Sitting on the Fence

SAN YSIDRO —  Californians who despair that we’ve lost control of the border, who regard illegal immigrants as job-taking, tax-wasting invaders, can be proud of the latest Border Patrol innovation--a tall, strong fence that runs for miles, cutting off many well-traveled smuggling routes.

Likewise, Californians who consider the human surge part of our heritage, invigorating the economy, spicing the cultural mix, can be pleased that the ribbon of rust-colored steel apparently has not impeded the flow north.

How many people still get through? I asked a Border Patrol agent last week. It was late afternoon. He stood on a Tijuana River levee, guarding one of the few big gaps in the new fence. Across the dusty riverbed, people were massed, waiting. He answered my question with a loud, mocking laugh.

“Ha ha ha ha. Go to San Diego. Go to Los Angeles. Go count them yourself.”

I walked down the fence and peered through a tiny crack. Three sets of eyes peered back. Anybody se habla English? I asked in rusty Spanglish. “ Si , a little,” one man replied. Was the fence keeping anybody back? His response was familiar.

“Ha ha ha ha ha.”

A chain-link fence was stretched along the border here in 1980. In short order, it was clipped, battered, trampled and otherwise rendered moot. Not long ago, a small section was repaired. This produced some results, and it was decided to build a whole new fence.

Army reserve crews and Border Patrol volunteers have completed all but a few sections. The fence runs for 14 miles, from the Pacific to hill country east of here. It stands 10 feet tall, made of solid steel planks retrieved from military surplus. A spokesman boasted that pulling down one section would require “the strength of an elephant.”

The fence is not envisioned as a barrier to illegal entry. This is a key point, that there remain hundreds of miles of unprotected border to the east. “We are not kidding ourselves,” a Border Patrol official said. The fence is meant to funnel smugglers away from the urban corridor below San Diego. This will reduce immigrant foot traffic off I-5, a source of much controversy. In addition, the fence already has made it easier to catch drug smugglers who crash through by car.

Critics compare the barrier to the Berlin Wall. That’s a stretch, but the fence does seem to clash a bit with White House talk of a New World Order and free trade. In any case, a border fence not expected to cut into illegal border crossings seems an apt metaphor for many Californians’ attitudes toward this issue. There are extremists--those who would build an alligator-filled moat, and those who would swing the door open. But most of us waffle. Soaring unemployment and welfare costs are worrisome, but these job-hungry immigrants somehow seem so American, reflections of our ancestors. Also, some Californians still remember who was here first. And finally, we recognize someone has to pick the peaches.

With all this ambivalence, efforts to police the border can seem absurd: Keep them out, boys, but, failing that, I sure could use a good gardener. Beaten-down agents, given only enough resources to catch a third of their quarry, sense the objective in this campaign is something less than total victory. Nonetheless, they are tickled with their new fence.

No doubt, it has changed the game. The high-volume smugglers haven’t figured out a good way to crack it yet. Young men can climb over easily, but women and children must wait to sneak through the few gaps. All day, the coyotes study Border Patrol movements, communicating with whistles. Sometimes, they perch on the fence and look off toward a K mart a few hundred yards away. The store, marked with a bright red banner, is a target: Beyond it runs I-5, where the agents now must quit the chase.

At sunset, the agents pull off the levee and take positions in fields below. The immigrants creep forward. Some vault the fence. Others scamper up the levee and through the big gap. The Border Patrol vehicles, lights off, wheels churning up red dust, bounce after them through the brush. It will go on like this all night.

Now it’s 9:30 p.m. The agents are off hunting. I am alone on the levee. A man and a small boy work across the river bottom toward me. The man stops and shouts something. I can’t make it out, but holler back: Just a journalist, not to worry. Maybe I say it wrong. The man, alarmed, snatches the boy and sprints away. Feeling faintly ridiculous, a feeling I suspect is not uncommon on this levee, I decide I’ve had enough laughs, and leave the strange game of the border to others.