Mexican Border Fees Suspended

Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, faced with a barrage of protests, Friday suspended a new series of fees and regulations aimed at motorists driving from the U.S.-Mexico border into the interior of Mexico.

The move came just four days after the controversial guidelines--including a $100 charge for each car--were imposed. And, it underlined how sensitive the Mexican president is to anything that could disrupt a free-trade agreement with the United States.

“At this time we want to have fewer regulations, fewer barriers to increased trade between the two nations,” acknowledged Jose Angel Pescador Osuna, the Mexican consul general in Los Angeles.

The president’s move, coming just four days after the controversial guidelines went into place, also illustrates the growing clout of the millions of expatriate Mexican citizens residing in the United States, many of whom viewed the new fees as little more than a sanctioned shakedown.

“This is just legalized extortion,” said Pablo Quiroz, a Mexican citizen who was among a group of perhaps 50 fee opponents who descended Friday on the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles, the city that is home to the largest concentration of people of Mexican ancestry in the United States. “We believe this is a complete injustice.”

The new guidelines, which went into effect Monday, had two basic elements. They imposed a $100 nonrefundable fee for southbound motorists, to be paid at special offices set up along the northern border. In addition, motorists headed for the Mexican interior were required to pay a refundable deposit of $400 cash, or, in lieu of the $400, leave their U.S. residency documents as a guarantee that vehicles would be taken back out of Mexico.

The regulations were officially intended to cut down on the lucrative Mexican black market in non-registered vehicles, mostly from the United States, Mexican officials said.

As many as 500,000 unregistered cars and trucks--some stolen in the United States, but most purchased legally on U.S. soil and driven south--are circulating in Mexico, representing perhaps one-tenth of the nation’s total fleet, officials say. The presence of the vehicles, which are often sold and resold illegally, deprives the Mexican government of millions annually in fees and taxes, officials say.

However, the new fees soon unleashed angry protests by Mexican nationals from California to Texas--including a demonstration in Los Angeles on Friday and in several Mexican border cities. Many complained that the fee was just the latest incarnation of la mordida (literally, “the bite”), the much-resented shakedowns by Mexican officialdom, which are historically imposed with particular intensity on expatriates returning from the north.

“This is another pretext for Mexican officials to line their pockets,” said Artesima Maldonado, who was among the protesters in Los Angeles on Friday, and, like others, complained that the fees would pose a special hardship on poor Mexican families who could not pay air fares to visit their homeland.

Mexican officials, sensitive to reports that authorities routinely shake down expatriates heading south to visit families, have instituted a much-publicized initiative, known as the Paesano program, aimed at reducing such corruption.

When first imposed, the fees only applied to Mexican nationals driving foreign-registered vehicles. That fact sparked charges of discrimination by Mexican citizens residing on U.S. soil.

As a result, Mexican officials on Thursday decided to apply the fee to anyone traveling in the nation’s interior in a private vehicle. Exempt were those driving in border zones, areas within 20 kilometers of the international frontier, and so-called “free zones,” specially designated commercial strips, which included the entire peninsula of Baja California.

For U.S. citizens traveling by land into the Mexican interior, officials say that President Salinas’s decision means that no fee will be charged.

Instead, consular officials say that southbound motorists will be required, as always, to obtain temporary vehicular import documents from Mexican customs inspectors. Those traveling to Baja California and immediate border areas are largely exempt, however, as most of Baja and all areas within 20 kilometers of the U.S.-Mexico border are considered “free zones.”

Business interests and others have complained that the new requirements were particularly inopportune at a time when Mexican authorities, eagerly seeking a free-trade agreement with the United States, were attempting to break down bureaucratic impediments to commerce between the two nations.

When word of the growing indignation reached Mexico City, President Salinas ordered the 30-day suspension of the disputed requirements on Friday while authorities examined the issue, officials said.

McDonnell reported from San Diego and Anima from Los Angeles. Times staff writer Frank Sotomayor in Los Angeles also contributed to this story.