Device Speeds Up Border Crossings

Long lines resulting from tighter border security since Sept. 11 have created a big surge in demand for a high-tech device that allows pre-screened motorists to avoid lengthy delays as they enter the United States.

Making use of a transponder, the fast-pass system, which was introduced at the border several years ago, is similar to one used on Southern California toll roads. But perhaps nowhere has the computerized device received such a warm welcome as at the border, where waiting times in the weeks after the terror attacks soared to four hours or more.

The waits have diminished to less than two hours during the morning commute. But the scramble to apply for the $129-a-year passes, which can cut the crossing time to a few minutes, has risen.

Applicants must undergo a criminal background check and prove that they can enter the United States legally. A car, outfitted with a transponder, signals a computer at the inspection booth and the screen flashes a photograph of the subscriber and information about the vehicle. The prior screening means that the inspector has less need to ask questions, a time-consuming prerequisite for crossing the border.

Enrollment in the program, known as SENTRI, has grown to more than 13,700 in San Diego. The number of new applications has more than doubled since September, to about 7,000.

In El Paso, the only other spot on the Southwest border with such an express-lane system, pending applications have risen sixfold to about 1,200, officials said. About 8,000 motorists are enrolled there.

Frequent crossers who once considered the passes an intriguing novelty now view them as essential.

“We’ve got to get it. We’re not thinking about it any more--we’re going to get it,” said Alma Belloso, a Chula Vista resident who stopped by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service office in Otay Mesa recently for an application.

Belloso said she, her husband and their two children had stopped visiting relatives in Tijuana since September out of fear of long border delays.

Though SENTRI subscribers make up a slim portion of the about 41,000 cars entering daily at San Ysidro, immigration officials see the high-tech system as a key part of a strategy to ease ever-growing border traffic. They are considering doubling the number of the specially outfitted lanes at San Ysidro from two to four.

The sudden demand has swamped the INS border office and, to the dismay of some express commuters, produced slightly longer waits in the special lanes. Inspectors at San Ysidro said the early morning wait has grown to about 15 minutes, longer than before Sept. 11, but still barely a fraction of the delays facing commuters in the 22 remaining lanes for cars and buses.

Adele J. Fasano, director of the INS office in San Diego, has proposed expanding the number of commuter lanes at San Ysidro. She said a proposed new port of entry near Otay Mesa probably would include such technology. The system was introduced two years ago at San Ysidro, the nation’s busiest entry point. It was put in place at the crossing at Otay Mesa in 1995.

Fasano said current facilities can accommodate as many as 30,000 subscribers. “The focus now is getting as many people as possible. We’re trying to strike a balance,” she said.

At the INS office, 11 enrollees waited to receive the plastic transponders, which resemble garage-door openers.

Tijuana resident Maria Escobar, who drives her son to private school on the U.S. side, said the delays have taken a toll on both of them. Escobar, 31, was eager to join other parents in the fast lane: “The other mothers at my son’s school say your life changes after SENTRI.”