CHP to Begin Clearing 2 Freeways of Illegal Immigrants : Border: Patrols planned in hopes of halting fatalities that occur when people are struck while darting across traffic lanes.

Illegal immigrants heading north from the border along the medians of Interstates 5 and 805 will now be rounded up on a regular basis and removed from the freeway by the California Highway Patrol, the CHP announced Wednesday.

Starting next week, special enforcement details will be available around the clock to slow traffic in both directions and clear the freeways of pedestrians, CHP Capt. Mike Brown said. The move is the latest in a series of attempts to stop border-crossers from darting across traffic lanes from the median, where they are safe from U.S. Border Patrol pursuits.

Two CHP cars will snake across highway lanes to create traffic breaks on both sides of the freeway beginning Wednesday, while a third officer orders the people off the freeway, CHP Lt. Joe Garrison said. “We create no more traffic hazard than if we were going to remove a ladder or a wheel, or a chair (from traffic lanes),” he said of the tactic, which the agency has been testing several times a day over the past two weeks.

The Border Patrol does not chase suspected illegal immigrants once they get on the freeway, for fear they will run into traffic. But the roadway is far from safe: Since 1989, 52 pedestrians have been killed in the area directly north of the border and 65 have been injured, according to the CHP.

The California Department of Transportation estimates that 350 men, women and children cross the freeway nightly in that area. The CHP presented the plan as the last leg of the “three E’s of traffic safety.”

“We did the education. We did the engineering. And now we’re going to do the enforcement,” Garrison said.

Walking on the freeway is a violation of state law and officers will have the option of warning pedestrians, citing them, or detaining them, he said.

Warning signs, pamphlets and public service announcements on both sides of the border have attempted to educate crossers about freeway dangers, and Caltrans plans to begin construction in November on an 8-foot chain-link fence that will extend from the border for 4 miles along the median to discourage crossings.

The $922,000 fence will make it easier for CHP officers to round up pedestrians, CHP and Caltrans officials said. “We realize that the fence won’t work without the law enforcement aspect,” said Caltrans spokesman Kyle Nelson.

CHP officials stressed that the goal of the new program is only to take pedestrians to safety, not to assist the Border Patrol with the apprehension of illegal immigrants. But some worry the CHP program could cause migrants to panic and run into traffic, despite the traffic breaks. They also fear the sweeps will lead to heightened cooperation between agencies.

Enrique Loeza Tovar, Mexico’s consul in San Diego, met with Brown, the CHP captain, last week. “He was concerned that this new policy might cause more accidents,” Vice Consul Marcela Merino said. “To detain them in the highway, that could startle them and cause them to run.”

Loeza was also concerned the CHP would hand pedestrians over to the Border Patrol, Merino said, but Brown assured him this wouldn’t happen.

“You don’t know what the reaction is going to be from the immigrant,” said Bill Dominguez, a project coordinator at the county Department of Transborder Affairs who participates in a county-wide Highway Fatality Task Force. “We’re all taking a wait-and-see kind of position.”

But if the new measures create a safety hazard for the migrants, word of the dangers will probably spread, Dominguez added. “The immigrant grapevine is very very, accurate. If it becomes real problematic, the word will get out there quick.”

While the CHP sweeps may improve pedestrian safety immediately north of the border, the stretch of freeway near the San Onofre Border Patrol checkpoint, 70 miles to the north, remains a problem. “The casualty rate is equal or higher there,” Dominguez said.

Brown of the CHP said the traffic patterns are different there and different CHP tactics would need to be deployed.

The CHP measures had more than pedestrian safety in mind, Garrison said. “The pedestrian may very well be expired, but the person who hit them will always remember that,” he said. “All we’ve gotten from the motorists who’ve passed by (during the trial sweeps) is the thumbs-up.”

Doug Perry, executive director of the San Ysidro Chamber of Commerce, agrees: “Every time (an immigrant) gets on the freeway, there isn’t a person who doesn’t pass by who isn’t scared to death they’re going to hit one.”

A Border Patrol spokesman said the fence and the CHP traffic breaks could help them by keeping illegal immigrants off the freeways and forcing them to cross the border farther to the east, where they are easier to pursue, but he said the agency does not plan to make use of the roundups to arrest pedestrians.

“We will not be going out and making any concerted effort to apprehend the aliens,” spokesman Steve Kean said. “It’s a CHP operation, and we will continue to dedicate our resources to the border itself.”

However, if people continue to get on the freeway, the creation of the new CHP units will make it easier for the agencies to engage in joint operations, he added.

Between August and November of last year, the Border Patrol requested CHP traffic breaks and apprehended more than 1,000 illegal immigrants, Kean said.