INS Hardens Its Stance on Illegal Aliens, Smugglers : Immigration: Commissioner says some illegal aliens will be formally deported and possibly jailed. New policy is a significant departure from the practice of voluntary return.

The new head of the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service, in a toughening of border patrol policies, said Thursday that his agency will seek to formally deport--and possibly jail--aliens who repeatedly slip into the United States and their smugglers.

The policy shift represents a significant alteration of the INS’ customary practice of allowing most unauthorized immigrants to return voluntarily to their homeland after capture.

INS Commissioner Gene McNary was vague at a Los Angeles news conference as he announced the new approach. He did not elaborate on when it would begin, how it might stop illegal immigration or affect an already overworked INS bureaucracy. But the commissioner, who has been on the job for seven months, said it was needed to “regain control of the border.”

“Those people who are apprehended will be detained,” said McNary. He added that repeat offenders and alien smugglers would be identified and fingerprinted under the new policy, something the agency does now only in some cases. He said that repeated offenses would mean jail terms, as opposed to temporary detention by the INS.

Under the current procedure, nearly all captured aliens declare their wish to return home, sign release forms and, in most instances, are sent back the day of capture. Immigration experts, in cluding many INS officials, believe the practice encourages aliens to repeatedly try to cross the border.

“You can’t just continue letting them out the back door and think you are enforcing the law,” McNary said.

Particularly targeted, McNary said, would be the sector south of San Diego, where about 40% of all illegal immigration via the U.S.-Mexico border takes place.

The Tijuana-San Diego corridor provides the most direct access to the booming immigrant job markets of Southern California, a region researchers and officials say is increasingly drawing immigrants--legal and illegal.

Officials estimated that about one of every three aliens attempting a crossing is captured. Last year, nearly 1 million illegal immigrants were captured in the United States with more than 90% of them from Mexico.

It was unclear how immigration authorities plan to implement McNary’s new strategy. The policy shift seemingly will require an increase in immigration detention space, and current expansion plans would appear to be far short of what is needed.

“There’s an obvious limitation locally in that we don’t have any place to put them,” said Ted Swofford, a Border Patrol spokesman in San Diego.

Some members of immigrant-rights groups assailed the idea, saying it would be unworkable since the INS has limited detention space and the federal court system is unprepared to handle the caseload that would develop. Moreover, critics pointed out, it is often difficult to identify smugglers and chronic border-jumpers, particularly since aliens often give false names.

“It could have major implications in terms of enforcement, overcrowding of detention facilities, the backlog in the judicial system,” said Charles Wheeler, director of the National Immigration Law Center, an immigrant-rights group in Los Angeles. “It’s incredibly misguided to think that this will discourage the majority of people who now come to the United States.”

Arnoldo Torres, national political adviser for the League of Latin American Citizens, added:

“I really don’t know if McNary has thought about the consequences of this. Has he thought about violations of rights in these detention centers? Has he thought about the major problems in the communities where these facilities will be built?”

During his news conference, McNary recalled how last year in South Texas the INS, strapped for detention space, housed 2,500 Central Americans in a makeshift tent city and other facilities. However, he stopped short of endorsing the controversial tent-city approach for San Diego, and emphasized that the voluntary-return policy would remain in place for many illegals who are not chronic offenders of U.S. immigration laws.

“We’re not going to be able to turn this around overnight,” he said. “But we’ll try and identify alien smugglers . . . fingerprint them, detain them.”

As part of the toughened plan, McNary said he hoped that the uniformed strength of the Border Patrol in the San Diego area would be increased by 250 agents to about 1,000 officers within a year.

He said the extra personnel should be shifted from other duties elsewhere in the country and from new agents graduating from the Border Patrol academy in Georgia.

Later, as part of his first Los Angeles visit to inspect INS facilities, McNary told a Town Hall luncheon audience that he favored a combined point system and lottery to allow some foreigners with no “family or prospective employer” connections to lawfully immigrate to the United States.