Bank of Lights Planned to Deter Border Activity

The Army Corps of Engineers announced plans Wednesday to erect scores of floodlights along a 13-mile strip of land on the U.S.-Mexico border to deter drug smugglers and illegal aliens.

The proposal calls for raising 150 poles up to 60 feet tall that would support banks of lights and power lines, an Army spokesman said. The concrete and wooden poles would be installed on the north side of the international border about one mile inland from the Pacific Ocean. The lights would stretch to the San Ysidro Mountains, about one mile east of the port of entry at Otay Mesa.

The project is the latest in a series of federally funded programs to curb border crossings by undocumented migrants and smugglers, said Phil Reidinger, spokesman for the Army’s Joint Task Force working on law enforcement problems at the border.

The lighting will be strung across 13 miles of residential, farm and brush land that has become one of the most heavily trafficked border crossings in the world. Groupings of five to 16 light poles will be spaced 200 to 400 feet apart, leaving “a few gaps” of darkness where access by construction workers is limited, Reidinger said.

The lighting system is designed to bolster a 10-foot high, 11-mile-long fence in the Otay Mesa-San Ysidro area. South facing lights will be protected with bulletproof “armor,” officials said.

The fence, completed this year, was commissioned by the task force in 1990 after President Bush enlisted the Defense Department in the so-called war against drugs, said Patrick Buechner, an aide to Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Coronado), whose district includes the entire California-Mexico border.

In March, 1990, Hunter proposed lighting the border to deter drug trafficking, Buechner said. The Bush Administration subsequently earmarked $704,000 for such projects, Buechner said.

On Oct. 1, the Army Corps of Engineers will begin assessing public reaction to the lighting plan and will submit the proposal to the Defense Department for approval.

In the past, anti-immigrant activists drew government attention to illegal crossings with “Light Up the Border” rallies.

Hundreds of people parked cars along the border with their headlights on and pointing toward Mexico in a gesture of disdain for undocumented migrants. After eight monthly gatherings, the spectacle ended in June, 1990, when immigration officials commissioned banks of floodlights at crossing sites.

Immigration and Naturalization Service officials said that running lights along the length of the new fence will help deter crossing and smuggling attempts.

Immigrant rights activists say the proposal compounds the atmosphere of militarization on the U.S. side of the border. They say the added lighting, like the fence, will not deter people determined to enter the country illegally.

“Even if you can see every person coming across the border, it makes no difference if you don’t have the personnel to stop them,” said Andrea Skorepa, executive director of Casa Familiar, a social service center in San Ysidro.

Illegal foot traffic across the border remains heavy. Each year about half a million people come illegally from Mexico, according to Border Patrol records.