All-Out Border War to Stem Alien Flow Is High-Tech Affair

SAN YSIDRO —  At the end of a deep-rutted dirt road, an agent of the U.S. Border Patrol, dressed in all-weather fatigues with a holstered pistol strapped to his waist, stood on the back of a pickup truck, his eyes fixed to a mounted scope. He was looking south, toward the canyons leading from nearby Mexico. As dusk approached, groups of glowing figures became visible through the greenish haze of the scope’s viewer.

“They’re just starting to come up now,” said the agent, Chuck Demors, noting that there was still a band of apricot-colored sunlight on the horizon, above the nearby Pacific. “Just wait. In another 45 minutes, when it’s dark, they’ll be pouring across.”

Demors was looking through an infrared scope that, in total darkness, allows him to observe illegal aliens entering the United States from nearby Tijuana.

As nightfall fell, other Border Patrol techniques came into place: a helicopter dived into canyons, its high-powered searchlights seeking aliens hiding in the rugged brush; agents in four-wheel-drive vans and off-road vehicles roamed the terrain, and, in the roughest country, officers on foot sporting surreal night-vision goggles positioned themselves to intercept groups of aliens.

Meanwhile, in a sleekly futuristic control room a mile from the border, computer operators monitored hundreds of buried electronic sensors, using their radios to notify field agents of “hits” that indicate the presence of illegal aliens.

All in all, it’s a long way from the Border Patrol’s traditional image: the lonely agent on horseback, his head crowned by the telltale Smokey the Bear hat, patiently tracking through the rugged desert.

Increasingly, the effort to stop illegal immigration--which officials often refer to as a “war”--is taking on the physical trappings of a high-technology battle. From the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean, U.S. immigration authorities seeking to impede the flow of illegal aliens are employing a formidable array of sensors, night-vision scopes, aircraft and other devices more familiar to a war zone. In fact, much of the equipment was initially designed for the military to use in Vietnam.

U.S. officials heartily endorse the high-tech approach, which they say saves manpower. The equipment buildup comes at a time when the Border Patrol is experiencing its largest personnel increase in history, when record numbers of aliens are believed to be entering the United States and when some observers are openly calling for U.S. military units to be placed along the border.

“Technology greatly increases the effectiveness of our people,” said Verne Jervis, a spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, parent body of the Border Patrol.

“It just makes us one heck of a lot more efficient,” said Marshall Mehlos, assistant chief patrol agent in San Diego.

Others are not so happy. Herman Baca, chairman of the Committee on Chicano Rights in San Diego, says the “militarization” of the border has led to greater harassment of illegal aliens by the Border Patrol. He noted, for instance, that at least one alien has been killed in San Diego this year and others have been injured after being run over by patrol vehicles. The Border Patrol says the incidents were accidents.

“It’s part of the Rambo mentality . . . that every problem that confronts this country can be solved through law enforcement or military action,” Baca said. “It parallels Vietnam. Our government policy makers are fighting a war that they don’t understand. . . . And you know who won in Vietnam.”

Baca and others say the effort is doomed to failure: Without alleviating the Third World social ills that force people to come to the United States seeking work, they say, the tide of illegal immigration will continue unabated.

Federal officials acknowledge that technology and manpower alone will never stop illegal immigration through and from Mexico.

“As long as you have economic disparities and the ready availability of jobs in this country, people are going to try, regardless of what we put over there,” said James Olech, a deputy chief Border Patrol agent in Washington who works on developing new equipment. “Unless you do something to deal with that disparity, you’ll never be able to seal the border off.”

Statistics show that there has been no letup in illegal immigration, despite the buildup. In San Diego, Border Patrol agents set a one-month record for the number of apprehensions of illegal aliens in March. Nationwide, apprehensions were up 43% in the first four months of fiscal 1986, compared to the record pace of 1985. In February, INS Commissioner Alan C. Nelson stated that the nation was experiencing “the greatest surge of people in history across our southern border.”

The undocumented immigrants are being met by what is undeniably the largest and most well-equipped staff in Border Patrol history.

In the last 18 months, officials say, the INS has added 647 agents along the U.S.-Mexico border, an increase of 33%; the total force now stands at more than 2,600. In San Diego County, the busiest crossing point along the border, 625 agents patrol the 66 miles of border.

The new officers have lots of impressive--and expensive--new equipment to work with. Nationwide in the last 18 months, the INS says, the agency has ordered $5.5 million in new gear:

- Ten infrared night-vision scopes, valued at $60,000 each. The images seen on the scopes come from body heat, not light.

- Three low-level television systems, $250,000 each.

- Four aircraft-mounted infrared scopes, $120,000 each.

