Despite repeated calls from U.S. Rep. Duncan D Hunter, R-El Cajon, and others to restrict border traffic, the Obama administration and health officials have rejected the request, saying it would do little good in stemming the spread of the swine flu from Mexico to the United States.

Health officials say shutting down the border would not contain the flu because the virus already has been introduced in the United States. Economists argue that restricting access or closing the border would have severe economic consequences on both the U.S. and Mexico sides.

As of Sunday, the swine flu had killed 22 in Mexico and one person in the U.S., a toddler from Mexico who died in Texas.

In San Diego County, 15 people were confirmed Sunday to have the virus, according to health officials. There were two confirmed and six suspected cases in Riverside County.

Hunter said Thursday that the federal government should close the border to all but essential traffic, such as commercial transport and people traveling to work.

"The administration should take immediate action to suspend nonessential cross-border traffic from Mexico until this virus is contained," he said.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano responded to similar calls from other lawmakers during a congressional hearing on Wednesday.

"Making such a closure right now has not been merited by the facts (and) would have very, very little marginal benefit in terms of containing the actual outbreak of virus within our own country," Napolitano said.

Napolitano said she had only limited authority to close one or a series of ports of entry.

Too late

President Obama said closing the border now is "akin to closing the barn door after the horses are out."

U.S. Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Solana Beach, said the federal government should continue to examine whether it may be necessary to close the border.

"What I'm concerned about is that because they say that the swine flu is in the country, now there is no option to shut it down in the future," Bilbray said. "I think we need to keep the option."

The federal government has issued a travel advisory instead, which recommends against nonessential travel to Mexico. The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City and all U.S. consulates in Mexico have closed for all but the most important work until Wednesday, Napolitano said.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents are monitoring people crossing the border and at airports for signs of illness.

Health officials say that because the virus already has spread around the world, and is able to spread from person to person, it is too late to try to restrict it to Mexico. Uninfected countries could try to keep the virus out through strict border measures, but they may not be able to do so indefinitely, health officials say.

Dr. Richard Besser, acting chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Wednesday that the current outbreak occurred too close to home to keep it out by closing the border.

"Sealing a border as an approach to containment is something that has been discussed, and it was our planning assumption should an outbreak of a new strain of influenza occur overseas," Besser told reporters in a telephone briefing. "We had plans for trying to swoop in and knock out or quench an outbreak if it were occurring far from our borders. That's not the case here.

"The idea of trying to limit the spread to Mexico is not realistic or at all possible," he said.

The economic losses from closing the border or banning travel could outweigh any benefits, economists say.

Economic consequences

Each day, tens of thousands of vehicles cross the border through San Diego County at Otay Mesa and San Ysidro. Many of the people who cross are workers who live in Mexico but work in the U.S. Others include students, tourists and shoppers.

All along the border, the value of cargo shipped by land between the U.S. and Mexico totaled $293 billion in 2008, according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Much of it, nearly $50 billion, traveled through ports of entry in California, said Marney Cox, chief economist with the San Diego Association of Governments.

The cargo includes consumer electronics, auto parts and food produced in Mexico and sold in the United States.

Cox said it would be difficult to measure the impact of closing the border. But at a time when state unemployment levels are above 11 percent, the economic consequences "would be big," he said.

Based on what health officials have said about the outbreak, Cox said, "the problem doesn't warrant that kind of an action. There are other ways to contain it."

And there is another factor: Thousands of people come into the country illegally each year.

Hunter said that the outbreak of swine flu is another reason why the nation needs to gain control of its borders. He said the outbreak puts a "spotlight" on that problem.

"What if we had to close the border? What if this was some kind of really bad plague?" Hunter asked. "We are not able to secure the border."

Immigrant rights groups say some individuals, conservative commentators and anti-illegal immigration groups are using the swine flu outbreak to further their agenda.

"It's unfortunate that certain individuals with an obvious ax to grind are shamelessly exploiting a public health emergency for their own purposes," said Janet Murguia, president of the National Council of La Raza, a national Latino civil rights organization.

Contact staff writer Edward Sifuentes at (760) 740-3511 or esifuentes@nctimes.com.

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