LOYAL TO THE LAW\Latino agents acknowledge irony of Border Patrol jobs.

Byline: Verne G. Kopytoff The New York Times

When Sara G. Guzman, a U.S. Border Patrol agent, tells her father about chasing illegal aliens through the canyons and scrub along this stretch of rusty frontier fence with Mexico, he says in Spanish: "Yes, I remember; I used to cross there."

Guzman, an immigrant from Mexico, stakes out the same hillsides, south of San Diego, where her father clambered illegally into the United States before becoming a legal resident in 1978. She chases some Central Americans, too, but most of the people she detains are like her father once was: Mexican, poor, looking for hope and opportunity in the agricultural fields and construction gangs of California.

It is one of the many ironies faced by Latino Border Patrol agents - both those born in the United States and those who are naturalized U.S. citizens - who together make up 40 percent of the agency's force.

Though Latinos are valued by the Border Patrol for enforcing U.S. immigration laws and their frequent Spanish language fluency, they are reviled by many in their own community as traitors, and they are cajoled by illegal aliens they capture with entreaties of cross-border brotherhood.

"Aliens try the guilt trip: 'How can you do this to your own people?' " said Guzman, who eventually moved legally to California from Mexico with her family and then became a U.S. citizen 11 years ago. "After that it's, 'I have nothing in Mexico. You ought to know how things are down there.'

"I do feel what they are going through," Guzman said. "But it's not that I feel guilty apprehending them. It's my job. Am I supposed to let people go who are breaking the law just because of their ethnic background?"

These days, nearly 2,000 of the 5,000-member Border Patrol are Latino, as the agency swells in size to pacify public demand for a secure southern frontier.

Meanwhile, people are crossing the border in unprecedented numbers at places like San Ysidro as a consequence of Mexico's year-old economic crisis.

Just on the other side of the fence, in the slums of Tijuana, people mass at the border every day. That is especially true early in the year, when illegal aliens traditionally return to the United States from a Christmas spent in Mexico, and in time for winter harvest. They generally wait for nightfall to make a dash past Border Patrol agents, many of whom have the same heritage and celebrate the same religious holidays as their quarry.

Often, aliens who are captured barb Latino agents with reminders of their roots, no matter how far removed, in hopes of being let free.

David R. Saucedo, a Border Patrol agent born in the United States, tells of being raised in a predominantly Latino neighborhood in San Diego, speaking only Spanish until elementary school and holding contempt for the Border Patrol. Now, during lulls in his duty at the fence, he sits in a four-wheel drive government-issued truck listening to Mexican music on a Spanish-language radio station.

"In my neighborhood, there was a lot of Chicano activism," said Saucedo, whose father emigrated from Mexico. "They always had their rallies, saying, 'We have got to get la migra out of our neighborhood.' "

Because of that sentiment, Saucedo says he never wears his green Border Patrol uniform when traveling between work and home. It could be dangerous because agents are considered by some to be an unwelcome obstacle for others at the border.

"There are groups out there who think we are the No. 1 enemy of the Hispanic community," he said. "That can be major. There can be a few people who are really militant."

Tensions along the border were recently exacerbated by California voters' approval of Proposition 187, which would eliminate state benefits now available to illegal aliens, including education and health care. That law, ruled partly unconstitutional by a judge, is viewed by some as racist.

Also, in the San Diego area, the Border Patrol is adding fencing and coordinating activities with police and the military as part of an operation called Gatekeeper. Some groups on both sides of the border have said this buildup is unneighborly.

Decades ago, it was the Border Patrol that did not put much trust in Latino agents, according to Leon C. Metz, author of the history book, "Border: The U.S.-Mexico Line." He said Latino agents were few, and those who joined the Border Patrol were relegated to being interpreters or detention guards.

"There was some fear," Metz said, "that if you assigned people who speak Spanish and whose ancestors came from Mexico to the border, they would be sympathetic to those they should be apprehending."

As a sign of a dramatic shift in policy over the years at the Border Patrol, Guzman considers her job to be a good one and the agency well-integrated. Her father is amused that she joined the very agency he once tried to avoid. It is her U.S.-born uncles who chide her career choice.

"I tell them, 'Hey, I'm a U.S. citizen,' " Guzman said. "I tell them Mexico didn't care enough to keep its citizens in its country. Why should I feel any loyalty to Mexico?"

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Photo U.S. Border Patrol Agent Sara G. Guzman stops illegal aliens at a border her father once crossed. The New York Times