Light Brigade : First Segment of Border to Be Lit Up in Show of Force

Four years after activists aimed car headlights at the Tijuana hills to protest illegal immigration, their slogan--”light up the border”--is becoming reality: the U.S. Border Patrol is installing high-intensity lights along the entire 14-mile San Diego-Tijuana line.

A five-mile stretch of lights will begin functioning within a month as part of a Clinton Administration plan to toughen border enforcement. As the traditional post-holiday influx of illegal crossing intensifies, the Border Patrol is preparing for a new high-profile deployment strategy in San Diego.

“The problem down here is that (illegal immigrants) basically own the night,” said Gustavo De La Vina, chief agent of the San Diego sector where the patrol makes half of all arrests on the U.S.-Mexico border. “We own the day. But we are hampered by darkness.”

The new deployment plan includes the hiring of about 350 agents--and 172 civilian employees to free other agents working in support jobs for enforcement duty--according to Justice Department officials who asked not to be identified. In addition, 20 agents employed in detention duties will be replaced by private contractors and 78 positions lost to attrition will be filled, for a total of about 620 new agents on border duty, an official said.

“It’s a more effective use of our resources,” the official said.

However, four Southern California Congress members said Monday that the Administration’s package may provide fewer agents than promised by a $45-million package recently passed by Congress. They urged Atty. Gen. Janet Reno not to shortchange the perennially overworked Border Patrol.

“After years of fighting for adequate funding and a substantive increase in agents, we are unwilling to accept a lesser number,” said the letter from Reps. Randy Cunningham (R-San Diego), Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon), Carlos Moorhead (R-Glendale) and and Lynn Schenk (D-San Diego.)

During a visit to San Diego last year, Reno had questioned the efficiency of the Border Patrol’s deployment, pointing out that the 1,000-agent sector routinely has less than 100 agents guarding the border.

As well as staffing shortages, Border Patrol officials admit that hiring rushes during the 1980s allowed dubiously qualified, poorly trained recruits to slip through the system, resulting in abuse, misconduct and high turnover. More than 1,000 agents were hired in 1989 alone.

“A priority of this Administration is that people are screened and hired in an efficient, professional and adequate way,” the Justice Department official said.

The new lights are an extension of a program begun in 1990, when the Border Patrol installed tall stadium-type lights along a one-mile stretch of the Tijuana River levee that is a busy and often hazardous crossing area for illegal immigrants.

Those first lights were erected after protests by hundreds of demonstrators opposed to illegal immigration who parked on the U.S. side of the border and shined their headlights on crossing zones. They clashed verbally with counter-protesters, who charged that illegal immigrants were being made into scapegoats and who used mirrors to reflect the light north.

Border Patrol officials say the use of spotlights has reduced crime and helped agents detect illegal immigrants, who often wait until dusk to attempt the dash north, officials said.

Patrol officials have wanted to extend the lighting along the border for some time, but had to await completion of an environmental impact study. U.S. Army construction crews began installing lights this month along five miles of rugged hills between the Tijuana River levee and the Pacific Ocean. Commanders hope to light the rest of the 14-mile strip by October.

Border-crossing traditionally increases in January, when immigrants return after spending the holiday season in Mexico. This year, De La Vina has been under political pressure to respond with a blockade similar to a recent operation in El Paso, where a shift of agents to the border proved to be a deterrent.

De La Vina insists that a full-fledged blockade would fail in San Diego because of differences in the landscape and in the immigrant population.

Nonetheless, in recent weeks the Border Patrol has positioned more agents close to the front lines. The high-profile deployment has succeeded in some areas, but has not stopped migrants from crossing in other areas, De La Vina said.

“There just weren’t enough officers to contain the shift,” De La Vina said.

Observers on the Mexican side say the beefed-up enforcement is having a visible impact. Crowds of would-be immigrants at the border have grown larger than usual because more of them are stymied by the Border Patrol’s show of force, Mexican authorities say.

“There are more vehicles and a greater presence on the other side,” said Hugo Ayala, chief of the Grupo Beta police unit, which fights border crime and monitors the migratory flow. “Days go by and you see the same groups of people waiting to cross.”