Border Crime Site to Get Lights, More Officers

Moving to reduce increasing attacks against migrants, U. S. Border Patrol officials unveiled plans Wednesday to install floodlights and bolster staffing in a crime-prone area of the international frontier in San Diego.

“We’re going to saturate this particular area,” said Gustavo de la Vina, chief Border Patrol agent in San Diego, who spoke during a news conference on a windy bluff overlooking the sites of three recent killings.

De la Vina, a 20-year veteran of the agency, took over the sensitive border post Monday. The series of anti-crime measures are his first major initiatives, but the deep-voiced native Texan said all patrol operations are being reviewed and other changes could be in the offing.

“There are a lot of issues that have to be addressed,” said De la Vina, who is of Mexican-American ancestry and is the first Latino to serve as Border Patrol chief in San Diego. He is the third Latino Border Patrol sector chief nationwide, following appointments in the Texas cities of McAllen and Laredo.

The San Diego Border Patrol sector, which includes all of San Diego and parts of Riverside and Orange counties, is considered the busiest, most high-profile and most dangerous posting along the almost-2,000-mile-long international border.

In addition to the floodlights and added agents, Border Patrol officials said they plan to coordinate responses with Mexican authorities, as well as share maps and other information in a joint effort to reduce attacks.

Federal and local officials say crime against undocumented migrants, a longtime problem in San Diego, has reached new heights in recent months. Thieves are suspected in the deaths of six undocumented border crossers so far this year. By contrast, there were five such homicides in all of 1989.

In response, San Diego police said this week that they plan to double the force of an existing six-officer anti-crime contingent that patrols the border area. Police plan to add members of an elite unit whose members normally carry submachine guns, although authorities have declined to specify what weaponry will be issued to the strengthened border squad.

On Wednesday, De la Vina said about 30 new agents who reported for duty in San Diego last week will be immediately posted in the high-crime area to the west of the Port of Entry at San Ysidro. That area--particularly a broad, rugged zone known as the Gravel Pit because of a gaping quarry nearby--has become perhaps the most concentrated illicit crossing area along the entire U.S.-Mexico border.

Although the agents’ first priority is to apprehend border jumpers, De la Vina also expressed the hope that the officers will serve as a highly visible deterrent to crime.

Meanwhile Wednesday, the Border Patrol positioned three high-powered portable floodlights on a hilltop near the Gravel Pit area, which is about halfway between the San Ysidro entry and the Pacific. The lights stand near the site of three recent killings. Floodlights are also being installed on permanent poles in an adjacent area slightly to the northeast.

The light stands, De la Vina said, should dissuade the robbers who now frequent the zone.

“This area has been utitilized by punks and by bad guys, who like to operate under the cover of darkness,” he said. “My idea is to light this whole area up.”

Authorities said the posting of high-powered lights has proven effective in reducing crime along the Tijuana River channel, which had long been the site of attacks against migrants. In May, officials completed construction of 12 permanent light poles along a 1.2-mile stretch of the river.

The lights have prompted border crossers and thieves to move farther west, to the Gravel Pit area that is now so popular. Most migrants prefer to cross in darkness, since there is less chance of being apprehended by U.S. authorities. But the dark also brings a greater risk of assault by thieves.

De la Vina and other Border Patrol officials conceded that the latest tactics will probably move undocumented border crossers and the thieves who prey on them to unlighted areas. When that happens, De la Vina said, the agency will once again shift the lights and added agents to the new sites.

“If they move, we’ll move with them,” he said.

During Wednesday’s news briefing, De la Vina chatted fluently with journalists from Mexico, where the recent spate of border killings of Mexican citizens has been heavily publicized.

As officials spoke, waiting border crossers watched warily from their gathering spots in the canyons, on the hilltops and along the tattered fence that marks the international boundary. Although all seemed to agree that the crime problem is getting worse, few endorsed the idea of posting more agents of la migra-- as Border Patrol agents are known in Spanish--in the area.

“Why don’t they just leave the lights and not put more migra? “ asked Omar Umanzor, a 28-year-old Honduran who was among a group of perhaps a dozen men waiting near a cross constructed in memory of a 12-year-old Mexican boy who was shot to death last month.

“Better they bring in the police and get rid of la migra, “ suggested Jose Luis Arellano, a 28-year-old from the Mexican city of Guadalajara.