COLUMN ONE : A Border Bottleneck Nightmare : Traffic has gone from bad to brutal as San Ysidro inspectors face a rise in legal and illegal crossings. Critics say problems hurt trade ties and show how close--yet how far apart--U.S. and Mexico really are.

High noon at the world’s busiest border crossing: a thousand motors grumble in the heat.

A thousand car radios fill the air with wisps of music--rap, ranchera, classical--and the voices of announcers reporting how bad the border traffic is. The northbound lines of vehicles stretch like steel serpents, inching interminably over ramps and under bridges toward the hulking inspection station that is the gateway to the United States.

Faces glazed behind windshields, the drivers yawn, read and gulp cold drinks sold by vendors who wade through the sluggish river of traffic. The drivers snarl and honk at an obnoxious Buick Regal, 1970s funk blasting from its sunroof, that cuts into line.

And they wait.

Despite the North American Free Trade Agreement, despite rhetoric about cross-border cooperation, this is the reality at the San Ysidro Port of Entry: driving from Tijuana to San Diego can be a nightmare. A nerve-wrenching, brake-grinding, carbon monoxide-sucking, fistfight-provoking nightmare.

The inherent conflicts in the mission of border law enforcement have escalated this year. Whether U.S. tourists or Mexican shoppers, honest crossers are caught in the middle as federal guardians confront the dangers of illegal immigration and drug smuggling and the demands of legitimate commerce. It is a telling scene from the drama of ambivalent relations between the United States and Mexico, two societies that remain further apart than they appear, two paradoxical partners.

“The problem here is that each side interprets what’s going on at the border in their own language, in their own psychology,” said Charles Nathanson of San Diego Dialogue, a research group that promotes trans-border cooperation. “When Mexicans see the waits at the border, they assume the Americans don’t want anything to do with them: It’s an insult. Americans see the lines and say the Mexicans deserve to wait. . . . In that sense, it reflects on our relationship and poisons our relationship. But the main problem is that it hurts the economy of the region.”

Border-crossers have endured lines for years, especially during holidays and rush hours. But the current traffic problems seem to defy logic, flaring up around-the-clock and fading, temporarily, as more inspectors are deployed. Border agencies rarely succeed in opening all 24 lanes at San Ysidro, which recorded about 41.9 million legal crossings last year.

The traffic has been as bad as a vendor named Lalo, a street pundit with a cartful of newspapers, can remember. “On weekends, when you get all the tourists and the people coming back who went drinking, whooof”--he gestures skyward--”it’s disorder. Pure disorder.”

Responding to the growing complaints, Commissioner Doris Meissner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service met in San Diego Sept. 15 with government and business leaders from both nations. She brought encouraging news: Inspectors in San Diego could more than double next year when an expected 400 new ones arrive at the southwest border.

The group convened by Meissner is examining a dozen innovative proposals to better manage traffic, such as scrutinizing vehicles with video cameras and foot patrols, creating electronic signs and radio reports to direct Mexican and U.S. drivers to designated lanes and using civilians to free inspectors from desk duties. Researchers from San Diego Dialogue will evaluate the strategies as they are tested.

“I don’t think people should accept the border the way it is now,” said Mark Reed, the INS district director, who appointed new administrators in a recent shake-up. “We are going to be doing positive things in terms of people who cross that border legally.”

The legal flow has been stymied by the impact of Operation Gatekeeper, the Border Patrol’s yearlong campaign against the illegal flow. As more agents defend open terrain, smugglers have shifted to a direct and alarmingly vulnerable route: the port of entry.

Hellbent crossers rushing inspectors in cars and on foot have forced the installation of concrete barriers. Interceptions of illegal entrants, many with fraudulent documents, shot up by about 44% this year compared to last year, according to the INS.

Until recently, punishment of the gate-crashers was almost nonexistent, Reed said.

“It got to the point that we invited unlawful entry,” he said. “The port became a hole in the fence. All we would do was take the [phony] card and tell them not do it again. By our inaction, there was no deterrent. We are trying to change that mentality, that culture of the port of entry.”

