Debate Rages on Border Crackdown in Wake of U.S.-Mexico Agreement : Immigration: Pact will lead to new steps, including repatriation of illegal crossers to Mexican interior. Meanwhile, value of Operation Gatekeeper is questioned.

Political pressure on both sides of the Southwest border produced an agreement last week for unprecedented U.S.-Mexican cooperation on border issues while heating up a debate about whether a Border Patrol crackdown here is working.

On Wednesday, Mexico announced significant measures including expansion of the Grupo Beta border police unit, tougher action against smugglers and a joint pilot program to repatriate illegal immigrants from San Diego to the Mexican interior. Although the Mexican government remains sensitive to accusations of interference with Mexican immigration, the new pledges will slow illegal crossings, according to both Mexican and U.S. officials.

“They will work with us on some things that are very difficult for them,” said Doris Meissner, commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, in an interview Friday. “From our standpoint, I think we are going to get cooperation on areas of work that really are important for us. . . . The indirect impact for us is very positive.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. Border Patrol withstood criticism of its 4-month-old Operation Gatekeeper crackdown here. Arrests had declined steadily last year, leading Atty. Gen. Janet Reno and others to credit the operation with deterring illegal crossings. But after arrests shot up more than 27% in the past month, critics said Gatekeeper’s deployment of three lines of agents within two miles of the border has failed. They demanded that all agents be deployed directly on the border, similar to a dramatic blockade in El Paso.

The Border Patrol here began shifting agents closer to the border last week. But officials denied any strategy change and attributed the arrest increase to seasonal migration trends, the devaluation of the peso and enhanced enforcement.

“We’re trying new tactics with additional agents,” said Border Patrol spokeswoman Ann Summers. “We will have some more of the visible deterrent. . . . It’s a combination of what we have been doing all along and some high-profile deployment.”

Commissioner Meissner insisted that the plan is working.

“We are adjusting Gatekeeper all along,” she said. “We don’t have any reason to question the fundamental strategy.”

Like the claims suggesting overnight victory, the criticism of Operation Gatekeeper seems exaggerated and indicates a superficial understanding of the border, veteran border agents said.

The meeting of U.S. and Mexican diplomats and immigration officials in Mexico last week produced more clear-cut results. The agreements are likely to impede illegal immigration and border crime, and--according to many observers--result from President Clinton’s $40-billion loan guarantee to bolster the battered Mexican economy.

The plan to expand Grupo Beta, an elite police unit that has reduced border violence and avoided corruption scandals, will double the Tijuana force to 100 officers, according to coordinator Alejandro Olea Garcia. Olea, 44, a retired colonel of the presidential military guard, was recently named chief of the unit, which protects migrants from criminals and abusive police officers and works closely with U.S. law enforcement along the border.

Moreover, Mexico will form two new units on the border with Texas, probably in Ciudad Juarez and Matamoros. In addition, a struggling Grupo Beta offshoot on the Arizona border will be reorganized and a central training academy will be created, officials said. Grupo Beta will redouble its fight against organized smuggling gangs as the economic crisis foments illegal immigration, Olea said.

“Beta cannot impede the migratory flow because the Mexican Constitution guarantees free movement of Mexican migrants,” Olea said in an interview Thursday. “But if there is an increase in migration, there is an increase in smuggling. Beta will act against those who take advantage of migrants, such as the smugglers.”

Domestic political concerns have made Mexico sensitive to measures that support U.S. immigration enforcement. While Olea said Mexican policy remains unchanged, he acknowledged that a crackdown on smuggling will reduce the migratory flow.

Along with Grupo Beta, Mexican migration police have launched a nationwide campaign against the smuggling organizations that traffic in immigrants--often with the aid of corrupt Mexican police. A special operation on Mexico’s southern boundary will target the smuggling of U.S.-bound, non-Mexican migrants.

“There was an acute awareness of the professionalism issues that surround this business,” Meissner said. “I was very impressed by the sense of commitment that they exhibited toward developing a professional law enforcement effort.”

U.S.-Mexico relations on border issues have entered “a more realistic era,” Olea said. Although couched in the usual polite rhetoric, the joint announcement made last week was notable for specifics, such as accords to close environmentally hazardous border tunnels used by migrants and bandits in Arizona and to tighten security at border bridges and road crossings to stop illegal immigrants from running into traffic. The United States pledged to expedite naturalization procedures and the granting of border-crossing cards to legal immigrants.

Mexico also agreed to a proposal that could slow the “revolving door” at the border: repatriating selected illegal immigrants to the Mexican interior, rather than simply releasing them into Mexican border cities. In periodic experiments, the two nations have flown or bused small numbers of captured immigrants south.

Commissioner Meissner said Friday that Mexico has accepted a $5-million pilot program in which repeat crossers identified with computerized fingerprinting technology will choose whether to face criminal prosecution for illegal entry or accept a plane ride to their home regions in Mexico.

“We are proposing to try to test whether interior repatriation works as a deterrent,” Meissner said. “Now that we have the fingerprinting equipment we know if they come back . . . and whether we should do this more broadly.”

The number of arrests defining a repeat crosser has not been determined, Meissner said. The program, which depends on approval of the proposed federal budget, would involve several thousand immigrants, officials have said.

Concerned migrant advocates said the economic crisis appears to have spurred Mexico to cut down on immigration in exchange for the U.S. bailout. Antonio Garcia Sanchez, the state human rights ombudsman of Baja California, said interior repatriation would amount to direct Mexican interference with migration.

“If this is about controlling borders, than it should be strictly about borders and not interfere with people’s right of movement,” Garcia said. The strengthened Grupo Beta should stick to its original mission of protecting migrants, he said.

“If with (Grupo Beta) the plan is to control or redirect migration to other parts of the border, I reject the idea,” he said.

The new Mexican initiatives coincided with demands for tougher Border Control actions north of the border. In a stern letter to Meissner Thursday, five California congressmen cited the increase in arrests as a sign that Operation Gatekeeper has not stemmed the flow of migrants and accused immigration authorities of lacking “political will.”

“The disheartening performance of Operation Gatekeeper . . . is testament to the need for putting Border Patrol agents directly on the line,” the letter stated. “We believe the initiative known as “Hold the Line” in El Paso is easily adaptable to other sectors. It was as simple as stationing, on a 24-hour basis, a Border Patrol agent every several hundred yards and maintaining a visible deterrent for illegal entrants.”

San Diego agents said privately that they have been directed to increase their presence along the border. The agency will also proceed next week with longtime plans for another temporary shutdown of the freeway checkpoint near San Clemente, shifting those agents to the hard-hit front lines on the southeastern edge of San Diego.

But Border Patrol officials contend the San Diego strategy differs fundamentally from that in El Paso because of the rugged terrain, the greater volume and desperation of the immigrants and the volatile history of the Tijuana region.

If commanders order a full-fledged blockade, agents said, violent confrontations with border-crossers could follow.

“We who have been here over 10 years don’t want to go back to that same garbage,” a veteran agent said. “I don’t want to be in a position where I have to shoot somebody who isn’t even a criminal, somebody who just wants to eat.”