Migrant Tells How Fear Led to Fall : Border: Injured immigrant describes incident at San Onofre checkpoint in which one illegal immigrant died when three fell off a cliff. The Border Patrol say agents did not chase the men.

The ride from Tijuana to the edge of death cost Jose Deharo $300.

Fading in and out of consciousness, his shattered leg in a cast, the illegal immigrant from Guadalajara lay in a hospital Tuesday and relived the terrifying sequence of events in which he fell from a cliff during a Border Patrol chase.

The incident near the Interstate 5 immigration checkpoint near San Onofre Sunday night killed 20-year-old Hugo Cisneros Ramirez and left Deharo, 32, and his brother-in-law, 17-year-old Guadalupe Diaz, hospitalized in fair condition. They are three casualties of the gantlet that illegal immigrants run between smugglers and Border Patrol agents, both of whom are accused by critics of using dangerous tactics in this case.

The alleged smuggler, Sebastian Juarez Santander, is being held on a felony alien-smuggling charge. He has been convicted twice previously on similar charges, authorities said.

Deharo said Juarez, a 42-year-old Los Angeles man, charged $600 for driving Deharo and his brother-in-law to Los Angeles. It was not Deharo’s first visit to Los Angeles, where he has friends who can help him find work, he said. He met Cisneros and the two other men being smuggled into the United States for the first time in Tijuana, he said.

Border Patrol officials have said that their agents were careful not to chase the three men near the cliff and are not to blame for what happened. The Border Patrol reiterated that story Tuesday.

Deharo said it happened very fast, a barrage of speeding lights, shadows and adrenalin: an immigrant smuggler ordered Deharo and four other men out of his stolen truck and made them run west across the freeway south of the checkpoint; a Border Patrol vehicle pulled up and agents jumped out, and Deharo and two companions ran through the darkness and off a cliff in San Onofre State Park, falling at least 50 feet.

“I wanted to hide,” Deharo said. He said the agents yelled “Don’t be dumb! Don’t run away!”

In that regard, Deharo’s account conflicts with the official version. Deharo said he ran because he thought the agents were chasing him. And he believes the agents knew right away that he had fallen off the cliff.

“We were running,” he said. “They were very close to us. . . . They knew what happened.”

After he fell, Deharo said, the agents responded to his screams as he lay in the canyon. They reached his side within minutes and summoned medical help, he said.

“They got there fast,” he said. “I was yelling for help. Thank God they helped me, or I could have died there.”

However, Border Patrol spokesmen Steve Kean said the two agents never yelled to the fleeing men and did not chase them.

According to one agent involved, Kean said, the agents dispatched by fellow agents at the checkpoint arrested one man near a fence separating the railroad tracks from the state parkland. They then went into the underbrush where the men had headed after scaling the fence; the agents were directed toward the canyon by an agent using a night scope, Kean said.

“They heard movement in the brush and found the second alien, who had slipped slightly down the ravine,” Kean said. This differs from Monday’s account, in which the Border Patrol said they arrested the first two men together about 250 yards from the cliff.

After helping the man to the top, Kean said, the agents began checking the canyon with their flashlights. They heard one of the injured men groan. They called for medical help, and one agent went down into the canyon to where the men were lying, Kean said.

Cisneros’ death, the fifth near the checkpoint this year, revived a debate about tactics. Migrant advocates say the Border Patrol should not have tried to arrest the men on treacherous coastal terrain that was familiar to agents but not to their quarry.

In a telephone interview from Los Angeles, Cisneros’ sister also blamed the Border Patrol. She plans to seek legal action with the help of advocate groups; both the Mexican Consulate in San Diego and the American Friends Service Committee, a border human rights group, are looking into Cisneros’ death.

“I sincerely think it was the fault of the Border Patrol,” said Guadalupe Cisneros Ramirez, 28. “I want this cleared up. Why did they chase them in that area? You would suppose that they knew that canyon was there.”

On the other hand, Kean reiterated his contention that many deaths and injuries to illegal immigrants in accidents near the checkpoint and the border can be attributed to smugglers who force their charges to risk their lives.

A park ranger who was at the scene Sunday night said Cisneros died because he fell headlong with hitting anything on the way down. Deharo and his brother-in-law, Guadalupe Diaz, survived with broken limbs and contusions because they tumbled down the side of the canyon, Ranger Jim Long said.

“They fell about the same distance, but they tumbled,” Long said.

Long said there have been several deaths from falls in the rough hills overlooking the beach. A man being chased by the Border Patrol died in a fall from a cliff within a mile from the scene of Tuesday’s incident in 1989, he said.

Kean said he was not aware of that incident. He said he does not believe the Border Patrol can change its tactics to prevent further injuries.

“We are aware of the terrain there, and we try to prevent injury at all times to the illegal aliens,” Kean said. “We cannot anticipate what people are going to do, what smugglers are going to try. It’s just a tragic consequence of the illegal immigration phenomenon.”

Caltrans plans to build a fence in the freeway center divider near the checkpoint and the border to cut down on the number of people trying to run across the freeway, Kean said.

On Tuesday, the Border Patrol got support from an activist group that favors reducing both legal and illegal immigration. A spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform took issue with migrant advocates’ criticism of immigration agents.

“These activist groups are designed for one reason: to hinder the Border Patrol,” FAIR spokesman Ben Seeley said. “The smugglers have absolutely no regard for anything but the buck that they are making.”

Deharo is in fair condition at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla with a broken leg. Diaz is in fair condition, and is being treated for a broken leg and bruises in the intensive care unit.

Although he has crossed illegally in the past, Deharo said he had never had to run across the freeway before. He said Juarez did not warn him about the terrain when he dropped the men off and told them to meet him north of the checkpoint.

“Maybe he didn’t know,” Deharo said. “Maybe he did.”