Methods Employed by Patrol in O.C. Called ‘Cruel,’ ‘Deceptive’

The Border Patrol has come under intense criticism in Orange County over the years, ranging from claims by Latino rights activists that agents violate civil rights to charges by the chief trauma surgeon in South County that agents’ high-speed chases cause death.

Immigrant rights activists and Dr. Thomas Shaver, head of the trauma unit at Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo, said Wednesday that it is little surprise that a Times investigation found that Border Patrol agents used “excessive force” and “illegal and abusive conduct” against Latinos.

“I think they have been deceptive to the public generally. . . and about their pursuits of undocumented immigrants,” Shaver said.

“They have initiated chases of immigrants, injuries have occurred, and (they) deny their involvement. If that is not deception, then I don’t know what is.”

Shaver said that as recently as Wednesday he treated a 22-year-old undocumented immigrant who suffered a broken neck and other massive injuries when the car in which he was being smuggled crashed in San Clemente after a chase by federal agents.

The undocumented immigrant, Juan Fraire, has been attached to a ventilator for the past week. If Fraire lives, he will be a quadriplegic, Shaver said.

Immigrant rights activists who argue that the agents violate civil rights cite a raid conducted in an Orange neighborhood in December, 1991. Agents that day arrested about 200 people suspected of being illegal immigrants, the agency’s largest raid in Orange County in years.

The raid triggered angry accusations that agents had run roughshod over people, threatening them and using illegal tactics during the raid.

Border Patrol officials initially declared that they broke no laws but acknowledged later that they violated federal policy at least once by using Orange city code enforcement officers to gain entry into an apartment.

Msgr. Jaime Soto, the vicar for the Latino community of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange, called the raid “cruel.”

At the heart of controversy involving the Border Patrol’s operation is the agency’s checkpoint, which is opposite the San Onofre nuclear generating station, along Interstate 5.

Undocumented immigrants play a cat-and-mouse game with Border Patrol agents near the checkpoint, some even trying to weave their way on foot through speeding freeway traffic.

Chases involving Border Patrol agents and smugglers of immigrants often come screeching north, sometimes ending in fatal crashes in San Clemente.

During the past five years, dozens of immigrants have been brought to Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo with injuries suffered in those crashes.

Shaver and his staff document these cases to support claims that the Border Patrol refuses to accept liability for the accident victims.

“Why do we have a checkpoint 60 miles from the problem?” asked Shaver, who said tougher enforcement at the U.S.-Mexico border would be more effective. The “checkpoint creates the most dangerous segment of our freeway system in California, if not the country. For every pedestrian killed or injured, there are citizens who will never forget killing or injuring another human being.”