Latest I-5 Death Brings Pain, Maybe Change : Migrants: Caltrans, INS meeting today, three days after 80-year-old Custodio Aguilar died near the San Onofre checkpoint.

Jose Aguilar stared at the small color photograph of his father and winced.

“If I only had known this would happen, I wouldn’t have told them to cross. He would still be alive today,” Aguilar said Monday, two days after his 80-year-old father, Custodio Aguilar, was killed while trying to cross Interstate 5 to avoid the San Onofre immigration checkpoint.

“I should have continued forward with him in the car. Even if immigration had spotted him and taken him from me, it would have been better than having him die,” Aguilar said.

The family had paid a smuggler to take Custodio Aguilar and two other relatives as far north as the Aliso Creek rest area, which is about five miles south of the checkpoint. From there, Jose, who is a legal resident, was to drive them north.

Fearful that the checkpoint was in operation, Jose Aguilar told his father and two other relatives to cross the eight-lane freeway while he made a U-turn to pick them up. The plan was to wait at a southbound rest area until the checkpoint closed. But Custodio Aguilar stumbled and was hit by a truck.

The strategy is not uncommon among immigrants, and Aguilar was the 12th to die this year while crossing the freeway near the checkpoint. As a result, the California Department of Transportation has taken some steps to improve safety along the freeway near the checkpoint and is meeting today with the regional head of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service to discuss other safety measures.

Ben Davidian, Western regional commissioner for the INS, said he would like to see more lighting and signs around the checkpoint area to alert motorists and immigrants alike.

“The fence could keep them from going across the dangerous lanes, and lighting up the area would make them easier to spot,” Davidian said.

Several immigrant rights organizations have recommended that lighting be increased and speed limits be reduced in the area of the checkpoint. Also, they suggest that Caltrans add perpendicular grooves to the roadway that would cause motorists to slow down.

Jose Aguilar said he agreed with the recommendations, but added a personal warning to other Mexican immigrants: “It’s better to drive right into the immigration checkpoint and risk getting caught than to have a tragedy like this happen to others.”

Angeles Aguilar, Jose’s 18-year-old daughter, said: “They should just get rid of the checkpoint.”

Jose Aguilar said his father had illegally entered the United States on previous occasions to visit him and other relatives. He was en route to Palmdale with a niece, Patricia Palomino Pacheco, 18, and Ricardo Jimenez Lopez, 26, of Los Angeles.

On Monday, Palomino, still dazed and very emotional, recalled how the trio waited on the shoulder of the freeway for a break in traffic. Because of Aguilar’s age, he needed help walking.

“We had to almost carry him. He was walking very slowly and here was this big freeway in front of us,” Palomino said.

“I saw there was a lot of traffic, so we waited. We saw the lights of the cars from far away and we thought it looked OK. But when we started, the lights, they just got closer really fast. I remember turning to help the older man and then looking back toward the traffic. We started across but by that time the lights were almost in front of us.”

“I stepped back but Custodio went ahead. He got hit by the truck,” she said.

Lopez suffered a broken leg and foot as he struggled to pull Aguilar to safety and was hit by the truck. He is recuperating at his home in Los Angeles.

Since 1987, 33 immigrants attempting to cross I-5 have died, including an 8-year-old Mexican boy who was struck and killed by a car in August.

The INS has been discussing the problem of freeway safety with Caltrans and other agencies for about two years, but today’s meeting is the first Davidian will attend.