CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : SAN DIEGO : Illegals on Medians Will Be Arrested

In a major policy change, the Border Patrol and the California Highway Patrol will begin apprehending undocumented aliens who hide in the shrubbery of freeway medians, in a plan to reduce the number of deaths resulting when immigrants dash across the highway and are struck by motorists. Officials said the new policy was instituted because the old one sometimes encouraged hundreds of aliens to loiter on freeway medians because they knew the Border Patrol would not try to arrest them there. Border Patrol spokesman Ted Swofford said previous policy prohibited agents from attempting to apprehend aliens on medians “for obvious safety reasons.” According to figures released by California Rural Legal Assistance, 83 aliens have been killed on San Diego-area freeways since 1987. Another 33 have died during the same period near the Immigration and Naturalization Service checkpoint at San Onofre on Interstate 5.