Clinton Seeks Activist Image on Border

Less than two weeks into this election year, the Clinton administration has already unveiled a new get-tough border strategy that combines lots of traditional enforcement techniques--more agents and inspectors, additional checkpoints and equipment--with some novel assistance from local police and the military.

While Republican critics on Friday were quick to label the blueprint more headline-grabbing hype than substance, Atty. Gen. Janet Reno and other top-level officials eagerly promoted the plan in extravagant terms during a cross-continent news conference broadcast by satellite from Washington to California and Arizona.

“For the first time in American history,” Reno declared, “we are putting into place a coherent strategy backed by adequate resources and broad community support.”

Officials denied any political motivation, portraying the moves as imperative to turn back a prospective tide of illegal immigrants from an economically ravaged Mexico.

It has long been clear that President Clinton wants to be seen as taking charge on the volatile immigration issue. That is especially the case in California, a pivotal electoral state, where the immigration debate first catapulted to national prominence and is likely to be a key concern among many voters in November.

For two years, administration policymakers have trudged to the border and to Los Angeles and waxed superlative about immigration-related initiatives big and small in a public relations crescendo.

With the election approaching, and Republicans poised to batter away at the immigration theme during the GOP convention in San Diego this August, the intensity level, along with the rhetoric, seems destined to rise.

“This is another example of the White House being very sensitive to California, trying to give the impression that they’re looking out for California,” noted Stuart Rothenberg, an independent political analyst in Washington. “It’s playing to the California electorate. . . . This is not the last time we’ll see it in 1996. “

And with good reason: Without California, Rothenberg and other independent observers agree, the president has little chance of being reelected. With the state’s 54 electoral votes in his column, Bill Clinton at least has a shot of holding office until the next millennium.

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Thus the administration has focused attention on sundry regional issues, from immigration to last year’s eleventh-hour bailout for the beleaguered Los Angeles County health system.

On the immigration issue, the president’s team is working hard to project the image of a problem-solving, action-oriented chief executive endeavoring mightily to treat a serious malady that previous (i.e., Republican) administrations had allowed to fester.

“What we are doing here is putting the rule of law back into the border after decades of neglect,” asserted Rahm Emanuel, the White House’s director of special projects.

GOP officials and other critics scoff at the notion. In their view, the president is belatedly, and timidly, embracing the kinds of steps--expanded use of the military and local police in immigration-control efforts, for instance--that they have backed for years.

Although he applauded the Clinton administration for “addressing this issue more” than past presidents, U.S. Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), said: “There has been a lot more talk on getting tough on illegal immigration than action.”

Moreover, the administration’s plan to shift immigration officers to the border from posts in the nation’s interior further weakens the inadequate policing of illegal immigrants who go on welfare and otherwise drain public resources, Gallegly asserted.

“We have to address reasons that people are coming here,” he said. “The U.S. government continues to provide a very significant invitation for people to work here: to get social benefits.”

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The fact that immigration is reverberating nationally to this extent underlines just how far the issue has evolved in recent years, especially since the Proposition 187 debate in 1994 underscored its political potency in California.

“Immigration has gone from being an issue that hardly anyone cared about to being a radio talk-show issue, a wedge issue,” noted Michael Fix, a senior policy analyst with the Washington-based Urban Institute.

The metamorphosis is all the more striking, Fix noted, because illegal immigration basically emerges as a major political issue in a few, mostly urban, pockets--and, in fact, in many ways it is largely a Southern California preoccupation. Nonetheless, the intensity so evident during the Proposition 187 battle has been noted in Washington, where Congress is poised to enact a major overhaul of the nation’s immigration policy.

The Clinton administration has signed on to some congressional proposals and has rejected others, including calls for even more extensive use of military forces in the battle against illegal immigration. Federal law prohibits the military from direct involvement in civilian law enforcement.

Some critics call the president’s newly bolstered use of military resources--up to 350 soldiers will be deployed in a support role for the Border Patrol--far short of what is needed.

“If we want to show some real commitment, we ought to put the 20,000 troops out there who went to Bosnia,” said Harold Ezell, who served as a regional Immigration and Naturalization Service commissioner under presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush.

But the Clinton administration, while eager to appear aggressive in the immigration arena, is also being careful not to go too far out on a limb. The measured deployment of military and local police resources along the border--such actions have long been a political hot potato--has already drawn criticism from immigrant advocates, though their comments fall far short of outright condemnation.

“I am concerned that the border is becoming more of a playground for the military and other forces, because it is really the domain of the INS,” noted Charles Wheeler, directing attorney at the National Immigration Law Center in Los Angeles.

On Friday, administration authorities were quick to soft-pedal the enhanced role of the military, which has been working in a support role along the border for several years, mostly in efforts against drug trafficking.

While the number of troops arrayed along the California and Arizona borders will soon double and more emphasis will be placed on immigration assistance, officials noted that the numbers approximate deployments of previous years--and are far short of the 1,000 soldiers posted during 1991 in activities such as fence and road-building.

In Mexico, which has withstood various invasions by its northern neighbor since the 19th century, the military’s presence along the border is always a delicate matter. Segments of the Mexican press inevitably depict such deployments as bellicose acts. Mexican reporters at a San Diego new conference Friday asked if the plan was the first step toward “militarization” of the border. Border Patrol officials assured them it was not.

Overall, however, the reaction south of the border has been muted, perhaps in part because the Pentagon’s involvement in border control is no longer a novelty.

Also, more pressing economic and social concerns have taken center stage in a nation whose citizenry is largely preoccupied with more fundamental matters of survival.

And this time, U.S. authorities made a point of informing their Mexican counterparts before announcing the new plan.

One of the Mexican officials who was advised, Consul General Luis Herrera Lasso of San Diego, said Mexican officials disagree with the premise that illegal immigration calls for an aggressive law enforcement response.

“The government of Mexico does not share the idea that a social-economic phenomenon involving our fellow citizens, who have the goal of finding work, can be resolved with measures of a law enforcement nature,” Herrera said.

In addition, the consul general cautioned that the increased border role of the military and police could lead to “confusion” among immigrants and U.S. citizens alike if the missions of the agencies are not clearly defined.