Smuggling by Car Accelerates

SAN YSIDRO — On a recent gray morning, federal inspectors waded into the sea of border traffic heading to California and began pulling over cars and opening doors as another wave of frenzied searches hit.

In the back of a Nissan Pathfinder, two trembling women and a man were found hiding under a blanket. Moments later, four young men from Jalisco spilled from a green van. Popping the trunk of a Neon, inspectors discovered two adult brothers and their sister packed inside.

Within 1 1/2 hours, the agents had arrested 25 suspected illegal migrants, part of a recent surge in car smuggling cases that reflects a shift in the flow of illegal immigration. Immigrants and smugglers, experts believe, are adapting to crackdowns on document fraud and increased enforcement in Arizona, the busiest illegal immigration corridor.

Sensing a soft spot in border enforcement, smugglers appear to be playing the odds, hoping to slip cars loaded with illegal immigrants through during the crush of daily traffic.

“It’s a numbers game,” said David Salazar, a chief Customs and Border Protection officer at the port of entry.

The surge began last year when nearly 50,000 illegal immigrants -- the majority concealed in trunks or compartments -- were caught in vehicles traveling from Mexico to California. It was nearly double the figure from 2003.

At the San Ysidro port -- the busiest and largest of California’s five land crossings -- officials estimate that the number of people caught concealed in cars last year had tripled since 2000, from 10,600 to about 30,000. And the pace has continued this year, officials say.

Smugglers still use inventive ploys. People come stuffed in hollowed-out dashboards and gasoline tanks. They swelter in “coffin compartments” near engines and grinding drive shafts. Others dangle on plywood planks beneath moving vehicles. And a little girl last year was found stuffed into a pinata.

Some try to pass inconspicuously as U.S. citizens or visa holders by presenting false documents.

But most simply squeeze into car trunks, curling next to other migrants -- sometimes people they don’t know -- and often wait hours in the darkness and heat. Inspectors earlier this year found 16 people piled atop one another pyramid-style in a van.

Most illegal immigrants apprehended are voluntarily returned to Mexico.

“It all comes down to desperation, and the smugglers -- being as depraved as they are -- they prey on people’s desperation and human misery,” said Adele Fasano, Southern California director of field operations for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency.

Ten years ago, about 80% of illegal immigrants apprehended at the San Ysidro crossing tried walking through in the pedestrian aisles, many using fraudulent documents. As inspectors became more adept at detecting fraud, the pattern changed. Now, 80% of apprehensions are car-smuggling cases, according to Fasano.

“Not much is getting past us in the pedestrian area. As a result, the smugglers shift their focus to the area where they see they have a higher level of success,” she said.

About 75 inspectors fan out to meet the crush of 45,000 to 60,000 cars that cross daily. Salazar estimates that about 1% -- as many as 600 cars -- are transporting drugs or illegal immigrants.

At the border, customs officers scan drivers’ faces looking for telltale signs: A sweaty brow on a cold day or an overly friendly demeanor, they say, can give them away.

Still, searching every vehicle is impossible when many drivers are regular commuters, the employees and shoppers at San Diego-area businesses that represent an integral part of the border economy.

“The law enforcement side in me ... says let’s check every car out there,” Salazar said. “But we have to balance the economic interests and law enforcement interests.”

Watching inspectors scramble from one vehicle to another, Salazar said, “It makes you wonder what else is out there.”

Smuggling networks range from sophisticated operators who charge as much as $2,000 a head to be brought in by an American citizen in a late-model car (some smugglers have used Hummers) to discount groups that charge $300 to be transported in the trunk of an old junk car driven by an illegal immigrant.

Finding drivers, authorities say, isn’t a problem. Smuggling rings, dangling the prospect of easy money, recruit homeless people and down-on-their-luck gamblers at casinos. So many San Diego-area teenagers are involved -- they make as much as $500 per crossing -- that federal agents give talks at high schools warning students of the risks.

Convicted noncitizen smugglers often face prison terms ranging from 1 1/2 to 10 years. But because of limited resources, authorities prosecute relatively few. They focus on repeat offenders and those who endanger lives during crossings.

Authorities prosecuted the driver of a vehicle when a woman was found in a gasoline tank holding a bottle in her baby’s mouth. Another driver was prosecuted last year after inspectors found a young girl trapped in a dashboard, officials said.

Paramedics regularly treat immigrants suffering from respiratory distress or serious burns from being too close to hot engines. Authorities say there have been no deaths in recent years.

The increase in car smuggling cases, experts say, could be related to the increased enforcement effort in Arizona, where federal authorities have been adding Border Patrol officers and expanding the use of technology. Similar enforcement measures in San Diego 10 years ago pushed the flow to Arizona; now a rebound effect may be occurring.

“People are hearing more about the deaths in the desert, and they seem to think they’ll be in the trunk for only 15 minutes. But it’s still very dangerous to be hiding in the back of a car,” said Enrique Morones, president of the Border Angels, an immigrant rights group.

Authorities use a layered-enforcement strategy as thousands of vehicles approach the inspections booths stretched across the 24 lanes of Interstate 5. Roving squads of inspectors, some with dogs, patrol the lines of idling cars. Agents in the booths ask questions and request citizenship documents or visas. If inspectors sense trouble, the cars go to a secondary inspection area, where vehicles are searched.

One morning last week, more than 50 illegal immigrants had already been caught when a patrol peeked into a Nissan Pathfinder driven by a young man.

Blue rosary beads dangled from the rearview mirror. In the ignition, the key chain contained only one key -- a sign that the vehicle may be a “throwaway” intended for a one-time smuggling run. The driver, officials said, jumped out and ran back to Tijuana, a common occurrence. The trio of immigrants -- a man and two women hiding under a blanket -- said they were heading to Los Angeles and Santa Ana. The man said the fee he paid was $300.

Over the next hour, inspectors caught several other smugglers with fraudulent visas, often called “50-footers” because the documents’ poor quality can be detected from a long distance.

In another find, three immigrants in a blue Dodge Neon were detected by a German shepherd. The dog signaled its catch by sitting down by the trunk.

The two men and a woman -- siblings from Oaxaca -- seemed surprised when inspectors opened the trunk. In silence and confusion, they disentangled. A bead of sweat dripped from a brother’s nose.

A few minutes later, agents found Rebecca Hernandez, a 21-year-old woman from Guadalajara, in the trunk of a Nissan Altima. Hernandez said the smugglers picked her up at a Tijuana motel and told her to squeeze into the trunk with a man and woman. The trio curled together in a spooning position.

Twenty minutes later, she was looking up at federal agents -- 130 miles short of her destination, Los Angeles. The ride was short, hot and uncomfortable. “I don’t even know these people,” Hernandez said of her trunk mates.