ABUSE FREQUENT AT U.S. BORDER, MEXICANS SAY.

Byline: Nancy Nusser Cox News Service

The beating of two Mexican immigrants by California police has provoked an outcry over what Mexican officials and U.S. human rights groups describe as frequent physical, sexual and verbal abuse of migrants.

Since the incident April 1 on a California highway, Mexican media, using recently released figures from the Mexican government, have been documenting scores of alleged human rights violations by U.S. border security forces.

U.S. human rights monitors have dug out reports to support similar claims.

With barely concealed irritation, U.S. officials reply that cases like the California beating are rare and decreasing.

``I get angry (at the allegations), because abuse is isolated,'' said Virginia Kice, a California-based spokeswoman for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. ``We've really made tremendous strides. I'd like to see some recognition that we've made progress.''

Even so, the controversy has sparked heated emotions among Mexicans, who sense that weariness with illegal immigration has produced anti-Mexican sentiment in the United States.

``They (U.S. politicians) have created a xenophobia,'' said a top official in the Mexican human rights commission, a government body. The official spoke on condition of anonymity. ``They (U.S. border forces) are beating people because they're angry, and they're angry because of the campaign against immigration.''

The INS says that in 1995 only 65 complaints of abuse were referred to its civil rights division, down from 196 in 1994. But human rights officials say that number almost certainly doesn't reflect the real total since illegal immigrants are reluctant to report cases of abuse to U.S. authorities.

In a recent report, Mexico's human rights commission said that in three months in 1994 on the California border, 863 Mexican illegal immigrants complained of abuse. That included 67 cases of alleged beatings or rough handling and two of rape or sexual abuse. Most of the complaints involved ``abuse of authority,'' which can be incidents as minor as yelling at immigrants or putting on handcuffs too tightly.

In the April 1 incident, an immigrant couple, among 19 Mexicans being smuggled into California in a pickup truck, were clubbed by two deputies from the Riverside County Sheriff's Department. The beating was captured on videotape and broadcast across Mexico and the United States.

Mexico fired off a harshly worded protest calling for action to ``eradicate discriminatory attitudes.''

Mexico's Foreign Ministry said in a press release Thursday that it registered 72,864 cases of abuse of rights of Mexican immigrants in the United States last year.

The ministry said they included abuse of migration, labor, civil, human and other rights but didn't clarify what those categories mean.

``An increase in violations of human rights of Mexican immigrants hasn't been detected . . . but nor have they disappeared,'' the statement said. While the statement referred to an ``increasing anti-immigrant climate in some parts'' of the United States, the language was muted compared with the protest note delivered just after the Riverside beating.

U.S. human rights groups charge that President Clinton's plan to slow illegal immigration by posting 1,000 additional border patrol agents this year will provoke more violence.

``The Border Patrol (personnel) are being added so rapidly they can't be trained,'' said Rachael Camel, a spokeswoman for the American Friends Services committee, which monitors abuse of immigrants. ``The whole situation has become more dangerous for everyone involved.''

Sensitive to such charges, U.S. immigration service officials are quick to point out that border agents undergo ``cultural sensitivity'' training. Citizens advisory groups have been set up in border cities.

Amalia Meza, a deputy U.S. attorney in San Diego, meets with new border agents, and ``we put the fear of God in them,'' she said. ``Are there bad apples? Sure, but abuse is not widespread.''

Even cases that seem clear are tough to unravel and hard to prosecute.

In 1994, Frederick Toothman, a U.S. immigration service inspector working at the border crossing near San Diego, was accused of repeatedly trying to coerce female Mexican immigrants into having sex with him, often by threatening to take away their immigration papers, according to the U.S. attorney's office in San Diego.

Toothman pleaded guilty in January to one civil rights violation and seven counts of bribery, the attorney's office said. He was released after posting $100,000 bail, according to Edward Weiner, an assistant U.S. attorney.

Also in 1994, a U.S. Border Patrol agent shot an illegal Mexican immigrant in the chest as he tried to flee, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service said. The case never was prosecuted, partly because the immigrant, who said he had had several drinks, couldn't recall events clearly, the INS said.

In another 1994 case, a U.S. Border Patrol agent based in California shot and killed an illegal immigrant after his companions threatened the official with a rock, according to the INS. The case wasn't prosecuted because U.S. investigators determined that the rock constituted a threat.

In a 1993 case, a female Mexican illegal immigrant said she was raped in a van by a U.S. Border Patrol agent working in Arizona, according to Human Rights Watch, an international group that investigated the case.

The agent was first charged with rape and kidnapping, according to Human Rights Watch. But the charges later were dropped in exchange for a no contest plea to a much lesser offense - ``attempted transporting of persons for immoral purposes,'' Human Rights Watch said.