- Two hundred twenty-one infrared night-vision pocket scopes, $2,500 each.

- Sixteen night-vision goggles, $6,000 each.

- Two hundred vehicles, $15,000 each.

Devices such as the night-vision scopes were initially developed by the military; former Army helicopters are also among those in use along the border. The Border Patrol maintains a research department in Washington that examines military and other equipment for possible use by the Border Patrol. Before the recent buildup, agents regularly grumbled about the quality of some of their “hand-me-down” equipment.

“We used to get a lot of Army surplus stuff that they wore out in Vietnam,” said one border agent.

The INS has 12 helicopters in service along the border, all equipped with high-power lights; two more choppers are on order. In addition, agents have access to 32 fixed-wing aircraft. In San Diego, the Border Patrol maintains three helicopters and two fixed-wing aircraft.

Olech, the Border Patrol official in Washington, said a whole new generation of high-tech gadgets may be in use along the border in coming years, and some sooner. Some examples:

- An advanced infrared scope that would emerge, periscope-style, out of a Border Patrol vehicle and be hoisted 30 feet in the air, atop a hydraulically operated pole. The devices, the first of which will be shipped to border posts in coming months, are operated by officers seated comfortably in the vehicle cabins, observing the images on television screens.

- Drone aircraft. These remote-controlled devices, equipped with night-vision equipment, could be dispatched to remote areas to determine whether patrol personnel are needed. The technology is available, but the cost is still prohibitive.

- So-called “people sensors.” These devices, still under development, would be placed on suspected alien routes. They would have the ability to differentiate between reflective light generated by human beings and light caused by other sources, eliminating the false alarms that plague current sensor systems. Use is 5 or 10 years away.

Nonetheless, officials caution that technology is only a tool--devices often malfunction and must be replaced by manual skills. And officials acknowledge that computerization of Border Patrol records is fairly embryonic compared to those of other federal agencies.

“We’re very careful with technology because you can become a slave to it,” said Larry Richardson, chief patrol agent in El Paso, Tex. “You got to shop around and make it a workable tool, as opposed to a problem for you.”

Despite the current emphasis on high technology, Border Patrol officials are quick to boast of their traditional tracking skills, which are particularly useful in isolated areas. And horseback patrols are still used.

“Some of these old hands, they swear they can track an (alien) across a plate of glass and never lose him,” said R.M. Worsham, a supervisory patrol agent in El Paso.

But Worsham, asked about the familiar image of a Border Patrol officer on horseback, added: “What’s the point of feeding some hay-burner and paying someone to play cowboy eight hours a day, when you give me a guy in a Ford LTD and he’ll catch five times as many?”

On a recent visit to Border Patrol installations in San Ysidro, the importance of high-tech devices was evident.

Next to the Border Patrol office in town, operators sat next to computer consoles, monitoring the hundreds of sensors that have been placed at known and suspected paths used by aliens. The sensors are activated variously by movement, heat or metal. Some are designed to detect aliens on foot, while others are aimed at vehicles that attempt to drive through the border.

When a “hit” is recorded on a sensor, the operators, using radios, can dispatch Border Patrol units. By following a sequence of sensor hits, it is possible to monitor the progress of aliens entering the United States.

The sensors, however, are not foolproof. Sometimes they’re activated by animals; sometimes they simply malfunction.

As dusk approached, thousands of aliens massed along the border in Tijuana, waiting for nightfall to attempt entry into the United States. Meanwhile, agents began to deploy the large, infrared scopes on the backs of trucks. Six of the scopes are in use here.

During the night, agents manning the scopes directed other units toward groups of aliens spotted in the darkness. In the viewers, the aliens appeared as ghostly glows against an algae-clouded backdrop.

“That guy in front, he’s probably the guide,” said agent Hernan Chirinos, who was positioned on a hilltop. “It’s not unusual to see groups of 30 or 40 here.”

Soon, the rumble of a helicopter was heard overhead. The chopper dipped into a nearby canyon, its searchlights suddenly piercing the darkness.

From his position on the hilltop, Chirinos, dressed in camouflaged fatigues and a woolen watch cap, directed other units toward an alien who was spotted in a field. The alien, Jose Torres Aguilar, a 21-year-old from Monterrey, was quickly discovered; he was arrested by helmeted agents driving three- and four-wheel off-road vehicles--another recent innovation.

“You can go anywhere with these things,” said agent Larry Ford, who was driving a three-wheeler. “They’re real handy.”

Within minutes, a four-wheel-drive Border Patrol van drove up and took Torres away.

A few miles to the east, agent Chuck Demors was parked at the end of a dirt road, looking through his scope. On the screen, a man on horseback was rounding up a group of people. He was a Border Patrol officer, doing his job the way it used to be done.