Miramar Melee Sparks Criticism, Could Become a Campaign Issue

SAN DIEGO â€”  Even as firefighters were dousing hot spots and soot-covered inmates were gasping for air, the political sniping had begun over the torching and melee at the privately run jail for illegal immigrants at Miramar Naval Air Station.

U.S. Rep. Randy “Duke� Cunningham (R-San Diego) was on radio talk shows blasting Atty. Gen. Janet Reno and U.S. Atty. Alan Bersin, calling the incident a riot, which he said he had predicted when the Clinton administration persuaded the Navy to house illegal immigrants at Miramar.

Cunningham added that the disturbance shows the failure of the administration’s Operation Gatekeeper, a crackdown on illegal immigration. His three GOP colleagues in the House of Representatives from San Diego County--Brian P. Bilbray, Ron Packard and Duncan Hunter--also issued similar partisan blasts within hours of the Friday melee.

In an election year, the Miramar incident could take on added significance. Bill Clinton carried California and San Diego County in 1992, and Republicans have signaled that they want to make illegal immigration an issue in the 1996 campaign.

Twenty-four of the 174 inmates were taken to hospitals suffering from cuts and smoke inhalation. On Saturday, three inmates were listed as critical, and one was in an intensive care unit. The remaining 150 inmates, many of them covered with soot, were transferred Friday night to federal jails in San Diego and Los Angeles.

After touring the water- and smoke-damaged facility Saturday, an angry Cunningham vowed to persuade Navy Secretary John Dalton to block the return of illegal immigrants to Miramar.

“You put them back in this facility, and you’re going to have the same thing happen again,� Cunningham said. He said illegal immigrant prisoners have no place on a base with billions of dollars of aircraft that can be easily damaged.

Bersin sought to deflect the Republican criticism by noting that mattress fires are not uncommon at jails and that the inmates never attacked guards or tried to escape the compound.

All but a handful of the 174 were illegal immigrants with serious criminal records who had been apprehended either trying to reenter the country or on the streets of San Diego, Bersin said. They were at Miramar awaiting trial.

Bersin’s office has targeted such immigrants for prosecution, rather than just returning them to Mexico, as had been the policy except in the most serious cases. In 15 months, 1,600 have been prosecuted.

“You talk to local law enforcement,� Bersin said, “and you will find that Operation Gatekeeper, by taking these people off the streets, has had a material impact on dropping the crime rate.�

The prosecutions have led to overcrowding at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in San Diego. To ease the overcrowding, the government signed an $11-million contract with Louisville-based U.S. Corrections Corp. to last for 18 months while a permanent facility was found off-base.

Miramar’s brig was remodeled to house up to 380 illegal immigrants, and the first of them arrived two weeks ago. Some were so angered that their canteen privileges had not yet been established that they set fire to mattresses and sheets.

The two cellblocks housing the illegal immigrants began to fill rapidly with thick, acrid smoke. The trapped inmates panicked and began breaking windows until rescuers arrived.

A Republican political consultant said that TV news footage of smoke billowing from fires set by illegal immigrants at a Navy base and of riot-equipped police storming the facility could be used in the same way Gov. Pete Wilson used film of illegal immigrants dashing across the port-of-entry from Mexico.

“Both are great symbols that, despite what the Democrats say, illegal immigration is still out of control,� the consultant said.

A parade of federal officials, including Reno, have come to San Diego to announce new measures aimed at curbing illegal immigration and to tout figures showing a doubling of Border Patrol agents and an increase in apprehensions at the border.

Republicans respond that the efforts are too little, too late and are hampered by Democratic resistance to such measures as a proposed triple fence along the border, increased use of the military and sanctions against Mexico.

Sen. Bob Dole, the Republican’s apparent presidential nominee, has served notice that he will seek votes in California by hammering at Clinton’s anti-illegal immigration efforts. A week ago, Dole went to the border with Cunningham for a news conference.

Since 1991, illegal immigrants have been involved in disturbances at jails in Elizabeth, N.J.; Miami; Aurora, Colo.; New York, and Talladega, Ala.

Cunningham said that Bersin, in calling for the illegal immigrants to be returned to Miramar once the cleanup is finished, is “trying to cover his rear end in this thing.�

Bersin said the alternative to using the Miramar facility is sending the immigrants back to Mexico, with the high probability that they will reenter the country and resume committing crimes.

“The notion we ought to let these people go rather than prosecute them is preposterous,� Bersin said.