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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, AUGUST
19, 1986
PAGE
11
First we attended a briefing given by Mr. Ezell and the Chief Patrol
Agent for the San Diego sector, Alan F. Eliason. Also being briefed were
Dean Dana, one of the five supervisors of Los Angeles County, and a lady
serving on the staff of Senator Jake Garn of Utah. Commissioner Ezell
regularly invites public officials and newspeople down to the border in
order to make them, and through them the public at large, aware of the
ap�allin9 magnitude of the problem.
The statistics presented were
fr1ghten1ng. In
1965
only
6,558
illegal aliens were apprehended in the
San Diego sector. Twenty years later, the number had skyrocketed to more
than
427,000.
This year the expected number is about
600,000.
Total
illegal alien apprehensions last year amounted to
1.2
million; this year
it could top
1.8
million--three times the expected legal immigration
figure.
After the briefing we viewed first-hand the most notorious illegal entry
points in the San Diego sector. In the fading light of the afternoon, we
looked down from the Otay Mesa into a valley known as the •soccer field,•
a spot where children once played. There, hundreds of illegal aliens
were milling around on U.S. territory, just inside of the unfenced
border. They were preparing for their nocturnal rush up onto the Mesa,
hoping to get through and across its thicketed ravines. Many would make
contact with •coyotes,• waiting to smuggle them in automobiles and trucks
farther north, into the safety of the Mexican-American barrio of East Los
Angeles. Los Angeles County, observed Mr. Ezell, is •the illegal alien
capital of the country.•
At another location, crowds were clustered along the concrete-lined banks
of the Tijuana River, where it veers north of the border, ready for the
dash across the river bottom, much like those who cross the Rio Grande at
El Paso, Texas. After nightfall we watched their movements through the
lenses of an infra-red nightscope--Vietnam War technology brought to bear
on the border. The operator radioed locations to INS •ground pounders•
in four-wheel-drive wagons or to helicopters hovering overhead with
searchlights. Later, in a van with an agent, we drove back and forth
through the streets of San Ysidro, watching border-hoppers running to and
fro, darting from one shadowy corner to the next.
Because of their
furtive actions, they refer to themselves as •pollos• or chickens.
An estimated
2,300
are apprehended every night at San Ysidro,
representing
40
to
50%
of those who made the attempt. But since most of
those who are caught try and try again, the INS admits it ultimately
keeps out only from
10
to
15%.
Usually the aliens present no struggle
when caught, since to do so would only delay their release and their next
attempt. It's a very strange war, indeed.
We were taken to the barracks to view the nightly •roundup.• While the
vast majority of those caught are Mexican nationals, the most startling
increase so far this year, up
65%,
is among those classified as "OTM"-
other than Mexican.
OTMs have been caught this year coming through
Mexico from
66
different countries! While the majority of these arrive
from El Salvador and Guatemala, and secondarily from the rest of the
hemisphere, more than
200
came last year from India,
163
from mainland
China and nearly a hundred from Yugoslavia. "Almost a United Nations of
illegal aliens are penetrating this border,• said Chief Eliason.