Checkpoint Chaos: Cars Hit Bad Policy : Scary--but preventable--scene for illegal immigrants on Interstate 5

Imagine this: You’re driving, a little too fast. It’s late at night and you’re tired. Suddenly, your headlights fall on a figure dashing across the freeway. Then there are several, including children. You swerve and brake, but can’t miss them all.

That scene is being repeated with tragic consequences near immigration checkpoints in San Diego County, including the one on Interstate 5 near San Clemente, as illegal immigrants run across freeways to elude the U.S. Border Patrol. Two young boys were killed in separate incidents there this week, and 33 illegal immigrants have been killed since 1987--10 this year alone. Near the border--where Interstates 5 and 805 and California 905 converge--it’s even worse: 83 killed since 1987, 16 this year.

The body count has the attention of the Border Patrol, the state Department of Transportation and the California Highway Patrol, as well as human services groups. A group of Cal State Fullerton professors is working with Caltrans to devise ways of educating both drivers and immigrants about dangerous crossings.

Recently, new signs and lighting have been added near Border Patrol checkpoints. Under study are traffic dots and grooves on the roadway to slow cars down; murals and other signs on the Mexican side of the border and church involvement in educating immigrants.

But the real question is whether it is better to stem a tide at the ocean or to try and do it inland. That’s why it would be worth studying whether to close the checkpoint in Northern San Diego County and concentrate on the border. That, at least, may diminish the freeway pedestrian problem in one area.

The crossing problem may never be eliminated. People who forge rivers and undergo other hardships to get to the United States view a freeway as just another barrier. But more needs to be done to let them know they’re taking their lives in their hands when they cross freeways, and more to educate drivers who encounter them.