INS Won’t Close San Clemente Checkpoint : Law enforcement: With Congress adding resources, agency no longer must choose between staffing border or I-5 and Temecula stops.

SAN DIEGO —  The Immigration and Naturalization Service has decided to keep in operation its controversial checkpoint on Interstate 5 south of San Clemente and another one near Temecula, an INS official said Thursday.

The INS experimented with closing the checkpoints for several weeks last fall and again in the spring and transferring the Border Patrol agents to the international border.

But now that Congress, responding to political pressure, is adding hundreds of agents to the Border Patrol, the INS no longer has to choose between staffing the border or staffing the checkpoints, the official said. The San Diego sector has nearly double the number of Border Patrol agents as a decade ago.

Some public officials in south Orange County and north San Diego County have long advocated that the INS abandon the San Clemente checkpoint, the busiest Border Patrol checkpoint not along an international border.

In San Clemente and Dana Point, officials have complained about Border Patrol agents conducting high-speed pursuits of suspected smugglers and illegal immigrants trying to circumvent the checkpoint, which has been in operation since the 1920s.

In north San Diego County, officials blame the checkpoint for blocking illegal immigrants from reaching Los Angeles and thus forcing them to take up residence in the canyons and open space areas in Oceanside, Carlsbad, Encinitas and elsewhere.

INS Commissioner Doris Meissner is set to announce today that the checkpoints will remain in effect, more Border Patrol agents and INS inspectors are being deployed along the eastern reaches of the Mexican border, and additional equipment such as night goggles and sensors will be put in use. The measures are part of what officials are calling Phase Two of Operation Gatekeeper.

Until now, Operation Gatekeeper has concentrated on the Imperial Beach section of the border, using additional agents to catch smugglers and illegal immigrants. The section was the busiest of the border, with hundreds of migrants scurrying across the border each night, many with little fear of apprehension.

“What we did was take on the toughest part of the border and break it,” the official said.

As a result, however, smugglers and migrants are now attempting to cross in great numbers near the San Ysidro and Otay Mesa ports of entry and farther east in the mountainous backcountry near Campo and Dulzura.

To thwart that eastward movement, the INS plans additional agents, new strategies and new equipment. “We’re following the smugglers and aliens eastward,” the official said.

Pinching off the Imperial Beach crossing area has increased the smugglers use of two particular tactics: “running” the border checkpoint in their cars, and packing illegal immigrants in vans and rented trucks.

Smugglers are also increasingly using “drop houses” in San Diego, homes where dozens of illegal immigrants are hidden while waiting to continue to Los Angeles. The Border Patrol has instituted Operation Disruption to ferret out these houses, the official said.

The San Clemente and Temecula checkpoints are important as a backup, the official said, to apprehend people who have succeeded in crossing the border.

“When the checkpoints are up, the drop houses fill up,” allowing the Border Patrol to make raids, the official said. “ . . . The smugglers are playing games and we’re responding.”

In answer to the concern in San Clemente, Dana Point and other communities, the INS has dropped its policy of high-speed pursuits that, on occasion, have taken place on city streets.

The addition of more agents in eastern San Diego County will please many rural residents there who have been shocked as illegal immigrants began traipsing through their property when Operation Gatekeeper closed off more convenient routes to the west. A checkpoint has also been established along Highway 94.

At San Clemente, the INS hopes to install cameras to take pictures of smugglers so they can be prosecuted even if they succeed in having the immigrants run away before the Border Patrol closes in, the official said. Also, INS may use four lanes instead of two to speed the process of scrutinizing motorists.

The San Clemente checkpoint station has 92 agents; the Temecula station along Interstate 15 has 75.