Too Few for So Many : Flow of Illegals From Mexico Overwhelms Border Patrol as Staffing Hits 4-Year Low

Almost three years after Congress and the White House pledged a 50% increase in U.S. Border Patrol staffing as part of sweeping immigration reform, the number of agents on duty in the San Diego area of the border with Mexico has actually plummeted to a four-year low.

The shortage has strained officers’ ability to deter the huge numbers of undocumented people pouring into the United States at the busiest crossing points on the nearly 2,000-mile border. It is estimated that almost half of the illegal entries from Mexico are made along a 10-mile section at San Diego, gateway to the booming immigrant job markets of Los Angeles.

Recently, a lack of officers has prompted authorities to reduce or shut down operations at the giant immigration checkpoint along Interstate 5 near San Clemente. The checkpoint is operating at slightly more than half of its authorized officer strength, officials said.

While Border Patrol staffing nationwide has risen about 16% in the last three years, to about 3,750 officers, the San Diego sector has dropped from a high of about 800 last year to 712 officers now, the lowest since 1985. Officials blame the decline on a hiring freeze, high attrition rates due to the cost of living in San Diego and the general frustration that goes with the job here: Handfuls of agents nightly attempt to prevent thousands of people from crossing the border, often hundreds at a time.

The Border Patrol staff decline in San Diego comes at a time when the agency has had an expanding roster of responsibilities nationwide, including an escalating involvement in anti-drug-smuggling activities and the investigation of employers who illegally hire undocumented workers.

The manpower shortage, authorities say, has led supervisors in San Diego to rely increasingly on overtime and internal transfers in an effort to bolster trouble spots.

“Obviously, we need to bring more people on board,” said Miguel Vallina, assistant chief patrol agent in San Diego.

Dan Stein, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a conservative Washington-based pressure group, called the decline in Border Patrol staffing in San Diego “a disaster.”

“It represents an erosion at the wrong time of many of the gains in improving immigration enforcement,” he said.

Compounding the problem, officials say, is a hiring freeze throughout the Border Patrol that has been in effect for almost a year because of federal budget constraints, preventing authorities from filling vacancies created by transfers, retirements or other reasons. While the freeze has been felt nationwide, its impact has been particularly acute in San Diego, which loses more than 10% of its agents each year, one of the highest attrition rates in the service.

The lack of staff likely has heightened tensions among agents, said Ben Davidian, Western regional commissioner for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, parent body of the Border Patrol.

“Increased stress and tension come from understaffing,” said Davidian, who assumed his post in mid-August and has spent considerable time on the border since then. “Anyone who’s put into a situation like this, it’s understandable that the string gets pulled a little too tight. You pull it too tight and it may snap.”

Davidian said he had “no doubt” that staff shortage-related stress may have contributed to an incident in August in which a patrol agent in San Diego directed amplified racial and sexual slurs at hundreds of undocumented people gathered along the border. The Justice Department says it is investigating the incident, which was witnessed by three U.S. journalists.

“I don’t think there’s a more frustrating job on the planet than being a Border Patrol agent in the San Diego sector,” Davidian said. Pushing for additional officers is a top priority, he said.

The staff shortages, said assistant chief patrol agent Vallina, have also sometimes forced the agency to trim the numbers of agents posted directly along the border, or “line,” thus reducing the rate of apprehensions of illegal immigrants. In Washington, INS officials have often cited the reduced arrests as evidence that the 1986 law is deterring illegal entry, but Vallina conceded that the manpower deficiencies also may partially explain the drop.

“The number of arrests is going to be commensurate with the number of people on the line,” Vallina said. “We’re dealing with just about the same numbers of aliens coming across, we just don’t have many people on the line.”

During the fiscal year that ended last Sept. 30, agents along the U.S.-Mexico border recorded about 850,000 arrests of undocumented foreigners, a decrease of 9.3% from the previous year. It was the third consecutive year in which the number of apprehensions declined.

The promised 50% increase in Border Patrol staffing was one of three key elements of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. The law’s two other principal sections--amnesty for some illegal immigrants and new penalties for employers who hire undocumented workers--have already been put into effect, with varying results.

In authorizing a huge increase in Border Patrol manpower, lawmakers reasoned that enhanced enforcement was a crucial part of any effort to stem the arrival of undocumented foreigners through the U.S.-Mexico border. The Border Patrol, which has been in existence since 1924, is often referred to as “the first line of defense” against illegal immigration.

Despite the authorized 50% increases in Border Patrol staffing, lawmakers never appropriated anywhere near enough money to finance that large an increase. Attrition has eaten away at what staff gains were made.

Since the law’s passage, observers say there has been little resolve in Washington to bolster the Border Patrol, especially during the current period of fiscal austerity.

“With something like that, either the Administration has to take an aggressive stance to gain the necessary funding, or, in lieu of that, the Congress has to push for it,” said one Washington official close to the issue who declined to be identified. “Neither one of those things happened.”

Exacerbating matters, officials say, is the Border Patrol’s traditional role as a kind of stepchild of the INS and a lack of concern by lawmakers who are not from one of the four border states--California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. Not one border-state congressman sits on the House appropriations subcommittee that determines funding for the INS and other Justice Department branches, noted U.S. Rep. Bill Lowery, (R-San Diego), who sits on another appropriations panel.

“For my colleagues from Iowa or Arkansas, this is not a do-or-die problem, so it’s tough to get their attention focused on the matter,” Lowery said.

Consequently, the Border Patrol and its supporters have lately been stressing the agency’s growing involvement in the drug war--something that has considerable bipartisan support nationwide. The U.S.-Mexico border has long been known as a principal conduit for the flow of illegal drugs and Border Patrol drug seizures have almost quadrupled in the last four years. Congress last year gave Border Patrol agents additional legal authority to arrest drug suspects.

“The only headway we’re making is putting it (Border Patrol funding) in the context of the drug war,” Lowery said.

That may have had some impact. Senate and House conferees drafting a budget bill have endorsed spending about $9 million to finance the hiring of 200 patrol agents next year.

However, despite the push for Border Patrol staff increases, some are skeptical that any number of agents will stop the flood of people who arrive at the border, some of them fleeing poverty and political repression. “I think if they put Border Patrol agents shoulder-to-shoulder along the entire 2,000 miles of border, these people will still find a way to come to the United States,” said Roberto Martinez, a rights activist in San Diego.