1988, which ended Sept. 30. (The great majority enter in vehicles.) That number represents an increase of about 16% contrasted with the same period in the previous fiscal year, the largest such single-year rise in some time.

“We’re seeing an awful lot of amnesty people now,” said Edward Kelliher, assistant district director for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, echoing a point of view voiced by other officials. “Before this, a lot of these people were coming through the fence.”

The increase was even more pronounced during the holiday season. In December, 1988, Kelliher said, almost 4 million people entered the United States via San Ysidro, an increase of 25% over the same period in 1987.

Nationwide, almost 3 million people, most of them Mexican citizens and about half of them California residents, applied for the two amnesty programs created by Congress in 1986. Those who acquire temporary residence cards through the program are eventually able to cross the border legally. Many amnesty recipients who now travel freely back and forth across the border previously avoided returning to Mexico or, as Kelliher indicated, were re-entering the United States illegally.

More Open Traffic Lanes

It had been expected that the amnesty program would lead to more legal border traffic. Both the INS and the U. S. Customs Service, which share responsibility for the ports, have received staff increases in the past year, resulting in more open traffic lanes at the border crossings. For instance, Kelliher said, 17 lanes are generally open during the week at the 24-lane San Ysidro facility, contrasted with only 12 a year ago at this time.

But authorities say they can only do so much, and the lines are unavoidable. Not everyone agrees.

Merchants and others who are angered by the lines assert that the agencies make inefficient use of their existing manpower and don’t move quickly to open up more traffic lanes during backups. The lines can mean lost business along the border, where commerce crosses national boundaries.

“The INS and Customs don’t care about the traveling public,” said Alberto Garcia, president of the International Chamber of Commerce, a San Ysidro group that represents businesses on both sides of the border.