Border Pact to Target Safety

Mexican and American officials unveiled a sweeping program Friday to improve safety for people crossing illegally into the United States, taking the first concrete step toward an overall accord ensuring orderly and safe migration.

The border safety pact, announced in Mexico City and Washington, calls for a U.S. review of the controversial tight-border policy that has steered Mexicans into dangerous and remote crossings. At the same time, Mexico agreed to consider measures to prevent migrants from crossing over the most deadly deserts, canals and rivers.

In San Diego, U.S. and Mexican officials announced specific local aspects of the new safety program, such as equipping U.S. border agents with nonlethal weapons.

Friday’s announcement was fresh evidence of growing U.S.-Mexican cooperation on an issue that until recently has driven the two nations apart, and shows a new willingness to tackle practical details of migration.

Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda said this week that if negotiations with the United States lead to a package deal on the broad issue of legal migration, his nation then will be willing to actively discourage illegal crossings.

The migration issue is politically explosive for both countries. U.S. immigration foes are sure to oppose softening of controls as implicit encouragement of illegal border crossings. And Mexicans are sensitive to perceived pressure from the U.S. on migration, which has been a key economic escape valve.

But an overall accord regulating legal migration and discouraging illegal crossings could help resolve the most divisive issue between the two countries. The balance could shift to what Castaneda called “shared responsibility” for ensuring the safe and orderly flow of workers that meets both countries’ needs.

Announcing the border safety initiative, Mexican Deputy Foreign Minister Enrique Berruga said the deaths of 14 migrants while crossing the Arizona desert last month were a catalyst for quick action on this first accord on border safety. He said the policy emphasized humanitarian efforts such as joint search-and-rescue operations.

“We are not talking of raids, of arrests,” Berruga said. “We are using very different language to address a problem that ultimately is common to us both. We are seeking to change the chemistry on the border.”

The plan does call for a joint crackdown on migrant traffickers such as those accused of abandoning the Mexicans in Arizona.

Migrant safety is one part of the negotiations on migration, ordered by Presidents Bush and Vicente Fox at their first summit in February. The other half is the set of issues that would govern the flow of legal migrants.

In an interview this week, Castaneda said Mexico will be in a position to officially discourage illegal migration for the first time if the broader U.S.-Mexico talks produce a package deal regulating legal migration.

Castaneda stressed that Mexico will not accept a piecemeal approach, for example a temporary guest worker program on its own, as favored by some U.S. legislators. He said Mexico will agree only to a comprehensive package, including legal status for some of the millions of migrants already living in the United States and an increased visa quota for Mexican workers.

Mexico’s Constitution, culture and economic woes all constrained officials from limiting migration during the 71-year rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which lost the presidency when Fox took office in December. Castaneda said Mexico needed a package deal to be able to sell domestically the notion of discouraging illegal migration.

With such a deal, Castaneda said, Mexico could say to would-be illegal migrants: “We ask you to stay home. We are going to develop programs [and] channel investment to your region so you do find jobs at home.

“And if you have to leave or want to leave,” he added, “we are going to make sure you don’t leave through dangerous places, and we are probably going to find ways to make it more difficult for you to leave--not stop you, because we can’t do that, but make it more difficult to leave.”

Castaneda said he hoped the negotiations could produce an agreement on principles by September, when Bush and Fox next meet, and a signed deal in time for congressional action in both countries by early next year. The U.S. team is led by Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.

In San Diego, U.S. authorities introduced a new weapon for border agents that launches capsules of powdered pepper up to 100 feet. The devices will be issued on a one-year pilot basis in San Diego, the scene in recent years of shootings involving agents who said they were defending themselves against rock-throwers. The shootings, including three fatal incidents in 1999, have stirred official consternation in Mexico and drawn calls for reform from U.S. rights activists.

Last year, Border Patrol agents in San Diego reported being pelted with rocks 127 times, opening fire in four instances.

“We hope this will minimize these risks on the border and make the border a safer area for everyone who transits the area,” William T. Veal, Border Patrol chief in San Diego, said at a news conference.

Border Patrol agents will still carry their service pistols.

Carlos Felix, a migration official at the Mexican Embassy in Washington who shared the podium with U.S. officials in San Diego, said Mexico was enlisting Baja California’s civil protection agency to safeguard migrants.

U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service officials also disclosed steps to keep migrants from the swift waters of the All-American Canal in rural Imperial County, where 17 people have drowned since October. The U.S. government will beef up night patrols and put up stadium-style lights on 10 miles of the irrigation canal, which marks the boundary near Calexico.

Meanwhile, church groups in Los Angeles held a prayer gathering at Olvera Street on Friday and were preparing to join San Diego volunteers today in installing clusters of water jugs at 30 to 40 spots in the huge Imperial County desert near Ocotillo, about 90 miles east of San Diego.

“The Arizona tragedy magnified this whole thing that’s happening,” said John Hunter, who last year began putting out water, marked with 30-foot-high blue flags. Hunter, whose brother, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Alpine), has advocated tighter border controls, said he hopes to install as many as 400 stations stretching to Arizona.

A church-based group in Arizona, called Humane Borders, has placed water in heavily traveled desert corridors there. The leader of that effort attended a prayer gathering of the Los Angeles groups Friday.

The Rev. Robin Hoover, a Tucson clergyman, urged a broader campaign to reform U.S. border enforcement, blamed by many for pushing migrants into high-risk areas.

“Setting up water stations is only the first step,” Hoover said. “We need to keep our eye on the big picture.”

Border Patrol officials in Imperial County say the stations might help, though it is unclear how many migrants use them. Eight migrants have died of heat there since October.

“If that’s going to save one person, we’re for that,” said agent Manuel Figueroa.

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Smith reported from Mexico City and Ellingwood from San Diego. Times staff writer Sarah Hale in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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New Border Safeguards

* A pilot program in which Border Patrol agents near San Diego will experiment with nonlethal weapons.

* Reinforced search-and-rescue operations, partly through a new program of reconnaissance flights.

* Stronger campaigns to warn would-be migrants of the dangers of crossing in high-risk areas.

* A plan to crack down on smugglers, who often charge thousands of dollars to help migrants cross the border.