Plunge in Captures Renews Debate Over INS Checkpoints

Apprehensions at two highly traveled Border Patrol checkpoints in Southern California have plunged so drastically that some question whether hundreds of agents stationed there--and the stations themselves--are even necessary.

The checkpoints--in San Clemente and Temecula--have for years angered motorists, many of whom have to wait as long as 45 minutes to pass through each day. To ease the strain, the Border Patrol routinely suspends inspections on weekends and holidays, or in inclement weather when traffic is more likely to back up.

But that practice, along with the fortification of the U.S.-Mexico border in 1994 under “Operation Gatekeeper,” has resulted in an 80% drop in apprehensions at San Clemente and an 84% drop at Temecula in the last six years.

Some Border Patrol agents say the checkpoint hours of operations are so familiar to smugglers that they plan their travels when the inspectors are gone, going so far as to station lookouts near one checkpoint and alert smugglers when inspectors are most eager to clear traffic through.

“Only stupid smugglers or mom and pop smugglers get caught, usually during the week,” said a veteran agent at San Clemente. “I-5 becomes an alien and drugs highway on weekends.”

Some, including Rep. Ron Packard (R-Oceanside), whose district includes both checkpoints, have questioned whether the 145 agents stationed at the San Clemente facility and the 140 stationed at Temecula--and the millions of dollars in resources to keep them there--could be better used along the border, some 70 miles away.

The checkpoints are mostly “a symbolic show of force on the freeways,” said Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at UC San Diego. “Is the taxpayer getting the maximum bang for his dollars for deterrence by keeping these checkpoints open? No.”

But Johnny Williams, the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s western regional commissioner, defends the current strategy.

“The checkpoints have been integral in the overall success of Gatekeeper,” said Williams, who helped plan that program’s effort to run a metal fence along the border from the Pacific Ocean to the mountains in east San Diego County and station more agents there. “Smugglers know the checkpoints are there, and they have to plan how to get around them.”

According to Border Patrol statistics, 526,231 immigrants were apprehended in the San Diego Sector in 1995, the first year of Gatekeeper. In 1999, the agency reported 182,267 apprehensions, a 65% drop. The 1999 apprehensions were the lowest in the sector since 1973.

‘Important as Enforcement Tool’

Williams said the massing of agents along the border delays smugglers, pushes them east to the mountains and deserts and into Arizona, and gives the Border Patrol an edge.

The checkpoints to the north “are so important as an enforcement tool that we would enlarge them rather than close them,” he said.

Border Patrol agents have operated a checkpoint between San Clemente and Oceanside since 1926. The current site, five miles south of San Clemente on Interstate 5, became a permanent fixture in 1972. It is the oldest, busiest and most expensive checkpoint in the U.S. The agency will spend $11.4 million this fiscal year in salaries alone for agents at the station.

The Temecula checkpoint became a permanent facility in the late 1970s and has been staffed by the Border Patrol since the late 1920s. Located on Interstate 15 at Rainbow in northern San Diego County, it straddles a mountainous but heavily traveled corridor leading to Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The agency will spend about $11 million in agents’ salaries this year for that operation.

Both checkpoints monitor millions of travelers driving north from San Diego or Mexico. Agents stand between lanes, quickly screening vehicles and occupants for undocumented immigrants, drugs or other illegal activity.

But the Border Patrol has to juggle the need to keep checkpoints open with the crush of traffic that can sometimes keep motorists waiting as long as 45 minutes. A decade ago, delays of up to an hour were common. Williams said agents monitor traffic congestion and try to keep the wait to no longer than 20 minutes.

“We attempt to balance our need for enforcement with the public safety,” Williams said. “To persons from outside the agency it must appear needless. They think that agents are just standing there between lanes waiting for aliens to show up.”

Over the years, the checkpoints have survived threats by Packard and others in Congress to shut them down and legal challenges by civil libertarians who say the random inspections infringe on constitutional rights.

Packard even had a provision inserted in a current funding bill requiring the checkpoints at San Clemente and Temecula to conduct inspections around the clock in order to be funded.

In a recent written statement, Packard said, “For years I worked aggressively to shut down the inland checkpoints which were only open sporadically and thus ineffective.” He said funds spent by the INS to operate the facilities “would be better spent at the border.”

Legislators Urge 24-Hour Checks

A 1996 investigation by the Justice Department’s inspector general found that during a five-month period that year, the San Clemente facility did inspections on a 24-hour basis on only 22 of the 150 days studied. Still, agents made 16,344 apprehensions.

The inspector general’s findings resulted in a threat by Packard and other GOP congressmen--never carried out--to shut down the checkpoint unless it “conformed to legislative requirements.”

The checkpoints have a powerful supporter in U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, an influential voice on immigration and border issues.

In a statement released by her office, Feinstein (D-Calif.) said, “If it is not feasible to operate the inspection lanes on a 24-hour basis because of safety concerns, there needs to be an aggressive alternative to this problem.”

To help the traffic flow more easily, Packard pressured the INS to install a $13-million commuter lane at San Clemente, the only facility with such a lane. But it is open limited hours--from 5:30 to 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 to 7:30 p.m.--and agents say it is useless.

Commuters who want to use the special lane must undergo a background check and are issued a bar code for the vehicle that is screened by a computer as it passes by. The lane was designed to be used by thousands, but officials said only 500 motorists use it each day, a number the agency considers disappointing. Of these, 5% are “blow-bys,” unauthorized motorists getting around the checkpoint delays, Agent Gloria Chavez, an agency spokeswoman, said.

But blow-bys aren’t the biggest problem, agents say.

Some say smugglers wait until inspections have been suspended to drive drugs and illegal immigrants through.

“Smugglers have better intelligence than we do. But the San Clemente checkpoint is a no-brainer,”

said Border Patrol union spokesman Joe Dassaro, adding that professional traffickers often do not risk anything going through the facility because they know exactly when to cross.

For example, inspections are stopped and traffic is “flushed” through when the line of waiting cars stretches one mile out. When this happens, vehicles are allowed to drive through without being inspected for about 20 minutes or until traffic thins out.

Lookouts stationed across the freeway at San Onofre State Park or at a viewpoint about two miles south of the checkpoint alert smugglers in Oceanside, about 10 minutes away, who are waiting to transport human or drug cargo.

Authorities cited safety concerns for curtailing inspections despite the congressional mandate that they be conducted around the clock.

“If we did inspections on Thanksgiving Day or the weekend, cars would be backed up to Carlsbad [25 miles south], maybe farther,” said Luis Amavizca, daytime watch commander. “We have to measure the operational needs with the safety of everybody involved.”

Richard Rogers, retired INS district director in Los Angeles and former acting INS administrator for the western region in Laguna Niguel, also believes the inspection stations are a deterrent to illegal immigration.

However, Rogers, now a private consultant on immigration issues, said the declining apprehensions raise questions about the checkpoints’ effectiveness as a law enforcement tool.

“If you have close to 150 agents stationed [at San Clemente] and there were only 6,000 apprehensions last year, and it’s closed on weekends, it does raise some questions about its effectiveness,” Rogers said.