$10 Million Voted for New I-5 Checkpoint : Immigration: The Border Patrol facility would replace the present one near San Clemente, but it would be three miles farther south.

The U.S. Senate has approved $10 million for initial construction of a new Border Patrol checkpoint along Interstate 5 south of San Clemente, bringing the controversial expansion plan one step closer to reality.

The Senate included the appropriation--which is supported by the Bush Administration--as part of the budget package that was approved Thursday.

However, the proposal must survive a Senate-House conference committee and then be included in whatever final federal budget plan emerges from ongoing negotiations. The deadlocked budget for fiscal 1991 is the topic of intense debate on Capitol Hill and in the White House, leaving the future of the checkpoint and other federal projects in abeyance.

Nonetheless, California lawmakers who support the checkpoint expansion voiced confidence Friday that the Senate appropriation gives the $10 million a good chance of emerging intact from the budget process. Several described the Senate action as the most significant legislative leap to date for the proposed facility.

“I think this step means it’s going to happen,” said David Coggin, press secretary to U.S. Rep. Ron Packard (R-Oceanside).

Whatever happens, the 16-lane checkpoint is not expected to be operational until 1995. In addition to the $10 million, federal authorities will have to seek $20 million in coming years to complete construction. (About $4 million has already been committed for planning and engineering costs.)

But supporters of the plan maintain that it will be hard for lawmakers to back out once the $10 million is being spent and construction has begun.

Federal immigration authorities consider the checkpoint a vital enforcement weapon in turning back the flow of illegal aliens heading to Orange County and the Los Angeles area along Interstate 5, the region’s busiest north-south artery. The San Clemente checkpoint is the busiest of 30 such Border Patrol installations from California to Texas, all placed on roads leading from the Mexican border. The proposed checkpoint station would replace the current one.

In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, agents based at the checkpoint made a record 75,000 arrests of undocumented immigrants. Officers also regularly seize large caches of illicit drugs and other contraband. Authorities say the larger station is needed to improve efficiency, increase operating hours and reduce the monumental traffic delays that regularly plague northbound motorists, sometimes backing them up for more than a mile.

“The existing checkpoint is overwhelmed, outdated and ill-prepared to stop the thousands of individuals who choose to use I-5 as an artery to circulate drugs, contraband and illegal aliens throughout the country,” Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) said Friday in a statement. “With these funds, we can build a checkpoint that acts more like a red light than a red carpet.”

But critics say the checkpoint is a dangerous, risk-laden enterprise that should be dismantled or at least suspended until safer operating procedures can be developed. The checkpoint’s presence amid the heavily traveled corridor has contributed to numerous accidents, chases and deaths of undocumented aliens who attempt to circumvent the facility on foot.

Since the beginning of the year, 12 people have died while trying to cross the freeway near the checkpoint.

An official for the Coalition for Immigrant Rights and Responsibilities, which has advocated increased warning signals and a public-awareness campaign directed at drivers and undocumented workers, said a new checkpoint is only part of the solution.

“It’s a great opportunity for the federal government to design a checkpoint that can handle what they have to deal with and avoid some of the carnage we have been experiencing in the last few years,” coalition executive director Lilia Powell said Friday.

She suggested that the federal government help pay for the construction of grooves in the road and other safety features that have been recommended by the California Department of Transportation.

Officials from cities near the INS checkpoint--located five miles south of the Orange County line on Interstate 5--also have objected to the expansion, contending that the new checkpoint would “trap” more immigrants in nearby communities that are already trying to cope with large numbers of immigrants.

But in San Clemente, the first city north of the checkpoint, officials have supported the expansion with the hope of reducing high-speed chases of illegal immigrants that sometimes end up in their city and endanger bystanders.

“This is fantastic,” San Clemente Mayor Candace Haggard said of the Senate appropriation. “We understand that the Border Patrol has a job to do, but we have to protect our city.”

Haggard added that she favors plans to construct tollbooth-like barriers that would deter cars from running through the checkpoint. Also, with the new facility expected to be located three miles south of its current location, the mayor said the new site combined with increased inspection lanes should help ease traffic congestion near her city.

After a meeting Friday with immigration officials, the mayor said that until the new facility is built, the city will help the federal agency pursuade Caltrans to build walls along the median to prevent undocumented workers from scurrying across the southbound lanes to escape detection.

Caltrans and the coalition do not support that idea, advocating instead public-awareness measures and reducing the speed limit near the inspection lanes.

The present station is a makeshift facility where agents stand on the freeway and visually inspect passing traffic, directing potential violators to an inspection area.

The new checkpoint station would be a smaller version of the giant U.S.-Mexico border crossing some 70 miles to the south. It would be a permanent fixture accommodating 16 initial inspection lanes and 4 secondary inspection lanes, the latter for supplemental questioning of motorists. The 15-acre site would include physical barriers to protect agents, an overhead walkway and expanded detention, office and parking space.

Times staff writers Robert W. Stewart and Gebe Martinez contributed to this report.