American Notes IMMIGRATION

To stem the flow of drugs and illegal aliens across its 2,000-mile border with Mexico, the U.S. has resorted not only to armed patrols but also to fences, closed-circuit television monitors and electronic sensors. Now it is making a last-ditch effort -- literally. For one thing, the Immigration and Naturalization Service will expand its force of border patrolmen by a third, to 4,300, by year's end. On top of that, the INS announced last week that it plans to dig a $2 million ditch along a four-mile stretch of border near San Diego, where some 300,000 illegal aliens were apprehended last year. INS officials maintain that the ditch, 5 ft. deep and 14 ft. wide, will frustrate high-speed car dashes across the border, which now average 400 a month, and * also help correct drainage problems in the area. A report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform supported the idea of the ditch. "Locking uninvited gate-crashers out," it said, "is just good common sense. Everyone has the right to lock his own back door." Associate Attorney General Francis Keating has come up with a nickname for the big hole: "Our buried Berlin Wall."