INS Aims High Beams on Border to Catch Illegal Crossers

With alternative strategies thwarted, U.S. immigration authorities have resorted to a novel and remarkably non-controversial tactic along the international boundary with Mexico--installing high-powered lights that illuminate a key swath of the border.

Installation of the lights follows failed bids to build a controversial ditch along the border and to hire additional U.S. Border Patrol agents.

According to the Border Patrol, the key enforcement arm of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, the purpose of the lights is twofold: to improve safety for its agents and the hundreds of undocumented immigrants who attempt to cross the border under the cover of darkness each night, and to make it easier to catch illicit border crossers.

The lights have proved a success on both counts, officials said, though they acknowledge that the illumination probably hasn’t reduced the number of people attempting to illegally enter the United States. What the lights have done is shift the massive flow of border crossers to other, still dark sites, mostly in the hills to the west.

That shift underlines how the human traffic along the border, driven by economic, social and political factors, responds to enforcement tactics.

“People will cross wherever it is easiest,” noted Victor Clark Alfaro, who runs a Tijuana human rights office. “The lights aren’t going to stop anyone; it’s just making them go a different way.”

Unlike other strategies, such as the proposed border ditch and a planned doubling of agents, the lights have not drawn criticism. Indeed, they have been welcomed by some of those usually opposed to immigration enforcement policies at the border. Immigrants and their advocates agree that the floodlights, installed along the northern bank of the Tia Juana River channel, have made the notoriously dangerous strip safer.

Since the area has been illuminated, some of the bandits who have long preyed on the migrants under the cover of darkness have abandoned the strip, authorities said.

“This might have a positive impact on the protection of the immigrants,” said Jorge Bustamante, director of the College of the Northern Border, a Tijuana research institution. Bustamante has often been a critic of U.S. immigration policies.

Added Roberto Martinez, a rights activist in San Diego who is also a frequent detractor of patrol tactics: “In terms of safety, (the lights) could help a lot.”

On a recent rainy evening, immigrants who were lined up on the southern levee of the Tia Juana River applauded the new lights because of the safety factor.

Facing the glaring lamps that illuminated the broad river channel, the hopeful border crossers agreed that the lights might make it more difficult to cross. But few doubted that they would ultimately make it across.

“It makes it harder for us, but it’s also harder for the bajadores (thieves),” said Jose Favela Romero, a 23-year-old Mexican en route to Chicago with his 3-year-old son, Roberto. “We’re all going to make it anyway.”

Unlike the ill-fated border ditch plan, which sparked a firestorm of criticism and derision when authorities proposed it, the lights were quietly installed in September with little fanfare and limited expense. The stadium-type illumination has been in place since then along a 1 1/4-mile strip of the Tia Juana River channel, which is considered the most concentrated crossing zone along the entire U.S.-Mexico border, as well as the most dangerous.

Border Patrol officials have praised the lights’ effectiveness in creating a safer environment. For instance, the number of rock-throwers pelting agents in the river zone has declined considerably since the lamps were installed, said Ted A. Swofford, the Border Patrol’s spokesman in San Diego.

Swofford agreed there was little evidence to suggest that the lights had reduced the flow of people across the border. In December, with the lights in place, arrests in the river zone and throughout the San Diego area increased by almost 50%, compared with December, 1988.

Still, the huge crowds along the south levee, which sometimes approached 1,000 or more in past months, appear to have been dispersed into smaller groups, Swofford said.

U.S. officials said this makes their job easier, limiting situations in which hundreds of people may converge toward several agents. Moreover, U.S. authorities also say that moving the undocumented traffic to the west or east works to the advantage of patrol agents, as the immigrants have to travel longer distances before filtering into the more populated areas of San Diego, where cover is ample and detection is more difficult.

“The size of the crowds gathering now are much more manageable,” said Swofford, who recently patrolled the newly lighted river zone to judge how it had changed.

“I personally felt much safer. There are fewer surprises. You can tell how many people you are dealing with.”

The lights have been so effective that officials are looking at the possibility of placing them at other spots along the border. At a time when budget constraints appear to make large manpower increases unlikely, INS Commissioner Gene McNary has stressed the use of new equipment, such as lights, night-vision scopes and aircraft.

The lighting has also galvanized a citizens’ group in San Diego, which has called for the posting of lamps along the entire border. The group’s leader, Muriel Watson, said the lights should be placed “all the way to Brownsville,” at the Gulf of Mexico in Texas.

“Why should we allow smugglers and others the privilege of doing these nasty deeds under the cover of darkness?” asked Watson, widow of a Border Patrol officer.

The lighting idea had been around for many years, officials said, but new types of lights available at a reasonable cost have only recently made the idea feasible. The lamps installed so far have been temporary, but officials said they are likely to be made permanent.

The 20-foot-high metal floodlights are mounted on portable, diesel-burning generators and placed at intervals of about 500 feet along the river’s northern levee and along the northern banks of the broad river channel.

Officials say cost and maintenance of the lights has been minimal. Rented lights cost about $1,000 a month; the 40 bulbs in use cost $40 apiece and last a year.