INS Tightens Chase Rules After Tragedy

U.S. immigration authorities, harshly criticized after a Border Patrol chase led to a crash that killed six people outside a Temecula high school, have decided to tighten restrictions on high-speed pursuits, greatly limiting agents’ discretion, officials said Friday.

The new policy, released in Washington, prohibits agents from embarking on high-speed pursuits unless four specific safety criteria are met, thereby ensuring that the “immediate danger” of the chase is no greater than the “potential danger” to the public should suspects remain at large.

Moreover, Border Patrol officials will be required to terminate high-speed chases when, in the judgment of officers or their supervisors, “the danger posed to the public, the officers or the suspect is greater than the benefit of apprehending the suspect.”

The revised guidelines--designed to address widely criticized shortcomings in the existing pursuit policy--will probably not go into effect for several weeks, until the information has been disseminated to field offices and agents across the nation have been briefed, said Virginia C. Kice, spokeswoman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Officials are still formulating operating instructions, Kice said.

In Orange County, where the chases have spilled onto city streets and sometimes ended in injuries to motorists, San Clemente city officials and others have criticized the Border Patrol.

The tightened restrictions, disclosed in Washington, comes at a time when the Border Patrol--a uniformed enforcement arm of the INS--is facing almost unprecedented scrutiny as a result of the June 2 Temecula incident, in which an immigrant-smuggling van fleeing a Border Patrol sedan crashed, killing six people.

The tragedy sparked outrage in the fast-growing Riverside County suburb and elsewhere in California, where Border Patrol chases have caused at least 21 fatalities since 1980.

Prompted by the Temecula tragedy, two congressional panels are scheduled to hold hearings examining Border Patrol policies within the next weeks. Lawmakers will examine the revised policies and may seek additional restrictions, said U.S. Rep. Al McCandless of La Quinta, ranking Republican on the Government Operations Subcommittee on Information, Justice and Agriculture.

“If the subcommittee finds that current pursuit policies need further revisions in order to keep our citizens safe while controlling our borders, we will pursue such revisions with vigor,” said McCandless, whose district includes the Temecula area of Riverside County.

At the time of the Temecula crash, U.S. immigration authorities say they were already reviewing pursuit policies. Critics have long said that a wide-ranging revision of guidelines was needed, particularly in densely populated southern California, where most of the chases take place.

In Orange County, for example, a pickup truck carrying suspected illegal immigrants bolted from the San Onofre checkpoint and led authorities on a chase that continued onto a busy commercial street in San Clemente in September, 1990. The truck rammed a car driven by a San Juan Capistrano mother taking her 7-year-old son to school, resulting in minor injuries to the woman and four occupants of the truck.

Last January, two men suspected of smuggling illegal immigrants led Border Patrol agents on a wild chase that ended on an Irvine street when the suspects crashed their station wagon. No one was injured in the crash, which prompted city officials in San Clemente to renew criticism of high-speed chases, charging they endanger innocent lives.

Friday’s announcement won praise from San Clemente City Councilman Truman Benedict, who recently met with U.S. Rep. Ron Packard (R-Oceanside) about moving the San Onofre Border Patrol station, one of the busiest in the nation, farther south into San Diego County.

The pursuit plan is “a step in the right direction,” Benedict said. “I think that it might help. The Temecula crash was so tragic.”

Border Patrol agents, Benedict said, “should stop the chase when it becomes dangerous to anyone, whether on a freeway or anyplace.

“People’s lives are not worth a pursuit,” he said.

Under the revised guidelines, agents may not initiate high-speed chases unless the following four criteria are met:

* Suspects seek to avoid arrest by using vehicles at excessive speeds or committing other hazardous moving violations.

* Drivers refuse to stop at officers’ commands.

* Suspects “would present a danger to human life or cause serious injury.”

* Officers notify communications personnel.

Once a chase has begun, the new policies require that Border Patrol dispatchers “immediately” notify state and local law enforcement authorities and request aircraft assistance where available.

In Temecula and elsewhere, local law enforcement officers have said that Border Patrol agents never routinely informed them that high-speed pursuits were headed their way.

In the future, communications officers will also be obliged to advise a supervisory agent, who is then charged with monitoring the pursuit and determining whether it should be continued or terminated.

During chases, the new policies will prohibit agents from ramming and heading off pursued vehicles or forcing them into parked cars, ditches, or other obstacles.

Times staff writer Eric Young contributed to this story.