Military, Police to Aid in New Push by Border Patrol

Fearing that Mexico’s continued economic slide may be driving more people north, U.S. authorities will unveil a comprehensive immigration control strategy today that calls for new assistance from the U.S. military and local police along the Southwestern border.

In a novel approach that quickly drew criticism from immigrant advocates, up to 135 police officers and sheriff’s deputies will ride with Border Patrol agents in San Diego County, transport prisoners and provide “support and security” for immigration officers in California and Arizona.

Meanwhile, as many as 350 soldiers--more than double the current Pentagon and National Guard commitments--are slated to conduct aerial and ground surveillance against drug and immigrant smuggling in the border zones, officials said.

But authorities stressed that the military personnel will remain within their current support role, assisting with night-vision equipment and electronic sensors and providing communications and transportation.

Border Patrol deployments, already at record levels of more than 5,400 agents nationwide, will be bolstered anew in California and Arizona starting next week in an effort to confront the annual post-New Year’s rush of illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America seeking to cross the border. Two hundred officers from throughout the nation will be reassigned to the region for 90 days--at a cost of almost $8 million--to be replaced permanently by recruits now in training.

The augmented ranks of agents will help staff new or seldom-used checkpoints on various roads and highways in Arizona and southeastern California that lead to metropolitan Los Angeles, including a new checkpoint to be set up next week on westbound Interstate 10 near Indio. Officials spoke about shutting the “back door” entry to Los Angeles now favored by many smugglers moving groups through the isolated border stretches east of San Diego.

And, in another attempt to disrupt well-entrenched smuggling rings, 60 new plainclothes agents will be assigned to area airports, including Los Angeles International Airport, a major transfer point for illegal immigrants bound for job markets from the Pacific Northwest to New York to Miami.

“This is basically taking the next step in our plan for border control,” said Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Doris Meissner, whose agency has spearheaded the administration’s aggressive approach on the politically potent issue. “We want to get the maximum enforcement impact as soon as possible during this season of heaviest migration pressure.”

Traditionally, many undocumented immigrants, after visiting their homelands, return north after the holidays, often accompanied by first-time crossers from their hometowns.

With the Mexican economy still staggering more than a year after the peso’s initial plunge--and more than 1 million Mexicans already thrown out of work--authorities this year anticipate a much larger surge of migrants, including many who are newly unemployed or otherwise face few prospects at home.

Trying to discourage such movement, U.S. authorities have embarked on an innovative policy of broadcasting messages on television and radio stations in Mexico and Central America, warning would-be border-jumpers of the heightened enforcement.

It is a difficult sell. Already this month, authorities have noted a sharp upturn in arrests compared to last year at major border crossing zones in the San Diego and Tucson areas.

The new plan from Washington melds three much-ballyhooed initiatives that the Clinton administration has launched during the past two years to pour resources into the border and demonstrate to the voters its hard-line stance against smugglers: Operation Gatekeeper in San Diego, Operation Safeguard in Arizona, and the Imperial Valley project, an anti-drug offensive in the desert 120 miles east of San Diego.

The intense enforcement activities in San Diego and south of Tucson have pushed the migrant flow to sparsely populated desert and mountain areas of Arizona and in eastern San Diego County, where authorities now plan to exert new pressure.

“We are tying these operations together,” said U.S. Atty. Alan Bersin of San Diego, who was appointed the Justice Department’s “border czar” to oversee a far-flung array of agencies. “When you put it into a matrix, you have a regional strategy that is backed up by resources.”

The decision to increase military and police involvement in border enforcement underlines how much the political climate has shifted--particularly now that a presidential election is approaching and immigration has emerged as a major political issue.

For years, Mexican officials and immigrant advocates expressed concern about the “militarization” of the border and the use of local police in the specialized area of immigration enforcement.

Today, however, with bipartisan political support for an enforcement buildup along the border, the desire to thwart illicit immigration has overwhelmed opposition to such policies.

The heightened military presence at the border will be confined to reconnaissance, transport and other functions that soldiers now perform, authorities said. As many as 350 troops from the Marines, Army and National Guard will be deployed in California and Arizona, more than doubling the contingent from Joint Task Force 6 now assigned to a multiagency anti-drug project in the Imperial Valley desert.

But in a departure, Bersin said the military will target immigrant smugglers as well as drug traffickers.

Still, the plan falls far short of proposals to post troops along the border in a deterrent role and deputize them to capture border-crossers. Some observers were relieved that the administration did not go that far.

“At least they’re not sending in the tanks,” said Vibiana Andrade of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Much more problematic, say Andrade and other immigrant advocates, is the administration’s decision to enlist local police and sheriff’s deputies alongside Border Patrol agents. Critics see a dangerous blurring of law enforcement roles.

“This is very troubling for us,” said Charles Wheeler, directing attorney of the National Immigration Law Center in Los Angeles. “When they’re on joint missions like that, you can’t really differentiate police actions from those of the INS.”

But Chief Richard Emerson of the Chula Vista Police Department calls the new Border Patrol partnership productive because illegal border-crossers can be victims of crime or perpetrators. Yet he does not want people in his heavily Latino community five miles from the border to think his officers are going to enforce immigration laws.

“We want to make the city safer for anyone, whether here legally or illegally,” Emerson said.

The Los Angeles and San Diego police departments have strictly limited cooperation with federal immigration officers because of fears that illegal--and even some legal--immigrants will be less likely to report crimes or come forward as witnesses if they identify the police with the INS. A few years ago, such concerns caused San Diego police to shelve a plan to conduct downtown foot patrols with Border Patrol agents, a program long in place in the Texas border city of El Paso.

Any restrictions on police-INS cooperation have long irked those seeking reductions in immigration levels.

The experimental police-INS plan will use about 135 officers to assist the Border Patrol in California and Arizona, according to Justice Department spokeswoman Ana Cobian.

In San Diego County, the biggest urban area on the border, about 35 officers from the Sheriff’s Department and Chula Vista will ride with Border Patrol agents, Cobian said. The federal government will pay the local officers on an overtime basis with an estimated price tag of up to $5 million during the program’s 90-day life.

U.S. officials insist that local officers will not enforce immigration law--a task legally reserved for federal agents specially trained in that often-arcane arena. Asked how the process would work, authorities described joint patrols in which police officers watched for those breaking local laws, such as theft and robbery statutes, while INS agents minded immigration matters.

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Curbing Illegal Immigration

The Clinton administration is expected to formally unveil a major new strategy today designed to help control illegal immigration along the Southwest border. Among other things, authorities plan to take action in these areas:

* STAFFING: Bolster U.S. Border Patrol presence in California and Arizona, while providing updated equipment.

* POLICE: About 135 sheriff’s deputies and police officers will work in tandem with Border Patrol agents in a novel partnership.

* MILITARY: Expand use of U.S. military and National Guard resources. Up to 350 soldiers will help staff night-vision scopes, monitor electronic sensors, assist with communications and transportation, and conduct aerial surveillance, among other tasks.

* CHECKPOINTS: Set up new checkpoints and staff those now in disuse on major roads leading from the border to Los Angeles. Authorities are focusing on the “side door” entry points from the Imperial and Coachella valleys and Arizona.

* AIRPORTS: Post additional agents at major airports in Southern California and Arizona, including Los Angeles International Airport, to watch for illegal immigrants destined for the U.S. interior.

SOURCE: U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.