Border studies: heightened security procedures don't stop Mexican students who want American college degrees.

• Author: Arnone, Michael

At 9:30 on a Wednesday morning in July, eastbound traffic on the Veterans International Bridge at Los Tomates is already backed up for nearly half a mile from the U.S. border checkpoint. Sitting in his family's battered Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera in the middle of the bridge, Adrian A. Sanchez takes no notice. Instead, he reviews pages in his physics textbook to prepare for his first day of summer school.

A hundred yards to his right, the harsh sunlight glints off a tall chain-link fence between the car and the Rio Grande. Crowning the barrier are whirls of razor wire that spiral to the horizon.

Class starts at 10 and Mr. Sanchez, who wants to be there early, left his home in Matamoros at 9. Depending on the day, time, and the level of the homeland-security alert in the United States, the five-mile trip might take 30 minutes, or it might take two hours. His father, Luis, who is driving, jockeys through the lines of cars to get ahead.

For two years now, Adrian and his father have crossed the Matamoros to Brownsville so Adrian can get his bachelor's degree in chemistry at the University of Texas at Brownsville, located just across the border.

The Sanchezes are not alone. It is estimated that between 7,000 and 12,000 Mexican students cross the border daily or weekly to attend classes at a dozen public colleges in three states: Arizona, California and Texas.

Experts on U.S.-Mexico border relations say it is impossible, though, to pinpoint more precisely how many Mexicans cross regularly. A main reason is that the F-1 visa for international students assumes that they will reside in the United States, so Mexican students who cross the border are not tracked by where they actually live. Many residents of the region don't live in the country where they hold citizenship, and mailing addresses are often established for convenience.

Life along the border is fluid. Many people have relatives in both countries and may live on either side of the border on any given day. Americans and Mexicans cross the border on short notice to shop, eat, do business, or visit. "They come for a course in English like they come for a haircut," says Jose G. Martin, Brownsville's provost and vice president of academic affairs. Many, like Mr. Sanchez, also come for degrees.

But the heightened security procedures put in place since Sept. 11, 2001, are making long lines to get into the United States a way of life for these students. And at a time when colleges along the border are trying to increase the number of college graduates among the fast-growing Hispanic population, higher-education officials are worried that the security measures may discourage Mexican students from applying to their institutions.

In Texas the state demographer released a report in 2002 that predicted that $9 percent of the state's population would be Hispanic by 2040. Brownsville is already 91.3 percent Hispanic. The report also warned that unless more Hispanic residents get college degrees, the state's economy will lag.

"As the lower Rio Grande Valley goes," says Linda Fossen, associate vice president for enrollment at the Brownsville campus, "so goes Texas, and so goes the rest of America."

So far, U.S. security policies have had mixed effects on Mexican enrollments. The number of Mexican students at the University of Texas at...