U.S. Residents, Border Staff Clash

A few years back, residents in eastern San Diego County were pleading for help when illegal immigrants came pouring through the region’s boulder-strewn hills and horse ranches to skirt a buildup of U.S. border agents farther west in San Diego.

Many of the same rural dwellers now complain that the scores of U.S. Border Patrol agents sent to assist have made life even worse.

Critics say overzealous agents have run roughshod: entering private properties unannounced, leaving livestock gates open, pulling over motorists unnecessarily and harassing female drivers with questions. Some residents charge that speeding Border Patrol trucks have made it less safe to drive the narrow country roads.

“Now we have more of a problem with [agents] than we do with illegals,” said Rod Starkey, a trucking company owner who lives on a 210-acre ranch in Pine Valley, about 45 miles east of San Diego. He was among about 60 residents who attended a community meeting Saturday at a high school to air complaints.

The criticisms, from a variety of quarters, have grown increasingly loud in recent months--prompting meetings among residents, a county supervisor and Border Patrol commanders and setting off noisy exchanges between critics and local supporters of the agency’s work.

Backers of the Border Patrol portray the allegations as overblown and blame outsiders for stirring things up. But even Border Patrol officials concede that there have been errors by agents and vow to smooth relations by inviting residents to classes on agency tactics and by sending out newsletters.

“We’re not being the good neighbors we need to be,” said William T. Veal, chief patrol agent for San Diego and the surrounding countryside.

In the meantime, tensions continue to crackle. One resident, already facing trial next month for allegedly charging at two agents while on horseback, was detained by border agents again Saturday after a verbal clash while she was on her way to the community meeting she had helped organize.

Uneasy relations, long familiar in largely Latino border communities elsewhere, stem in part from the Border Patrol’s vastly expanded presence in regions such as largely white eastern San Diego County. The area, once patrolled by no more than 60 agents who lived in the community and knew the residents, is now watched over by about 320 agents. Many of the new agents live outside the area.

Critics say the U.S. government’s rapid buildup, called Operation Gatekeeper, along California’s border with Mexico since 1994 has placed youthful and undertrained agents on the job. Here in the back country, that buildup has thrust a large force of government agents into a quirky region of 8,600--a far-flung collection of longtime ranchers, graying hippies and professionals fleeing city life who relish the region’s privacy as much as its beauty.

“They tend to be individuals. If you go on their property, they’re going to come and meet you square-shouldered and say, ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ ” said Dennis Berglund, an engineer in Pine Valley.

The unincorporated region became a focus of the Border Patrol after Gatekeeper pushed immigrants east by adding hundreds of new agents around urban San Diego, aided by new border fences and stadium-style lights. A couple with a ranch two miles from the border in Tierra del Sol counted 1,300 undocumented immigrants trooping across their property during a 12-month period.

In addition to beefing up its forces near the border, the Border Patrol has set up a checkpoint on Interstate 8. The result has been more than 342,000 arrests of undocumented immigrants since 1994 in eastern San Diego County and, most residents report, a drop lately in the number of illegal border-crossers scuttling across their properties.

“The Border Patrol has been a huge benefit to east county,” said county Supervisor Dianne Jacob, who last month hosted a closed-door meeting with agency officials and about 25 residents.

But the Border Patrol’s heightened profile in the area has led to periodic clashes with residents who say they no longer recognize the agents patrolling their neighborhoods--and sometimes their own properties. Some longtime residents are irked at being pulled over routinely while driving back roads, such as scenic Old Highway 80, or grilled at highway checkpoints on their comings and goings.

“If you’re driving down the road, they’ll pull you over out of the blue and ask to search your vehicle,” said Cole Dotson, a 25-year-old history student. “If you’re on the Old Highway, they pretty much say you’re a suspect.”

Almeda Starkey, a veterinarian, said she refused to get out of her truck at an impromptu checkpoint when agents asked her who she was married to and how many children she had. Starkey said the agents eventually let her go after a sheriff’s deputy showed up. A Border Patrol commander disputed her account, which like most others could not be independently verified, but he declined to comment further on it.

Officials contend the back country has become a prime corridor for smuggling narcotics and undocumented immigrants across the border and that some residents have been involved.

Charles Dierkop, who heads the Border Patrol office in Campo, said eight residents were arrested for immigrant smuggling last year. Nearly 50 have been arrested for drug trafficking since 1994, he said.

But, he noted, “it’s not the perception on the part of the agents here that locals are smugglers. We have a lot of good people up here.”

Dierkop acknowledged the highway checks are irritating to residents. But he said the tactic, which has been ruled legal by the U.S. Supreme Court, has helped agents in eastern San Diego County arrest more than 42,000 undocumented border-crossers. Federal law also gives agents the authority to enter private land without a warrant within 25 miles of the international border in order to prevent smuggling.

The attorney for Dulzura resident Yvonne Reese, who faces a Feb. 1 trial in U.S. District Court in San Diego on charges of assaulting two agents, plans to challenge the constitutionality of that law as part of his client’s legal defense. Reese, a 40-year-old school custodian, allegedly charged on horseback at agents on patrol following a verbal clash at her uncle’s property in Potrero last August. She faces a prison sentence of up to six years.

Reese was held for three hours but not charged while on her way to Saturday’s community meeting after one of her dogs allegedly bit an agent at the same site.

Border Patrol supervisors are proposing steps to improve community ties. Veal said agents are being “sensitized” to concerns about fast driving and trained anew so livestock gates are not left ajar or improperly relocked so owners can’t get in.

The Border Patrol plans to issue vehicle decals for rural residents that likely would require criminal background checks.

“We need the Border Patrol here,” said rancher Donna Tisdale, who has been active on border issues and is pleased with the beefed-up enforcement. “But they need to learn to pay attention to us and our rights.”