[SteveStromberg]

84 in 3 vans held in smuggling attempt

By Anna Cearley
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
May 6, 2004

U.S. authorities are trying to determine who the smugglers are among dozens of illegal immigrants packed into three vans that crashed through a U.S. border gate Monday night.

Thirty-one people were detained when one of the vans got stuck near the Otay Mesa Port of Entry.

U.S. Border Patrol agents later detained 53 more people after following their vehicles to Temecula. Seven people in that group were treated for minor burns. Another person had a gunshot wound to the leg, apparently from a confrontation at the border.

The incident didn't develop into the kind of high-speed chase that human rights groups have criticized, but the smugglers still put the passengers at risk, Border Patrol officials said.

"It just shows what reckless disregard for human life that unscrupulous smugglers have," said Border Patrol spokesman Richard Kite. "It's an unnecessary risk of their lives and that of those contained in the vans."

The incident started around 7:45 p.m. Monday when one of the vans, equipped with a battering-ram device, crashed through a metal gate in front of Mexico's port of entry, said Vince Bond, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection.

Commercial trucks use the U.S.-owned gate to enter Mexico.

A U.S. officer fired at one of the vans as it appeared to be heading toward her, Bond said, and the driver may have been wounded. But that van and another continued north, going the wrong way in the southbound U.S. lanes.

The last van got tangled in the fallen gate, he said, resulting in the detention of 31 people.

The first two vans stopped so those inside could be transferred to two other vans that continued on the northbound side of the roadway, said Tom Jimenez, another spokesman for the Border Patrol.

Border Patrol agents discreetly followed those vans for more than an hour to Temecula, he said.

One of the vans was stopped on Sandia Creek Drive west of Temecula after it drove over a strip with spikes that had been laid out on the roadway.

As one or more of the tires of the van deflated, friction from the van's wheel rims created heat that passed through the van's uncarpeted bottom, Kite said.

Twenty-three people in that van were detained, including seven who were taken to hospitals for treatment of "slight burns" due to the heat from the van's bottom, Jimenez said.

The second van was stopped near Rancho California Road and Avenida Del Oro, Border Patrol officials said, and 30 more people were detained. The gunshot victim was believed to be part of that group, Kite said.

The three vans included Mexicans and people from other parts of Latin America, Jimenez said.