Agents Deny Chasing 2 Aliens Who Drowned : Border: The victims, apparently swept to sea while crossing the Tijuana River, remain unidentified at the county morgue.

When entering the United States from Mexico, undocumented immigrants daily face an array of hazards, among them violent thieves, unscrupulous smugglers, high-speed roadways and the desert sun.

Each year, many die attempting the crossings, the victims of bullets, knives, suffocating freight trains and car trunks, vehicle accidents and other causes.

Early Saturday, two suspected illegal aliens from Tijuana attempted to negotiate another obstacle--the waters of the Tijuana River, which is daily traversed by scores of border-jumpers--and the effort proved their undoing.

The two apparently drowned after they were swept into the ocean while attempting to cross the fetid river, which flows northward from Mexico and enters the sea at Imperial Beach.

Their bodies were found a mile apart Saturday afternoon, floating in the surf off Imperial Beach.

The two, both described as Latinos in their 20s, remained unidentified Monday.

The swampy Tijuana River estuary area of San Diego and Imperial Beach is a major crossing zone for undocumented immigrants entering the United States from Mexico. Tides and occasionally high water in the river can render the zone hazardous, particularly if unsuspecting migrants get pulled into the heavy Pacfic currents, as apparently happened this weekend.

The danger escalates at night, when visibility is down and most migrants make their thrusts north.

On Monday, U.S. immigration officials denied an earlier account, disseminated by the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, stating that the two had jumped into the Pacific surf in an effort to avoid capture by Border Patrol agents.

In fact, said Ted A. Swofford, supervisory Border Patrol agent in San Diego, neither of the two was being pursued when they were apparently swept to sea.

“We don’t try to chase people into the water,” Swofford said.

Actually, Swofford said, patrol agents often pull migrants from the water, both from the Pacific surf, the Tijuana River and various pools and tributaries in the estuary area.

Suspected undocumented immigrants do occasionally run into the water in efforts to avoid capture, Swofford said, but that was not the case with the pair who drowned Saturday.

The Sheriff’s Department, which on late Saturday said the two entered the water while being chased by U.S. border guards, is looking into the discrepancy in accounts, said Deputy Bob Knox, a spokesman. He declined to comment further.

According to the official Border Patrol version, U.S. authorities first heard of the two from a group of illegal aliens who were arrested along the beach at about 2 a.m.

The group informed authorities that, shortly before their arrest, they had seen a man and women “in trouble” while wading across the muddy Tijuana River channel, which is perhaps 20-30 feet wide at the beach and can reach depths of 8 feet, Swofford said.

The Border Patrol launched a search, assisted by high-powered lighting from a patrol’s helicopter, but no one was found, Swofford said.

Saturday’s deaths were not unique. In February, a 17-year-old Mexican boy was drowned in about the same area as he was making a clandestine crossing into the United States, said Marcela Merino, who heads citizen protection unit of the Mexican consul general’s office in San Diego.

There have been other drownings and near-drownings in the San Diego area and other border zones, including the All-American Canal in Imperial County and the Rio Grande in Texas.

“Some of these people come from rural areas where they may have never seen the sea before, or they don’t know how to swim,” noted Merino of the Mexican consul’s office.

One of her more painful tasks has been attempting to inform the family members of Mexican citizens who perish en route to the United States.

Some victims are never identified; many illicit border-crossers carry no documentation.

No identification was found on the two drowning victims.

There were no identifying marks on the woman.

The man was wearing a graduation ring, apparently from a high school somewhere in California, that was inscribed with the initials RB and carried the date 1968, according to the San Diego County medical examiner’s office.

He was 5 feet, 10 inches tall and weighed 206 pounds. The male victim also had a number of crude tattoos, the medical examiner’s office said, including the name Juanita and the image of a bouquet of flowers, both of which were on his right forearm.