Bosses Take the Reins Off Border Patrol

Federal officials overseeing the U.S. Border Patrol reversed a controversial policy Friday that prohibited agents along the border and at highway checkpoints in Orange and Riverside counties from pursuing or arresting suspected illegal immigrants away from their patrol area.

Robert Bonner, commissioner of the Bureau of Customs and Border Patrol, rescinded an earlier memo by San Diego’s chief patrol agent warning his staff against conducting “random or reactive area control operations” in residential neighborhoods, said Rep. Christopher Cox.

“It’s a chastening of the Border Patrol by its bosses,” said Cox (R-Newport Beach) of Bonner’s action. “I’m very pleased.”

Local Border Patrol officials declined to comment, referring calls to the Washington office. Neither authorities there nor Bonner could be reached.

Reports of the Aug. 8 memo written by Chief Patrol Agent William T. Veal had sparked loud protests, not only from the border agents themselves, but from Washington lawmakers and media pundits.

Earlier this week, Veal said he was stunned by the reaction and characterized the memo as merely a reminder of the policy in effect since 1999.

On Friday, however, Bonner apparently disagreed, telling Cox in a phone conversation that “he wanted there to be no doubt that the department was going to enforce federal law,” the congressman said. “The very rapid correction by top management in Washington is commendable.”

The conversation prompted a letter from Cox to Bonner, praising his stance. “In my judgment,” Cox wrote, “the putative guidance offered in [Veal’s] memorandum unfortunately raised more questions than it answered. I appreciate and support your decision to rescind the memorandum and to redouble the Homeland [Security] Department’s efforts to enforce our nation’s laws.”

Though he later denied any connection between the two events, Veal’s memo was issued on the heels of the agency’s Aug. 1 arrest of a Mexican family near the Mexican Consulate in downtown San Diego.

That arrest -- and others farther north in San Juan Capistrano -- prompted protests by the Mexican consul general and human rights activists, who argued that the agents had overstepped their bounds.

Some of that criticism continued Friday in the wake of the government’s directive.

“We are obviously very concerned,” said Christian Ramirez, director of the San Diego office of the American Friends Service Committee, a humanitarian organization.

“It is very amazing to us that this is happening. It sends a clear message to immigrant rights organizations in the United States that the current administration wants nothing to do with human rights,” he said.

“They are simply establishing a state of repression in Latino communities and other immigrant communities across this nation.”

Joe Desaro, president of Local 1613 of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents the San Diego agents, disagreed. “We think it’s a good thing,” he said of Bonner’s action.

“The union has been working very hard to get that memo rescinded. This is incredibly good news -- it will let us do our jobs. We’re not asking for more pay or less work; we just want to do our jobs, and apparently the public agrees.”