Mexico Drops Motorist Fees After Protests : Border: New regulations called for those traveling into the interior to pay at least $100 per vehicle, as well as a $400 refundable ‘deposit.’

Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, moving with uncharacteristic swiftness in the face of a barrage of fierce protests, decided Friday to suspend a new series of fees and other regulations that had been imposed on motorists planning to drive from the border area into the Mexican interior, officials said.

The president’s move, coming just four days after the controversial guidelines--including a fee of at least $100 per vehicle--were implemented, illustrates the growing clout of the millions of expatriate Mexican citizens residing in the United States, many of whom return to Mexico regularly and viewed the new fees as little more than a sanctioned shakedown.

“This is just legalized extortion,” said Pablo Quiroz, a Mexican citizen who was among a group of perhaps 50 who descended Friday on the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles, home to the largest U.S. concentration of people of Mexican ancestry. “We believe this is a complete injustice.”

Mexico City’s about-face also underscores the president’s sensitivity to developments that could disrupt plans for increased commerce with the United States, particularly when Mexican authorities are pushing for a free-trade agreement with Washington in an effort to boost their nation’s moribund economy.

“At this time we want to have fewer regulations, fewer barriers to increased trade between the two nations,” acknowledged Jose Angel Pescador Osuna, the Mexican consul general in Los Angeles.

In the San Diego-Tijuana area, the most populous region throughout the almost-2,000-mile-long U.S.-Mexico border, the new fee has attracted considerable interest, but has not generated the ferocious debate evident elsewhere, officials said.

That is largely because most southbound traffic via Tijuana, Tecate and Mexicali is headed solely for the Baja California Peninsula, the great majority of which is considered a so-called “free zone” and therefore exempt from the new charge, said Miguel Escobar, spokesman for the Mexican consul general’s office in San Diego.

Elsewhere along the border, Escobar noted, the free-zone strip generally extends for only 20 kilometers inside Mexico, meaning motorists traveling any farther would have been obligated to pay the fee.

The new motor vehicle regulations, which went into effect Monday, were officially intended to cut down on the vigorous Mexican black market in non-registered vehicles, most of which have U.S. plates, according to federal officials in Mexico City.

As many as 500,000 unregistered cars and trucks--some stolen in the United States but most of them purchased legally on U.S. soil and driven south--are circulating in Mexico, representing perhaps a tenth of the nation’s total fleet, officials say. The presence of the vehicles, which are often sold and resold illicitly, means the Mexican government is deprived of millions of dollars annually in fees and taxes.

The new guidelines, contained in a decree issued by the Finance Ministry, consisted of two basic elements: the imposition of a $100 non-refundable fee for southbound motorists, to be paid at special offices set up along the northern border; in addition, motorists headed for the Mexican interior would have been required to provide a refundable “deposit” of $400 cash, or, in lieu of that, to leave behind their U.S. residency documents as a guarantee that the vehicles would be driven back out of Mexico.

The plan soon unleashed a storm of vehement denunciations by Mexican nationals from California to Texas, including the protest in Los Angeles on Friday and in several Mexican border cities. Many complained that the fee was the latest incarnation of la mordida (literally, “the bite”), the much-resented shakedowns by Mexican officialdom, historically imposed with particular intensity upon expatriates returning from the north.

“This is another pretext for Mexican officials to line their pockets,” said Artesima Maldonado, who was among the protesters in Los Angeles on Friday, and, like others, complained that the fees would pose a special hardship on poor Mexican families who could not afford to visit their homeland via airplane.

Mexican officials, sensitive to reports that authorities routinely exploit expatriates heading south to visit their families, have instituted a much-publicized initiative, known as the Paisano program, aimed at reducing such corruption.

When first imposed Monday, the vehicular fees applied only to Mexican citizens, exempting the many U.S. nationals and other non-Mexicans entering Mexico’s interior from the north. Mexican citizens residing on U.S. soil quickly charged discrimination.

As a result, Mexican officials on Thursday decided to apply the fee across the board, to anyone traveling in the nation’s interior in a private vehicle not registered to an interior area. Exempt were those driving in the so-called “free zones” along the U.S.-Mexico border.

With word of the growing indignation reaching Mexico City, where authorities closely monitor U.S. reaction to Mexican initiatives, President Salinas on Friday personally ordered a 30-day suspension of the disputed requirements.

“The president acted in response to a generalized clamor in opposition,” noted Martin Torres, spokesman for the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles.

Mexican authorities plan to craft an alternate solution to the problem of black-market vehicles during the next month, but said it is unlikely a new fee will be imposed.

However, Mexican citizens residing in the United States and driving vehicles with U.S. plates to the Mexican interior will be required to leave their U.S. residency documents with Mexican customs officials at the border, authorities said. Officials are instructed to return the paperwork once the motorists return north with their vehicles.

Torres also said Mexican citizens residing in Tijuana and other Mexican border areas--whose vehicles have special license plates--will still be required to pay a $400 refundable deposit when driving their vehicles into the Mexican interior.

According to some analysts, the expatriates’ success in reversing the new fee is indicative of their growing political clout south of the border.

“This shows that, working together, we can work for many changes, both in the United States and in Mexico,” said Pedro Arias, who heads the East Los Angeles branch of Mexico’s Party of the Democratic Revolution, a major opposition group.

Times staff writer Frank Sotomayor contributed to this report.