Post-Prison Deportation to Change : Repatriation: Pilot program calls for transporting illegal immigrants to the interior of Mexico instead of depositing them at border.

U.S. and Mexican immigration authorities have agreed to a plan in which illegal immigrants who complete prison sentences in California will be deported to the Mexican interior, rather than being released at the international border.

The goal of the pilot program, according to INS Commissioner Gene McNary and Mexican immigration officials, is twofold: to deter so-called “criminal aliens” from re-entering the United States after deportation and to reduce crime in Mexican border communities.

It will mark the first time that the two countries cooperate on repatriating illegal immigrants identified as convicted criminals, officials said.

Although Mexico remains politically sensitive about being perceived as working with the United States on immigration issues, cooperation between the two immigration services has increased in the past several years.

McNary also said in a recent interview that officials are “on the brink” of another program involving illegal immigrants who have committed no crime other than crossing the border illegally.

He said Mexico would offer transportation back to Mexican interior states for non-criminal migrants who are caught by the U.S. Border Patrol, sometimes repeatedly.

“The Mexicans are talking about meeting us at the border and taking these people to their villages or wherever it might be, so we don’t have this game we play when we take them back to Tijuana, and we get them back the next day, or the same day in some cases,” McNary said during a recent speech to an immigration reform group in San Diego.

A Mexican immigration administrator confirmed that his government plans to offer free bus transportation for some non-criminal immigrants to home regions from the San Diego-Tijuana border, which accounts for half of all illegal immigration into the United States.

But Edmundo Salas, director of inspection for the migration section of the Secretariat of the Interior, said that plan would be strictly voluntary and is still being developed.

“This would be a humanitarian measure,” Salas said. “We would help people who are without resources and want to return to their points of origin. . . . We feel there would be a good percentage who, after various attempts at crossing the border, might make the decision to go home.”

The Mexican government last provided such return transportation temporarily about five years ago, officials said.

Mexico has opposed periodic U.S proposals to send apprehended illegal immigrants back to their home communities, which would act as a deterrent because migrants often have to scrape together considerable savings for the trip north.

As to the pilot program for criminal aliens, it will initially involve 100 California prison inmates each month who will undergo deportation procedures while incarcerated, according to Duke Austin, spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. Mexican officials will screen deportees upon arrival to determine whether they are fugitives in that country.

Although officials said the initiative could begin within a month, some details remain unresolved. For example, although Austin said deportees would be turned over to Mexican authorities at the border to be bused to the interior, Salas said the plan calls for the U.S. to fly them to Mexico City.

U.S. officials hope to expand the effort if they determine that it discourages those targeted from returning to the United States.

“I think it’s a matter of showing it’s a success and making it full-scale,” McNary said.

Salas said Tijuana and other border cities have suffered from the presence of deported criminals.

“We don’t want the border to be full of people with bad records,” he said.

There are an estimated 15,000 “foreign felons” in the California prison system, the bulk of them from Latin America, according to state officials.

California Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy recently proposed legislation that would require deportation of illegal immigrants convicted of felonies.

No such law exists, and critics have said that a lack of INS resources prevents the deportation of some undocumented felons upon their release.