THE COST OF A TIGHTER BORDER: PEOPLE-SMUGGLING NETWORKS

The recent declaration by the commissioner of the Immigration and
Naturalization Service that the border near San Diego "has reached a level
of control" and is "now stable" masks an alarming development. The very
factors that Commissioner Doris Meissner cites in the INS' success story
also signal the emergence of more formidable and resilient adversaries
along the U.S.-Mexico border. Get-tough campaigns like Operation Gatekeeper
are creating new opportunities for sophisticated immigrant-smuggling rings
with ties to organized crime and drug traffickers. The INS' tighter control
of the border has put a premium on resources that criminal organizations
possess.

Increasing the difficulty and cost of illegal entry into the United States
benefit smuggling operations that have the transportation and communication
capabilities to evade a more aggressive and technologically equipped INS.
Border Patrol agents, for example, report the appearance of 18-wheelers
carrying 100 or more immigrants, along with the usual rental trucks
ferrying 25 to 30. Agents say the drivers are no longer moonlighting
amateurs, but professional smugglers. A multiagency federal task force,
under the direction of U.S. Attorney Alan Bersin, has estimated that as
many as 10 to 12 family-based smuggling rings work the U.S.-Mexico border.

One is the Tijuana-based Peralta brothers, which was originally dubbed Los
Tres Hermanos (the Three Brothers) until authorities discovered a fourth
brother operating in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato. Although
rings like the Peraltas' smuggle only immigrants, not drugs, into the
United States, they pose nonetheless a serious threat to U.S. law
enforcement. For example, the Peraltas succeeded in placing a U.S. Customs
agent on their payroll. He waved hundreds, perhaps thousands, of smuggled
immigrants through his inspection lane at the San Ysidro port of entry. The
smuggling organizations communicate around the globe, relying on cell
phones with hard-to-trace numbers as well as on more sophisticated digital
equipment, according to INS agents.

Along the U.S.-Mexico border, smugglers possess the technology to observe,
then communicate to their field operatives the shifting deployments of the
Border Patrol and its monitoring equipment. This capability has set off a
technological arms race. As the Border Patrol pours more resources into
night-vision scopes, weight sensors and giant X-ray machines for seeing
into trucks, smuggling rings counter with their own state-of-the-art
equipment paid for by increased fees. Smuggling operations such as the
Peraltas' are capable of gathering individuals from all over the world and
transporting them north across the border and on to distant U.S. cities.

Large ranches in Mexico serve as staging areas where hundreds of immigrants
can be housed and fed until ready to be moved north.

In the United States, smuggling rings operate networks of drop houses where
illegal immigrants are kept until they arrive at their destinations--and
until their relatives pay off the balance of their fees. Not surprisingly,
smuggling fees for destinations distant from the border are higher than the
$700-$1,000 it takes to get from Tijuana to Los Angeles, which raises the
question of how illegal immigrants manage their debts to the smugglers.

Last summer, two groups of deaf Mexicans who had been smuggled into the
United States were found living in virtual bondage in New York City and in
North Carolina, where they had been sent by their captors to meet daily
quotas of earnings from trinket sales. Other migrants have endured even
worse treatment at the hands of smugglers. A recent Florida case involved
23 women from Veracruz, Mexico, some as young as 13 years old, who were
enslaved in prostitution to pay off their $2,000 smuggling fees. When
migrants from India and Nepal cannot pay fees of $30,000, they, in effect,
are kidnapped and ransomed by their smugglers. The repayment of such
sizable debts to criminal organizations can involve drugs.

The Times recently reported on how Asian and African migrants are being
smuggled into the United States through Central America. The cost of the
$10,000 journey is often defrayed by migrants serving as "mules" carrying
drugs into Mexico, where immigrants and drugs are separated for shipment
north.

Connecting these dots in recent testimony before Congress, William D.
Cadman, INS counterterrorism coordinator, said: "Alien smuggling reaches
far beyond our borders with Mexico and Canada--to the Caribbean, all
regions of the globe and deep within the interior of the United States
itself. . . . Organized-crime syndicates and international terrorist
organizations are known to use alien-smuggling operations to support and
further their criminal objectives." Thus, none of this is news to federal
officials.

For some time, the INS has been touting its tactics against the smugglers.

The most recent such example was the El Centro initiative, which targeted
the smugglers themselves. As part of "Operation Global Reach," the INS has
opened 13 new overseas offices--for a total of 35--dedicated to the
disruption of smuggling networks.

Finally, in tandem with tougher anti-smuggling penalties enacted by
Congress in 1996, the U.S. attorney's office in San Diego has made
smuggling one of its prosecutorial priorities. Now that border-control
efforts are showing positive results and public outrage toward immigrants
has abated, experts and government officials have the opportunity to
educate Americans about the toughness and patience necessary for the task
ahead.

As a nation of immigrants, we tend to romanticize new arrivals, even
illegal ones, as heroic individuals acting on their own to pursue a better
life. Then, too, those who know better have failed to explain the smuggling
problem adequately to the American people.

Knowledgeable immigration experts have been reluctant to highlight
smuggling for fear of stigmatizing all migrants caught up in such
conspiracies as criminals. INS officials have had a different challenge.

Blessed with more resources than ever before, they have felt greater
pressure to demonstrate quick results.

Yet, serious anti-smuggling operations require high-risk, long-term
investigations whose payoffs lie in the distant future.

For example, it took 33 months to crack an operation that, over several
years, had smuggled more than 500 nurses out of South Korea and the
Philippines. When INS officials go after the smugglers, short-term
operations designed to maintain public support of the agency typically
undercut longer-term investigations. Gatekeeper has had some noteworthy
successes, but the battle is far from over. Americans must understand that
staying the course against illegal immigration will increasingly pit them
against sophisticated, well-organized adversaries capable of countering the
INS' most zealous efforts.

Above all, Americans need to recognize that both we and illegal immigrants
are caught up in an expanding web of criminal conspiracy.

Peter Skerry Teaches Political Science at Claremont Mckenna College and Is
Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Stephen J. Rockwell Is a
Research Assistant at Brookings