Mexico Puts Brakes on I-5 Border Runs : Immigration: INS drops its plan to shut I-5 lanes as Mexican agents all but halt those who were running across the border into the U.S. at San Ysidro.

Mexican federal authorities on Wednesday cracked down on illegal immigrants running across the U.S.-Mexico border into freeway traffic at the Interstate-5 crossing, blocking the harrowing practice as dramatically as it began.

In response, the U.S. Border Patrol suspended a plan announced one day earlier to station 25 additional agents at the border crossing and shut down four of six freeway lanes there.

The measures to stop illegal freeway crossings had been scheduled to begin today, raising fears of new U.S.-Mexico tensions and heightened congestion at the already chaotic San Ysidro Port of Entry.

Mexican immigration officials reiterated at a meeting with Border Patrol commanders late Tuesday that they would end the new freeway tactic, which hundreds of illegal immigrants have used to elude capture each day, Border Patrol spokesman Steve Kean said.

“During the past 24 hours, we have only had four reported sightings of people coming up through the southbound lanes,” Kean said. “The plan has been suspended. We are confident that the Mexican authorities will control the situation.”

Wednesday’s decision comes amid mounting concern about the desperate images that have proved an embarrassment to both countries in the past several weeks: northbound groups of men, women and children sprinting headlong past Mexican customs officers and U.S. immigration agents into waves of speeding southbound cars.

Humanitarian concerns and the potential economic damage of the freeway lane closure apparently forced Mexican officials to use law enforcement agencies to stop immigration to the United States, a politically delicate issue.

Martin Torres, a spokesman for the Mexican consulate in Los Angeles, said Wednesday his government’s hands-off policy toward illegal immigration has not changed. The Mexican Constitution guarantees citizens the freedom of movement and prohibits the government from interfering with that right, he said.

“The Mexican government is not committing itself to stopping the migratory flow into the United States,” he said. “It is committing itself for reasons of security, to protect pedestrians and drivers.”

Enrique Loeza Tovar, Mexico’s consul in San Diego, attended Tuesday’s meeting with Border Patrol officials along with Miguel Limon Rojas, a sub-secretary in the federal department that oversees immigration issues, Mexican officials said.

One Mexican government official, who asked to remain anonymous, said Mexican officials were displeased with the Border Patrol’s freeway proposal, seeing it as a high-pressure tactic.

“We were uncomfortable with what could have occurred,” the official said. “That was the reason for the meeting, which was conducted in an appropriate spirit of cooperation.”

San Diego and Baja California political and business leaders were worried that the proposed lane closure would hurt tourism and other sectors of the already depressed trans-border economy.

The mass freeway dashes emerged last month as the yearly flow of illegal immigration picked up and smugglers found crossing in other areas more difficult because of a new border fence constructed in the past year.

Some border experts in Mexico have also alleged that the Border Patrol intentionally relaxed enforcement at the port of entry in recent weeks and permitted the tactic to escalate. They say the Border Patrol has used the chilling, widely broadcast video footage of freeway dashes, which was shot by immigration agents, to draw attention to the illegal immigration issue and the scope of the problem they face.

Kean disputed that view Wednesday, blaming unscrupulous alien smugglers and an overall increase in illegal immigration for the freeway problem. He cited the arrests of 60,000 illegal immigrants in January, the fourth highest monthly total ever in the San Diego sector, as evidence of rising illegal immigration.

Beginning last weekend, an elite Mexican border police unit started cracking down on smugglers of illegal aliens who were staging the freeway dashes from a tumultuous area south of the port of entry choked with vehicle and foot traffic, street vendors and smog. The unit, known as Grupo Beta, was created last year to combat violence at the border by criminals and smugglers against pollos , as the would-be illegal immigrants are called.

Until Wednesday, however, the Border Patrol called the Mexican response inadequate. And Kean said agents will still be on alert for resumed use of the I-5 crossing--an effective route because of a U.S. policy against pursuing illegal immigrants on the freeway.

There were 14 illegal immigrants killed in accidents on the freeway near the border last year and 17 in 1990, according to the California Highway Patrol.