RENO URGES PUTTING BRAKE ON BORDER PATROL BUILDUP

SAN ANTONIO -- Attorney General Janet Reno on Tuesday urged Congress to slow
the law-enforcement buildup on the U.S.-Mexico border, warning that a
sizable influx of inexperienced agents could undermine work-force standards.

"Law enforcement experts indicate that it is risky to allow an agency's
overall ratio of inexperienced to experienced agents to exceed 30 percent,"
Reno told a Senate subcommittee in Washington, D.C.

"As of July 1998," she told the appropriations subcommittee, "the percentage
of Border Patrol agents having two years of experience or less was almost 39
percent."

While the Border Patrol has more than doubled to almost 9,000 since 1994 --
and continues to grow -- lawmakers are pressing for an additional 1,000
agents for next year. The Clinton administration's reluctance to meet that
demand has unleashed a bipartisan attack on the White House.

"I believe it is inexcusable for the administration to submit a budget to
Congress that does not include funding for additional Border Patrol agents,"
U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, an El Paso Democrat and former Border Patrol
chief, told a congressional committee on immigration last month.

Reno's caution comes during a tense time on the 2,000-mile U.S-Mexico
border, where violent incidents involving law enforcement agents and illegal
immigrants are occurring with what appears to be increasing frequency.

In February, a Border Patrol agent near Eagle Pass shot and wounded an
illegal immigrant who threatened him with a gun. And in January, an illegal
immigrant who carried nothing more than a water jug was shot in the back
also near Eagle Pass by Wilbur Honeycutt, a member of a DEA task force. The
immigrant is paralyzed from the waist down.

Though that shooting did not involve the Border Patrol, critics blame the
incident on Honeycutt's inexperience. A former part-time police officer in
Bandera, Honeycutt came to Eagle Pass with little border training and had
been there for less than a year at the time of the shooting.

Unfamiliarity with the border is also widely seen as having played a role in
the death of Esequiel Hernandez, a West Texas teen-ager and U.S. citizen who
was herding goats when he was mistakenly shot by a Marine on an
anti-narcotics operation in 1997.

But Reno's go-slow approach was heavily criticized by Texas lawmakers, who
see the attorney general's caution as a virtual surrender by the Clinton
administration in the battle against illegal immigration and drug
trafficking.

"This administration has a horrendous record when it comes to border
security," said Allan Kay, a spokesman for Lamar Smith, a San Antonio
Republican who chairs the House immigration subcommittee. "They're not
interested. They've never been interested."

In fact, Reno told the Senate subcommittee, the Clinton administration has
since 1994 added nearly 2,000 immigration inspectors and deployed
"field-tested effective technologies," in addition to overseeing a 122
percent jump in Border Patrol agents. She called the border buildup
"unprecedented."

"The fiscal year 2000 budget request continues this aggressive effort," said
Reno, "but also reflects important management considerations that can no
longer be ignored."

Reno added, "The high proportion of new agents makes it necessary that they
be allowed to integrate into the Border Patrol corps to safeguard the
highest standards of law enforcement professionalism for this new
workforce."

But Reyes told the immigration subcommittee that all five Texas Border
Patrol chiefs told a member of his staff they "desperately" need more
agents. He said the administration's rationale for the slow-down is flawed,
and that in El Paso, for example, only 14 percent of the agents have less
than two years experience.

"You wonder who makes those decisions," said Reyes. "It certainly isn't
anyone that knows or understands Border Patrol operations or requirements."

Though unpopular among lawmakers, Reno's position was met with some support
among the local law enforcement community along the border. Robert Serna,
the district attorney for Maverick County, which encompasses Eagle Pass,
said safety should be the top concern for illegal immigrants and locals.

"I would agree with the attorney general," said Serna. "You need to make
sure that when you fight a problem the fighting does not become a problem in
itself."

Likewise, immigration advocates applauded the administration's push for a
pause in the border buildup. They say sharp increases in border enforcement
threaten the rights of immigrants while doing little to stop the seemingly
inexorable flow.

"When officers are not well-trained it's a lot more dangerous for
everybody," said Benito Juarez, coordinator for the Houston Immigration and
Refugee Coalition.