Upcoming border system draws concerns

SAN LUIS RIO COLORADO, Son. - A program that makes use of new technology to stop the southbound flow of weapons, cash and other contraband is scheduled to be expanded to the Mexican port of entry into this border city across from Yuma County starting in December.

The SIAVE program previously created traffic delays and vehicle backups on the U.S. side of the border when it was launched at Tijuana and Mexicali. (SIAVE is Spanish acronym for System of Vehicle Control and Inspection.)

Juan Pedro Villamar, the Mexican customs administrator at the San Luis Rio Colorado port, insisted those problems will not happen.

But San Luis, Ariz., Mayor Juan Carlos Escamilla said he fears SIAVE could lengthen already-long backups of vehicles that occur in his city as cross-border travel spikes during the winter agricultural season. That, he said, could mean fewer shoppers from Mexico will come across the border to patronize businesses in his city and Yuma County if they know they will have to wait in long lines to return home.

"It is really a huge concern for us," Escamilla said.

By the end of November, workers will have completed installation of vehicle scales, cameras and vehicle access gates that will be used to inspect and regulate the flow of traffic going south, Villamar said.

Mexico is putting the new technology in place at ports along its border with the United States in efforts to stop the flow of guns, huge sums of cash and other contraband to drug cartels, who have been waging bloody street battles among themselves and the government over the past several years.  

Once the new system is in place, Villamar said, vehicles will be directed to pass through a designated lane at a speed of 5 to 10 kilometers per hour (3-6 mph), during which time they will be weighed and measured as a camera records the information from the license plate.

"With that information, the same system will be able to determine if the vehicle is approved (to enter) or not, and will activate a green or red light," he said.

If a vehicle tries to pass through the lane in excess of the posted speed, the system will lower a gate, bringing the vehicle to an abrupt stop, Villamar said.

"That's where the crossing can be blocked, so that's why it's important that they moderate their speed and why they should not follow too closely to the vehicles in front of them."

When the program was put into place in Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, and in Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas, he said, "a vehicle first had to pull up and then come to a complete stop, and it took up to eight to 11 seconds," Villamar said. "Now the process will take place without the vehicle having to stop."

Villamar said motorists will not be delayed in crossing the border any longer than they are now.

While those assurances sound good in theory, Escamilla said, he is concerned they will turn out to be "easier said than done."

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers and Border Patrol agents already inspect southbound cars before they enter Mexico, he said, and those inspections cause long lines of cars.

The problem will only get worse if SIAVE takes effect at the peak of the agricultural season, when travel across the border increases as many farm workers commute between their homes in Mexico and work in the United States, Escamilla said.

The lines of traffic returning to Mexico is taking the Arizona border city's police officers away from their patrol responsibilities in order to provide traffic control, he said.

Economics are also a concern, he said, since the city's sole source of tax revenue is the sales tax money, which comes from consumers from Mexico who cross the border. With traffic backups awaiting them on the way back home, "there's going to be no incentive for people to come across," Escamilla said.

"We are not opposed to homeland security, we are not opposed to national security," he said. "But we are opposed to the burden on our community."

Villamar described San Luis Rio Colorado as peaceful community that has so far has not been a major entry point for contraband smuggling and that so far escaped the drug violence that has claimed scores of lives in other Mexican border cities.

"Unfortunately, the situation in Mexico is not very flattering," Villamar said. "We have to do the inspections to stop the guns and the money from drug trafficking that in general comes from the north to the south.

"This system will give us warning about vehicles that possibly have something to do with drug trafficking," said Villamar.

With the implementation of SIAVE, the number of vehicles that are referred for more thorough secondary inspections will not increase, he said. About 10 percent of vehicles that cross undergo the more extensive searches, about the same percentage as at other ports into Mexico, he said.

SIAVE is one part of the government's efforts to upgrade ports of entry into Mexico. Next year, ports will be equipped with X-ray machines that will allow for "nonintrusive inspections," he said, and will also eventually get dogs trained to detect contraband.

Aside from that, pedestrian lanes will also be furnished with X-ray equipment to detect the contents of backpacks, Villamar said.