A River of Hope Becomes River of Tears : Border: At least six illegal immigrants have drowned crossing the rain-swollen Tijuana. Some criticize the smugglers who entice the migrants to make the treacherous attempt.

The corpses have been washing up onto riverbanks and beaches for weeks now, casualties of powerful rainstorms that have made the U.S.-Mexico border increasingly treacherous for illegal immigrants.

At least six people have drowned while trying to cross the Tijuana River and flooded waterways in U.S. territory since heavy rains pounded this region last month.

Sixteen more migrants are reported missing and feared dead. Several were last seen struggling in the muddy, fast-moving waters that have become the newest hazard--along with robbers, rocky terrain and freeway traffic--of the busiest crossing zone on the border.

“For every body that we have found there’s a lot more people that have drowned and nobody knows about,” said Sgt. John Everhart of the San Diego Lifeguard Service.

Despite new storms this weekend, the desperate advance of border crossers continues. Authorities found three more bodies--two men and a woman--Saturday on the beach near the mouth of the river. It had not been determined whether the woman, identified as Celia Galeano Garcia, was the same woman who witnesses reported was shouting for help as the current pulled her toward the Pacific Ocean.

More than 175 migrants have been saved from the water by U.S. rescuers--lifeguards, Border Patrol agents or police--since early January.

Officers of Grupo Beta, an elite Mexican border police unit, are also making rescues and warning migrants against risking their lives.

“For me it has been very symbolic,” said Javier Valenzuela Malagon, chief of Grupo Beta. “If we can’t stop them, if the river can’t stop them, what can stop them?”

Relatives have identified some of the dead, such as Hector Hernandez Rodriguez, 43, a gardener and father of three who lost his grip on a cable spanning the Tijuana River and was swept off by the current while his wife screamed.

Others remain nameless, such as the young man found wearing dark pants, high-top basketball shoes and a T-shirt with the legend “Looking Out for Number 1.”

Illegal crossings usually surge in January as immigrants return north after spending Christmas holidays in Mexico. Many slip into the United States along a 5 1/2-mile section extending west from the international port of entry at San Ysidro to the Pacific Ocean--a prime area because of its proximity to freeways, public transportation and urban, predominantly Latino neighborhoods.

Usually, the Tijuana River--which slants northwest into U.S. territory near the port of entry and parallels the border to the ocean--is no more than knee-deep. But the floods that spread death and destruction in the Mexican border city of Tijuana also raised the river’s water level and created creeks and lagoons north of the border as deep as 35 feet, lifeguards said.

Smugglers of illegal immigrants have responded by stringing ropes, cables and nets across the water and by using makeshift flotation devices. One entrepreneur ferries clients on a raft made of tire inner tubes and charges migrants on a sliding scale, with higher fares for non-swimmers, Mexican officers said.

Most of those rescued do not know how to swim, including seven border crossers stranded in muck who were recently plucked off an island by a police helicopter, Everhart said.

U.S. and Mexican officers condemn Tijuana smugglers, known as polleros , for subjecting migrants to unnecessary danger. Unlike in El Paso, where well-organized smugglers use a fleet of homemade rafts to transport illegal immigrants across the Rio Grande, large sections of the San Diego line can still be crossed by land.

“A lot of people don’t have any idea that they can cross anywhere else,” said Border Patrol spokesman Steve Kean. “The smugglers aren’t advising them of that.”

The flooding has pushed some migrants to land routes in the rocky canyons east of the port of entry, where the Border Patrol has been making more arrests than usual, Kean said.

Crossing on the west persists, however, because smugglers do not want to change their turf and believe that their chances of getting caught there are less.

“Some smugglers don’t think the Migra (Border Patrol) will go into the water to chase them,” said Arturo (Turi) Rodriguez, who described himself as a veteran smuggler.

Interviewed as he looked for clients near the port of entry, the talkative 27-year-old said: “A good pollero doesn’t risk the life of a client . . . But these migrants do what they are told.”

Hector Hernandez paid the price for doing as he was told. The former railroad maintenance worker from the state of Puebla immigrated illegally three years ago with two of his teen-age children and found work as a gardener in New York. His wife, Delfina, stayed behind, said Norberto Sanchez Romero, a family friend.

After spending the holidays in his hometown, Atlixco, Hernandez set off for the north and this time took Delfina with him. She had decided to join the others in New York, leaving their youngest son with relatives, Sanchez said.

“They were full of expectations, making plans,” he said. “We gave them a hug and wished them all the best in the world.”

A smuggler charged the couple about $1,000 each for their passage to Los Angeles, where they planned to catch a flight to New York. In Tijuana, they joined a group of migrants spirited through a border area, known as “Smuggler’s Canyon,” shortly after midnight Jan. 31.

According to officials, the group reached a point on the U.S. side where a cable was rigged across the river. They waded forward, the Hernandez couple bringing up the rear. But the group’s weight pulled down the cable and Delfina cried out as she felt herself sinking.

“She couldn’t swim, and he could,” Sanchez said. “He went to her aid. He told her to grab his belt and started towing her forward. Then he started yelling for help, he was tired, saying he couldn’t make it any further. . . . Someone grabbed her hand. She never saw Hector again.”

The hysterical Delfina remained nearby until Border Patrol agents arrived and turned her over to Mexican police, officials said. More than a week later, horseback riders found Hernandez’s body floating in the river, a sodden identification card in his pocket.

“She blames herself,” Sanchez said. “She said he drowned trying to save her.”

But Sanchez blames the smugglers. “I am very angry with these individuals who make people risk their lives. . . . You don’t play so easily with the life of a human being.”

With the rainy season in full swing, authorities on both sides of the border have worked together on rescues and preventive measures. In an extraordinary appeal, Gustavo De La Vina, chief agent of the San Diego sector of the Border Patrol, appeared on a Tijuana television station last week to warn migrants of the dangers of crossing the river and urge them to go east to dry land if they are determined to cross.

Border Patrol agents in the field have also used vehicle loudspeakers to urge gathering crowds to stay out of the polluted, deceptively fast waters.

On the Mexican side, Grupo Beta officers say they are trying to discourage crossings, arresting smugglers and preventing access to the south Tijuana River Levee, a key gathering point.

This represents a delicate policy shift for Grupo Beta, which was created to protect migrants from criminals and abusive authorities. Because of political sensitivities in Mexico, the unit refrains from impeding immigration except for safety reasons. Last year, Grupo Beta stopped mass charges of migrants through the Mexican customs station into the southbound lanes of Interstate 5.

Border Patrol veterans recall that in 1980, the most recent comparable year of storms, they found the bodies of drowned migrants well into the spring. Authorities fear more tragedies, given the risks posed by new rainstorms and the tenacity of the border crossers.

“We appeal to them not to do it. We tell them to think of their children. We appeal to their hearts,” said Francisco Venegas, a Grupo Beta commander. “But when we turn our backs for a moment, they are gone.”