The INS shares management of the port with the U.S. Customs Service, which has simultaneously toughened drug interdiction measures this year--partly in response to allegations of corruption. With more searches and investigations, delays have grown here and at the other major western ports, El Paso and Nogales, Ariz., where the Patrol has also expanded, according to Gustavo De La Vina, western regional director of the INS.

“It’s the same scenario as we increase the pressure between the ports,” he said.

The growing cross-border economy and culture suffer as a result, according to critics. Joining in the call to speed legal commerce are the Mexican foreign secretary, the U.S. consul in Tijuana and companies that benefit from Mexican consumers or laborers: Japanese manufacturers with San Diego offices and Tijuana factories, even the San Diego Padres.

Executives resort to crossing on foot and using a second car on the other side. Some Mexican shoppers, who spend an estimated $2.6 billion a year in the U.S., have given up and kept their business in Tijuana.

“There is no necessary contradiction between effective law enforcement and facilitation of commerce,” Nathanson said. “The economies of San Diego and Tijuana are increasingly integrated. We have a huge population of frequent crossers who are the backbone of this region’s current and future prosperity.”

The ports’ efficiency has been hampered by a lack of federal funds and by bureaucratic infighting between the INS and Customs, critics say.

Federal officials blame a lack of personnel, especially at the INS. Overwhelmed inspectors are expected to detect lawbreakers while processing 120 entries an hour--one vehicle every 30 seconds. The onslaught foments turnover; 54 inspectors have left this year, according to assistant port director Martin Minor. The inspector work force in San Diego totals about 400, about 140 of them with the INS.

“Traffic has increased tremendously,” said Art Roy, a 20-year supervisory immigration inspector. “We’re simply not staffed to run 24 lanes.”

Although Tijuana-bound traffic moves more quickly, the Mexican government’s complaints about the northbound lines run up against a hard fact: cross-border crime involves the protection and participation of corrupt Mexican police.

At least 12 Mexican officers have been arrested at the ports this year with smuggled drugs, weapons or stolen U.S. vehicles. In a confrontation at gunpoint in front of shocked motorists in June, San Ysidro inspectors arrested two Mexican federal police officers who chased and tried to kidnap a carload of returning U.S. tourists.

And inspectors have videotaped a uniformed officer of the Tijuana municipal police handing bogus immigration documents to vehicle passengers in plain view, on U.S. turf, a few hundred yards south, according to U.S. officials. Roy said the video shows a suspected smuggler “chewing out” the officer after inspectors caught the passengers who bought the documents.

Another official said: “If they would do something about the smugglers who operate right down there in the open, that would help us facilitate the traffic.”

Manic Marketplace

The daily scene at San Ysidro resembles a manic marketplace boiling with the combined energies of transportation, entrepreneurship and organized crime.

Tijuana’s downtown boulevards feed into a network of ramps leading to the crossing lanes. Savvy veterans use right-hand lanes because tourists returning from the night-life district of Avenue Revolucion crowd the left side.

Gustavo Guzman, 31, crosses at dawn to work two maintenance jobs at San Diego office buildings, part of a commuter work force estimated at 40,000. Guzman has waited as long as two hours and 15 minutes; he passes the time with prayer and cumbia music.

“I pray the Rosary and then I turn on the radio,” said Guzman, of Tijuana. “The closer you get, the more aggravated you get, because you can see how slow they are going.”

The concrete arena verges on a Hobbesian no-man’s land. Motorists bullying their way forward create dreaded “phantom lines” that founder in unattended lanes or between real lines. Skirmishes erupt when drivers try desperately to change lanes; they exchange insults, mangle antennas and get out and throw punches.

Luis Hernandez, a mechanic from Tijuana who works at Pacific Bell, once squared off with someone who cut in front of him.

“I jumped out and he jumped out,” said Hernandez from behind the wheel of his brown pickup. “I faked like I was going to punch him, but instead I grabbed his keys out of the ignition and threw them as far as I could. It makes you angry that people do that after you have been waiting an hour.”

