Revival Seen for I-5 Median Fence : Safety: Caltrans had put off plan for barrier to deter people from evading INS by crossing freeway.

Authorities expect that a proposal to build a fence along the Interstate 5 median near the Border Patrol checkpoint at San Onofre will be given new consideration after three suspected illegal immigrants were killed crossing the highway overnight Friday, in attempts to elude immigration officers.

A 1990 Cal State Fullerton study of checkpoint safety recommended building the fence. California Department of Transportation spokesman Kyle Nelson said Friday that a $1-million proposal to build an 8-foot-high barrier had been put on hold “because of the low number of deaths” in that area last year.

Nelson said two Mexican immigrants were killed by cars last year when they tried to avoid the Border Patrol near the checkpoint.

In 1990, the California Highway Patrol reported 15 deaths in similar accidents, all in an 8-mile stretch near the checkpoint.

Caltrans and CHP officials attributed last year’s reduction in the fatalities to the presence of more warning signs along the freeway, increased enforcement of speed limits and other efforts taken to alert both motorists and pedestrians to the danger.

But the recent accidents, Nelson said, will probably “heighten consideration” of the fence proposed in the study commissioned by Caltrans.

Advocates contend that such a fence would discourage crisscrossing of the freeway and reduce accidents. Immigrant rights groups, however, fear that those who continue to try crossing could end up trapped in heavy traffic by such a fence.

Father Jaime Soto, vicar for the Latino community for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange and former chairman of the Orange County Coalition for Immigration Rights, said he is “not convinced that a fence will deter immigrants from crossing the freeway. It will just move the crossing to another location.”

Richard L. Spix, attorney for the immigrant rights group Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, recommended that the Immigration and Naturalization Service concentrate its efforts along the border and not at internal checkpoints.

“I don’t know what else to do down there,” Spix said, “it’s such a desolate stretch.”

Amin David, president of Los Amigos of Orange County, said: “Our position has always been that it (checkpoint) should be done away with. . . . That’s a deathtrap. There’s no doubt about it.”

Nelson noted that fences in other locations have not presented much of an obstacle to illegal border crossings.

“We have a big steel fence at the border that has been labeled a sieve by some people,” Nelson said.

Robert A. Emry, lead investigator for the Caltrans study, said he believes that a median fence would help matters but would not solve the problem.

“I think we did a good job when the study was going on,” he said. “But now everybody has forgotten about it, and people are getting hurt again.”

CHP spokesman Jerry Bohrer said his agency recently received $600,000 in federal money that it will use in the next few months to step up its public awareness campaign and expand its speed-limit enforcement in the vicinity of the San Onofre and San Ysidro checkpoints.

The CHP and Caltrans have been distributing literature about freeway dangers at bus stops and other public transportation facilities in Mexican border towns.

In addition, Nelson said, six months ago Caltrans began a project with the Department of Motor Vehicles in which notification of freeway danger spots is included in all mailings of auto registration renewals.

“We have been sending out close to 300,000 notifications a month to registered drivers as far north as Santa Barbara,” Nelson said.

This month Caltrans will begin presenting public service announcements of the potential freeway dangers on TV in San Diego County, Nelson said, while the CHP plans to begin similar TV and radio announcements in Mexico.

Bohrer said many of the immigrants come from interior towns in Mexico and remote parts of South America and are not aware of the dangers presented by freeways and high-speed traffic.