Plan to Redeploy Border Patrol Stirs Concerns

It’s a law enforcement truism. Any time you get two cops together over a cigarette you’re going to hear complaints about the honchos who run things downtown.

But the exchange on a recent afternoon carried more than the standard bitterness when a plug of a Fresno cop asked senior U.S. Border Patrol Agent John Crockford how many illegal immigrant lawbreakers he takes off the streets every month.

Crockford, a white-haired man of 48, guessed it was between 70 and 80.

“What do we do when you’re gone?” the cop asked. He was standing in the parking lot of one of Fresno’s seedier motels, where Crockford had just found a man wanted on three drug warrants.

“Live with them,” Crockford said.

Crockford’s superiors dispute that characterization, but there’s no disputing that under a plan being presented today to Congress, Crockford and 17 other Border Patrol agents now assigned to California’s interior would be sent to the border to try to stem the human tide.

The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service said the transfer is necessary, but Crockford and other agents are upset and fighting the proposal. Crockford’s union--he is vice president of the local chapter--has filed an unfair labor practice complaint to stop the transfers.

Agents say that if the transfer goes through, some illegal immigrants who commit crimes here will elude apprehension and deportation. Beyond that is the personal toll.

“It would kill my life,” said Crockford, who owns a home in a quiet neighborhood in Clovis.

“When I came here, my daughter was in kindergarten,” he said. Next year, she will attend classes at Yale.

At the heart of the debate is the question: What is the proper role for the Border Patrol agents? Should they be on the front lines of the battle at the border? Or is it important to keep a uniformed presence in the interior, where they can help apprehend felonious illegal immigrants who manage to sneak through the border net?

The role of Border Patrol agents in California has already changed significantly since the days when they conducted unpopular raids on farms and ranches. The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, which required obtaining a warrant before entering agricultural fields, virtually put an end to ranch checks.

No longer, the agents say, do they scoop people off the streets just because they look different. Now, the Central Valley Border Patrol agents spend their time patrolling the streets in their green and white cruisers and helping local law enforcement deal with illegal immigrants who have broken other laws. If the Border Patrol determines that a lawbreaker is here illegally, the agent can begin deportation proceedings, which are carried out after a criminal serves his sentence.

But the INS said that though that work is important, the agents are needed elsewhere.

“We need to increase our resources at the border,” said Sharon Gavin, an INS spokeswoman.

Operation Gatekeeper along the California-Mexico border has been so effective that it has pushed illegal foot traffic east, Gavin said. A crackdown along the Texas border, meanwhile, has squeezed immigrants west. As a result, pressure has built up in the middle, in what is known as the Douglas, Ariz., corridor. Eight thousand illegal immigrants are being detained there every week, Gavin said.

“That’s a key area right now,” she said.

Under the $2.5-million proposal by INS Regional Director Johnny Williams, 18 agents from what is known as the Livermore Sector, which includes stations in Fresno, Bakersfield, Oxnard, Salinas, San Luis Obispo, Livermore, Sacramento and Stockton, would be sent south.

Seeking to Reverse Previous Defeat

Internal INS documents reveal that although top administrators believe the concept is right, they also knew it would be controversial. A similar plan was killed several years ago by congressional opposition.

This time, the INS was determined to be swift. “We need to follow through,” Williams wrote in a Feb. 11 memo. “before individual congresspersons and the media bring this to the attention” of key congressional committees.

Gavin denied there has been any attempt to operate in secrecy. She said members of Congress are scheduled to be briefed about the plan today. Congress must approve the proposal before it can be implemented. Initial reaction from the office of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) indicates that the INS will not necessarily have an easier time selling its plan this time around.

“We need to be reassured there will be no negative impact on the enforcement effort against illegal immigration and drug smuggling,” said Howard Gantman, a Feinstein spokesman.

Gavin said that a shift to the border would not only be a better use of the agents’ time and talents, but that the work the agents are now doing can be taken over by non-uniformed agents in other INS offices.

The San Francisco District office alone has 220 agents, Gavin said. “The agents can easily absorb the work done by the 18,” she said. “We will still have checkpoints within borders. Work site enforcement will still go on.”

Those assurances are overly optimistic, said a non-uniformed agent who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “You pull out the Border Patrol, which has worked for years with the local police, that puts us into a situation where we just don’t have time,” the agent said.

In Fresno, there are 13 plainclothes INS agents and four Border Patrol agents. Closing the Fresno station would reduce staffing there by 23%.

On the Tuesday after Memorial Day, Crockford was out patrolling what’s known as Motel Row. The morning shift of hookers was out but the women ignored Crockford’s patrol car. A young man on a bicycle, however, glanced warily over his shoulder and pedaled away when he saw the agent’s car.

Crockford circled the block. He learned surveillance techniques in Del Rio, Texas, where he started his career 23 years ago. He met his future wife, Graciela, there when he knocked on her door to check the family’s immigration status. The family was there legally, but the round-faced young man found reasons to go back.

Calling In the Local Police

Crockford stopped the bicyclist and discovered he was here legally. He ran a check of his name for warrants, and learned there were three, all drug cases. He called the Fresno police to let them know what he found.

Kurt Smith, a 44-year-old Fresno officer, said he works with the Border Patrol “on almost a daily basis.”

Without Crockford and the others, “I’m going to be going out with one hand tied behind my back. It’s really going to cripple a lot of our efforts” to apprehend criminal immigrants.

One of Crockford’s strongest allies, surprisingly, is Rosemary Moreno of the El Concilio Immigration Project, located in a brick building downtown. Moreno said she’s worried about what will happen if the Border Patrol is taken out.

“Our agency advocates for families,” she said. “We don’t want drug dealers, child molesters and wife beaters” walking free.

Gavin thinks those fears are unwarranted.

“I really don’t think [the transfer] will affect local law enforcement issues at all,” she said.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Border Patrol Transfers?

Under a plan being presented to Congress, Border Patrol stations in these cities would be shut down.