Border Patrol Expands Plainclothes Force in San Diego Area : Law: Chief agent Gustavo de la Vina puts more agents in the field, despite a $30-million wrongful-death suit filed by relatives of man shot by officer in civilian dress.

The U.S. Border Patrol, under the leadership of first-year chief agent Gustavo de la Vina, has bolstered its deployment of plainclothes officers along the U.S.-Mexico border and elsewhere in the San Diego area.

It was an agent in civilian dress who shot and killed a 17-year-old Mexican man Sept. 8 in an incident that has triggered a $30-million wrongful-death claim by the victim’s relatives against the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, parent body of the Border Patrol.

In a telephone interview Friday, De la Vina said the agent--who witnesses say was dressed in faded jeans and a camouflage-type jacket--is part of an increased corps of plainclothes officers assigned to the San Diego area. The agents are mostly involved in surveillance of suspected smuggling routes, De la Vina said, but they also make arrests.

At any given time, De la Vina said, as many as 20 non-uniformed officers, operating out of unmarked vehicles, might be posted in the San Diego area, particularly the San Ysidro community just north of the international boundary line, a longtime smuggling hub.

“Our emphasis is with the smuggler,” said De la Vina, who has strengthened enforcement efforts areawide since being named chief patrol agent last summer. “We maintain surveillance in smuggling hot spots.”

In the September incident, the Border Patrol has maintained that the plainclothes agent fired after the 17-year-old, Victor Adrian Mandujano Navarro, attacked him and attempted to wrestle his gun away near the border fence.

Three witnesses, including the victim’s brother, have told Mexican authorities in sworn statements that the officer fired without provocation at point-blank range after pinning the victim on the ground.

An autopsy found the fatal shot in the chest was fired while the revolver’s muzzle was lodged against the victim’s chest, said Deputy Medical Examiner Mark A. Super of the medical examiner’s office in San Diego. The “stamp” of the muzzle was visible on the victim’s body, the autopsy found. The bullet pierced the victim’s heart and right lung.

San Diego police and the FBI were investigating the case, but no finding has been made publicly.

The Border Patrol has refused to release the name of the officer who fired the shot, in accordance with its standard policy. The officer has been assigned to desk duties pending the outcome of various inquiries, De la Vina said.

In a separate incident, Border Patrol officials said it was a uniformed agent who shot and killed a 33-year-old Mexican man in the border area on the morning of Nov. 1. Police and the FBI also are investigating that shooting, which was unusual in that it occurred in broad daylight. The victim has been identified as Humberto Robles Valenzuela. Authorities are also withholding the identity of the agent involved in that shooting. That agent also has been assigned to desk duties, authorities said.

The use of plainclothes officers, De la Vina said, is a “critical tool in enforcement.” While non-uniformed Border Patrol officers long have been used in the area, De la Vina said he has placed a special emphasis on the tactic, which has a clear advantage over uniformed patrol: Agents have more time before they are recognized.

However, unlike a fabled former San Diego police squad that patrolled the border strip during 1976-78, De La Vina said, the current plainclothes border agents are not undercover decoys attempting to appear like undocumented foreigners. When making arrests, the chief said, the agents are instructed to identify themselves immediately as Border Patrol officers. (San Diego police eventually disbanded the controversial decoy border squad, concluding that it was too dangerous for the officers.)

“We’re not passing as illegal aliens,” De la Vina said. “The important thing is that they (the agents) always identify themselves.”

In the Sept. 8 shooting, several witnesses told Mexican authorities that the plainclothes agent who fatally shot the 17-year-old did indeed identify himself as “migra”-- the colloquial term for Border Patrol officers--before he fired.

In addition, De la Vina said, plainclothes agents are not luring undocumented workers by posing as employers and driving to curbside hiring sites in unmarked vehicles.

Human rights advocates in the border area have objected to the use of plainclothes officers, fearing that undocumented immigrants might not believe the officers’ identities, thus provoking violent confrontations.

“The authority is in the uniform,” said Victor Clark Alfaro, who heads the Binational Center for Human Rights in Tijuana. “I think it’s dangerous both for the agents and for the migrants to have officers dressed as civilians.”

In the past, authorities say brazen border-area thieves have attempted to rob both plainclothes and uniformed Border Patrol agents and police officers, particularly at nighttime, when most illicit crossings occur. Such attacks have led to many fatal border-area shootings in recent years, authorities say. But De la Vina said mistaken-identity attacks on agents have not proved a serious problem with the current plainclothes deployment.

Non-uniformed officers, De la Vina said, have been deployed along the border and in several other well-known alien-smuggling corridors: Interstate 5 near Dairy Mart Road, the streets and parking lots of the border neighborhood of San Ysidro, and at the Aliso Creek rest area along I-5 north of Oceanside, the last a major staging zone for smugglers and undocumented immigrants en route north.