The main beneficiaries of the tumult seem to be an army of merchants who, as tends to be the case at the border, are more organized than the air of confusion suggests. Vendors belong to a union and require city permits to sell on foot or in stalls lining the traffic island. Cultures collide in a smorgasbord of iconography: you can buy statuettes of Batman, Jesus, the Lion King, Michelangelo’s David, the Power Rangers, Bart Simpson and Mickey Mouse.

The motley bazaar includes the indigenous women beggars known as “Marias” and their haunting children, who play, eat and sleep on the grimy concrete. And a free-lance mechanic hangs out under a pink modernistic bridge with tools, parts and water at the ready. When cars stall, he hurries out to perform emergency surgery.

Smugglers operate among the pedestrians, using cellular phones and teen-age scouts on bicycles. Daring free-lancers lead groups of immigrants sprinting past inspectors onto the freeway. Sophisticated rings supply fraudulent documents or hide clients in vehicles, catering to women and children who hope to avoid the dangers of the canyons. Women account for twice as many immigration arrests at the ports as men, compared to about 20% of Border Patrol arrests.

As expected, the launching of Operation Gatekeeper last October pushed more smuggling to the ports.

There have been several recent cases of corrupt inspectors, but the assembly-line pace works against even the most diligent guardians--who work only four hours at a time in booths because of the noxious haze of pollution.

On a recent morning, inspectors handled two cases simultaneously: the muscular driver of a Volkswagen van, a carpenter by training, had charged an illegal immigrant $200 to sneak him across in a hinged compartment disguised as a stereo speaker. And a Customs dog sniffed out 30 pounds of marijuana in the dashboard of a 1995 Nissan Sentra driven by a chubby, bald and agitated man named Sergio Pineda Lugo, 34.

Pineda did not fit the profile of the average drug mule, describing himself as a former bureaucrat for the state of Sinaloa. “There were cutbacks and I got laid off,” he said, shrugging.

Inspectors catch a stream of “impostors” who typically “rent” documents--an authentic green card, a fake border-crossing card--and follow the smuggler across. The smuggling “packages” cost as much as $1,000.

Farm worker Saul Murillon Ramirez, a curly-haired 26-year-old from Michoacan, landed in the lockup at San Ysidro recently after a fast-talking vendor made him a border-crossing card with his photo for $200, coached him on answering inspectors’ questions and sent him to a pedestrian lane.

During a previous trip to Los Angeles, Murillon hiked through rugged terrain guarded by the Border Patrol. But he said: “They say there’s more vigilance in the canyons.”

Other prisoners did not even use fake papers; the smugglers simply told them to bluff.

Impostors have been emboldened by a longstanding directive not to arrest illegal entrants at the port. But U.S. Atty. Alan Bersin implemented a sterner approach this summer: More than 1,800 fraudulent document-holders have been arrested and formally deported since July 14, spending days in custody and risking prosecution for a repeat attempt.

A general immigration crackdown has flooded jails and courts here, so prisoners must undergo deportation hearings as far away as Las Vegas. The policy adds to the car lines, since each prisoner requires half an hour to process.

But authorities hope that the deterrent has kicked in, noting that arrests and lines have begun to decline. Better enforcement will improve service with a mix of common sense and high-tech, officials say.

The Designated Commuter Lane, a pilot project scheduled to open soon at the smaller Otay Mesa port, on the southeast edge of San Diego, represents a modest step toward the future. For a still-undetermined fee, selected business commuters will pay to use a fast lane equipped with scales, computerized data banks, encrypted codes and other technology.

Such a system is being used at the Canadian border, but critics say the Mexican border is a very different story. They fear that the commuter lane will simply become the latest hole, exploited by smugglers with political and economic clout. Advocates argue that the screening will be stringent.

On a more practical level, everyone looks forward to the day when new inspectors occupy the booths that now sit empty, symbols of the distance between nations.

“When you talk about the U.S. and Mexico, there is a lack of confidence in each other,” said commuter Guzman. “The solution is that they need to cooperate better.”