Wider I-5 Median Lures Immigrants

U.S. immigration officials are expressing alarm about a “dramatic increase” in the number of illegal immigrants and smugglers congregating daily along the recently widened median of Interstate 5 just north of the U.S.-Mexico border.

“This is real bad and it’s getting worse,” said Gustavo de la Vina, chief Border Patrol agent in San Diego.

The gatherings of hundreds of people along the median area of I-5 have become a highly visible, and, to many, an irritating manifestation of the ever-increasing influx of unauthorized foreigners from Mexico.

“It looks like they’ve taken over,” complained San Diego City Councilman Bob Filner. “It’s like a mall out there.”

On Sunday, Border Patrol spotters counted a 24-hour total of more than 1,260 illegal immigrants in the median just north of the border--three times the average number recorded before the median was widened when four freeway lanes were shut down three weeks ago.

The California Department of Transportation reduced the number of lanes--two southbound and two northbound--as a safety measure. Scores of immigrants have been killed in recent years while crossing border-zone freeways on foot, a fact that has long provided a grisly sideshow to large-scale unauthorized immigration from Mexico. Now some say I-5, site of most of the carnage, is too appealing.

“There’s been a dramatic increase in the number of aliens using the freeway as a conduit,” said Steven P. Kean, a Border Patrol spokesman, who noted that the median serves both as a convenient walking path and a place to hook up with smugglers.

Smugglers working the median area have become so brazen, officials say, that at least one has been seen standing in the still-operating lanes and stopping vehicles in order to let his charges pass, his pose akin to that of a traffic cop. Someone else recently manipulated traffic pylons and shut down a third southbound lane, the Border Patrol says.

For years, De la Vina noted, smugglers working in the area have directed clients toward the perceived haven of the I-5 median strip. Border Patrol agents are told to refrain, for safety reasons, from making arrests in the median area, reasoning that any such action could send people charging into the traffic. (There are no plans to reverse that no-arrest policy, De la Vina says.)

However, the recent lane closures have more than tripled the effective width of the median strip, prompting even more smugglers to gravitate there, authorities say.

Border Patrol and Caltrans officials are scheduled to meet Friday in San Diego and discuss the problem. Border Patrol authorities are expected to request modifications, including possibly reopening of the four lanes that were closed off and the construction of a median fence designed to prevent people from crossing it.

Immigrant advocates, who have applauded the lane shutdowns, will undoubtedly resist expected Border Patrol efforts to have the freeway lanes reopened. They are also opposed to the Border Patrol’s call for construction of a fence in the I-5 median, arguing that such a structure, designed to keep people off the freeway, would be ineffective in deterring immigrants and could lead to freeway crossers being trapped along the median.

“I think De la Vina and the Border Patrol are going to have to make a decision on what’s more important: Making arrests or saving people’s lives,” said Roberto Martinez, border representative for a Quaker human rights group.

Caltrans officials say their priority is saving lives, but they are sensitive to law enforcement concerns. “We’re trying to prevent death and trauma,” said Jim Larson, a Caltrans spokesman in San Diego.

The large-scale movement of pedestrians along I-5 was clearly evident just after dawn Saturday, as groups--some numbering 20 or more--dashed across the freeway from adjoining brush to the relative safety of the median. Most interviewed said they had just crossed the border that evening, and were hoping to hook up with rides to the north, mostly to the Los Angeles area.

“We all know la migra (the Border Patrol) won’t arrest us here,” explained Mario, 24, one of a cadre of smugglers who work the median zone, acting as a middleman between arriving groups and drivers stationed in the adjacent community of San Ysidro. “It’s a lot safer now that they closed these lanes,” added Mario (who declined to give his last name), as he sat atop the low concrete barrier that bisects the median.

Since 1987, according to the California Highway Patrol, vehicles have struck and killed 89 illegal immigrants along border-area roadways, mostly on I-5, and injured 72 others. (Included are five deaths and eight injuries so far this year, among them a Mexican man struck and killed in June by a Border Patrol van along an I-5 exit ramp.)

About 75 miles to the north, 40 other immigrants have been killed and 25 injured since 1987 while attempting to sneak around the San Onofre Border Patrol checkpoint on I-5 at the northwest corner of Camp Pendleton.

There have been no fatalities this year at that checkpoint, a fact that authorities attribute to a successful safety campaign, which included the posting of flashing lights and signs along the freeway alerting motorists and immigrants of the hazard.

For the past two years, authorities say, the number of illegal entrants from Mexico has been increasing steadily. After crossing the border on foot, many new arrivals hike toward the I-5 corridor, where smugglers wait to meet them and arrange for passage north, charging about $300 for a ride to Los Angeles.

Border Patrol agents now arrest an average of about 1,525 illegal immigrants daily in the San Diego area, sending most back to Mexico. Sunday, agents recorded 3,118 arrests. San Diego is the busiest crossing zone along the almost 2,000-mile international boundary.

Among the hundreds seeking to cross I-5 last Saturday morning were the aged and the very young, women and men, almost all Mexican citizens who had crossed illegally from nearby Tijuana the previous evening and were now greatly fatigued.

“The salaries are too little back home, so we thought we’d try finding work here,” explained Susana Leticia Villarreal, 26, holding her infant, Miguel, as she waited along the western edge of the freeway with her husband, Samuel Aviles, 30, and her other son, Ivan, 5, all of whom had come together from their home in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa.

As southbound cars whizzed by on the freeway above, she explained that two thieves armed with pistols had robbed the family along the Tijuana River channel the previous night, while they were walking north. Among the items lost, she said, was her handbag, which included $100 in cash--all the money the family possessed--and a piece of paper containing the address and telephone number of her brother in Los Angeles, the family’s destination. It was their only record of his whereabouts.

“We’re stranded now,” she explained, agitated and confused, shortly before the four darted across the two lanes of traffic to the center of the freeway, hopeful that something good would ensue.

Once in the median, they were quickly spotted by Mario, the smuggler, who jogged through some traffic and approached the prospective clients. Arrangements were made on the spot. After reaching an accord, Mario helped carry their heavy suitcase across the northbound lanes, down a cement incline, through a hole in the fence along the freeway perimeter and into a commercial strip of San Ysidro, where they would attempt to find a ride north.