Border Patrol Moves to Stem Freeway Chaos : Immigration: Additional agents being brought in from other states. Traffic heading into Mexico will be slowed considerably.

The Border Patrol will station 25 new agents at the San Ysidro border crossing and close four freeway lanes entering Mexico in order to prevent illegal immigrants from running across the border into oncoming southbound traffic, authorities said Tuesday.

As Border Patrol officials were announcing the plan during a press conference on a pedestrian bridge overlooking the crossing, two teen-agers bolted through the Mexican customs station and into U.S. territory, sprinting among speeding cars on the freeway like broken-field runners.

Their daredevil dash illustrated the hair-raising border-crossing tactic that has emerged during the past month: hundreds of illegal immigrants have been running north each day past Mexican customs officers into southbound traffic.

The immigrants use the vehicles as a shield against capture for hundreds of yards of freeway, knowing that the Border Patrol will not chase them. Then they hike north along the freeway divider to prearranged pickup points where they meet smugglers paid to help them make the crossing.

The crackdown is expected to delay travelers who are crossing into Mexico from San Ysidro. It will further snarl traffic at a congested port of entry where long delays--especially entering San Diego from Tijuana--have been criticized for harming tourism and the cross-border economy, according to business leaders in both cities.

But William Veal, the assistant chief of the Border Patrol in San Diego, said his agency must act before someone is killed or seriously injured.

“Obviously there is going to be some backup,” Veal said at a news conference on a pedestrian bridge several hundred yards north of the border crossing. “But the current situation is intolerable and cannot continue.”

Until now, drivers entering Mexico rarely encountered U.S. immigration officers; they were usually waved on through by Mexican customs officers after slowing momentarily. The new plan calls for traffic to funnel into two lanes controlled by Border Patrol agents one hundred yards from the Mexican customs booths, Veal said.

The 25 additional agents are being brought in from Texas and other states, he said, and will remain at the port of entry as long as necessary.

Mexican authorities had no immediate comment on the announcement. In past days they have discussed the problem with U.S. immigration officials. And Mexican police, who have been historically reluctant to interfere with illegal immigration to the U.S., have arrested some of the polleros, or smugglers of illegal immigrants, who orchestrate the mass freeway dashes from vantage points south of the customs station.

Increasing use of the freeway route results partly from a 7-mile border fence built by U.S. authorities during the past year. The fence has made illegal crossings through traditional canyon and neighborhood areas more difficult and pushed the northward flow of humanity toward the port of entry, according to interviews with experts and alien smugglers.

One Mexican immigration expert criticized Tuesday’s initiative. Jorge Bustamante, dean of the College of the Northern Border in Tijuana, said he believes the Border Patrol has intentionally relaxed enforcement at the southbound freeway lanes, fomenting dramatic images of men, women and children risking their lives.

U.S. authorities are using the new crackdown to win increased visibility and cooperation from Mexico in fighting illegal immigration, he said.

“They have been trying for years to pressure the Mexican police to collaborate in stopping the flow of undocumented (immigrants),” Bustamante said. “I think they have tried to create a scandal to get more visibility and improve their funding.”

Bustamante said delaying entry into Tijuana will harm the economy there. The new measures contradict the U.S. national policy of economic openness toward Mexico encompassed by the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement, he said.

“It’s an aggression against the interaction of the two economies,” Bustamante said. “The Border Patrol is pursuing its own foreign policy that is contradictory to the policy of the U.S. State Department.”

The interrelated economies of San Diego and Tijuana have already suffered as a result of nightmarish lines at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, according to Dan Pegg of the San Diego Economic Development Corp.

The lane shutdown could do further damage to U.S. tourism in Tijuana and cross-border shopping by Mexicans, 50,000 of whom shop in San Diego each day, he said.

Many maquiladora executives and other businessmen find it difficult to schedule meetings with counterparts across the border because they know they may have to wait in line for hours, he said.

“It will have an influence on the economy, especially when things are as tough as they are,” he said. “It’s certainly not something we want to see happen.”

But Pegg said the dramatic Border Patrol action was unavoidable.

Teovaldo Estrada, a spokesman for the Tijuana Chamber of Commerce, predicted a quick drop in sales on both sides of the border. Pointing out that it already can take up to an hour to enter Mexico in the afternoon, he said he is disheartened because Mexican political and business leaders have been working to improve visitor services and streamline the customs process.

“We understand the need to save lives, but we don’t think this is the right path to follow,” he said. “We are asking the Mexican authorities to do whatever they can to remedy the situation. . . . We feel that now the American government is taking actions that destroy the measures we have taken to improve the quality of services and reduce some of the problems.”

There have been no major accidents or deaths this year as a result of the freeway dashes.