Imagine, the Border Patrol as Model : Compared to Riverside deputies, the federal agency’s handling of Spanish-speaking suspects has come a long way.

The videotaped beating of two Mexicans by a pair of Riverside County sheriff’s deputies continues to reverberate--but not necessarily in ways that could have been anticipated. Who’d ever have thought, for example, that Latinos would look to the Border Patrol as a model for other law enforcement agencies?

They’re not putting it exactly in those words, of course. The uniformed arm of the Immigration and Naturalization Service has been a political target of Chicano activists for generations--sometimes with good reason--and that hostility is not going to fade in a matter of weeks. But as the initial criticism of the Riverside deputies now extends to some California Highway Patrol officers who were at the scene, the Border Patrol is starting to look pretty good by comparison.

The surprise twist in the beating case involves an audiotape made by a CHP officer who was involved in the freeway chase that preceded the beating. Officer Marco DeGennaro is seen on the videotape handcuffing one suspected illegal immigrant while the two Riverside officers are “whaling on” a man and woman who had been in the truck. (That colorfully apt phrase was DeGennaro’s, as recorded on his tape.)

The audiotape reveals that the Riverside deputies were shouting at the suspects in English, not Spanish, in the first crucial moments of the encounter. Their failure to communicate doubtless contributed to the ugly turn that events took.

Also caught on the tape are the troubling words of a second, unidentified CHP officer. He refers to the suspects with a derogatory word for Mexicans and tells DeGennaro about his frustration that “these illegals, they know they can run from us, and the Border Patrol can’t chase them anymore, man.”

DeGennaro’s audiotape has provided fresh ammunition for Latino activists who are equating this beating with Los Angeles’ infamous Rodney King case in 1991. And while there are some key differences between the King beating and this one, the tape is irrefutable evidence that the Riverside deputies were ill-prepared for a difficult encounter with Spanish-speaking suspects.

It also suggests that some of the officers involved had negative attitudes toward immigrants in general, and Mexicans in particular, well before the incident happened. That should give pause to Congress as it prepares to vote on a proposal that would give local police more authority to enforce U.S. immigration laws, heretofore the exclusive domain of the federal government.

Congress should dump that part of a pending immigration-reform bill, not just because it now has vivid proof of how poorly some local police deal with immigrants. By next year, if all goes as expected, Congress will have the additional expertise it needs to craft a smarter border control and immigration law enforcement strategy.

That could come in the form of Silvestre Reyes, who is favored to win election in November as a member of Congress representing the border city of El Paso.

A Texas native, Reyes is favored not just because he is a Latino Democrat in a district that is both heavily Latino and heavily Democratic. He also is the former chief of the Border Patrol’s El Paso sector. And he made a national reputation for himself last year by proving that a notoriously porous part of our southern border could be brought under control with a minimum of political trouble, even in an overwhelmingly Mexican American city.

Reyes’ strategy involved the heavy deployment of Border Patrol agents directly along the international line in a static defense rather than mobile patrols. And it worked because illegal immigrants simply gave up trying to cross on Reyes’ turf.

Of course, as with many facets of the immigration issue, Reyes’ strategy has its critics and doubters. Some INS bureaucrats in Washington aren’t thrilled with it because it involves fewer immigration arrests. And Congress tends to reward big arrest statistics with big budgets.

But Reyes’ strategy got widespread community support in El Paso, made him a household name in west Texas and, if conventional wisdom is right, it should ensure his election to Congress come November.

Near as can be determined, he would be the first former Border Patrol agent to serve in Congress. That alone should bring a reality check to the ongoing immigration debate on Capitol Hill.

Reyes’ political ascension should also serve as a reminder to many Latinos of just how far the Border Patrol has come in recent years. An agency launched in 1924 as a posse of former gunslingers has grown beyond its cowboy roots.

Consider: A force of 5,175 officers that Chicano activists once routinely likened to the Gestapo is now more than 40% Latino. And, despite their Texas good ol’ boy image, Border Patrol agents like Reyes could teach big-city cops a few things about dealing with suspected illegal immigrants. Like how to arrest them without blowing your professional cool.