immigration and the border
 
Dreaming American Having overstayed her tourist visa, Santa Fe resident Lupita Hernandez is seeking legal U.S. residency so she won’t be separated from her U.S.-born children. Her first attempt under a law protecting abused women failed. Now her only hope lies in the halls of Congress. By Kate Nash 
Tribune Reporter
May 25, 2007 SANTA FE -- Lupita Hernandez took a seat in her lawyer's office, already half knowing what the letter with her name on it would say. Hernandez's lawyer had summoned her to Albuquerque to deliver the bad news in person: Her application to become a legal U.S. resident had been denied. In an instant, with three pieces of paper, the life Hernandez had built in Santa Fe over 11 years began to wobble. She no longer had the legal right to stay with the family she has created. She no longer felt free to take her two U.S.-born, American-citizen children to school or the doctor. She began to worry her family might be torn apart every time someone knocked on her door. "The whole world fell on top of me," the 42-year-old says of that day in February. "I'm in no man's land." Hernandez's immigration story isn't typical. She came here legally on a 10-year tourist visa. And she didn't come for a better-paying job. By Mexican standards, she had a good one in her homeland - as a college-educated counselor in a Veracruz state prison. Instead, she moved to Santa Fe to be with her then-boyfriend, who later would become her husband, then the man who abused her, then her ex-husband and her worst regret. He was deported to Mexico, but Hernandez has no desire to return to San Andrés Tuxtla, Veracruz, where she might cross his path. She applied for legal residency under the Violence Against Women Act, one of more than 38,000 women who have sought protection since the law was passed in 1997. But that door now appears closed, and her anxiety is rising. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents recently completed a sweep of Santa Fe, targeting criminal immigrants and unleashing a wave of fear even in law-abiders. Hernandez, one of an estimated 50,000 to 75,000 immigrants in New Mexico without documents or who are in the process of getting legal status, says her biggest hope is that the immigration debate boiling in Congress will provide her with a path to legalization. As she waits for lawmakers to act, she's left wondering and worrying. "I'm not sure what my future will be. The only thing I want is to stay here. Eleven years have gone by. What would I return to in Veracruz? What kind of life would I give my family there?" For love, not money In San Andr‚s Tuxtla, Hernandez counseled mentally ill patients in one of Veracruz's biggest prisons. For eight years, she washed their hair, bathed them, took them to therapy. She was surrounded by rapists, a mother who killed her two children, drug runners - 1,200 criminals total. Unlike millions of other Mexicans who have left their country, Hernandez never seriously considered moving to the United States. But in 1995, she left those patients, that jail. She packed up and said farewell to her family, her favorite foods, her own bed. All for the man she loved. With a tourist visa in hand, she flew to the United States and settled in Santa Fe. At first, Hernandez kept herself busy running her household. She became pregnant with her daughter, Ivanna, then married her boyfriend. Slowly, she adjusted to the newness of Santa Fe, of the United States, of everything coming at her in rapid-fire English. And she began to endure what she would never have expected: abuse at the hands of the man she thought loved her. Hernandez says he hit her often, even when she was more than six months pregnant with their daughter. "He promised me heaven and all its stars, but I never imagined it would be like this," she said. "Those are the things you can't forget." She was too scared to press charges, something that to this day gives her heartburn. Her salvation came from the U.S. government, which deported her husband after a series of arrests for alcohol-related offenses, according to Hernandez's lawyer. After a divorce and a custody fight over Ivanna, which cost her thousands she didn't have, Hernandez cobbled herself back together and attended a therapy group for abused women - something she still does. For a while, she had pretty good luck finding American employers in the tony neighborhoods of Santa Fe - families who offered work mopping their floors or helping with their children. But eventually, the most steady employers moved away. Others began asking her for a Social Security number. Jobs were just temporary. Hernandez looked for a reliable paycheck cleaning houses, a chore she still does when she can get the work. Then she met a new boyfriend, a house painter who had come to the United States without papers. He asked not to be identified for this story due to his immigration status. They grew as close as husband and wife, although they are not married. His work brought financial stability. Almost two years ago, they had a son, Ian. The golden dream The life Hernandez has built in the United States revolves around her two children and her effort to join them as a legal U.S. resident. Ian, almost 2, is a giggly handful on his best days and a screaming bundle who can't sit through an hourlong Mass on his worst. He was recently diagnosed as developmentally disabled, something Hernandez says would be much harder to deal with in Mexico, because he can get speech therapy and other help more easily here. Medicare helps pay for part of Ian's treatments. So does the money Hernandez and her boyfriend earn, about $18,000 last year. Ivanna, 10, attends public school in Santa Fe. Unlike in Mexico, her mother doesn't have to pay tuition or buy books. Hernandez has also enrolled Ivanna in dance classes - jazz, hip-hop, ballet, tap - and voice lessons. While they paid for the dance classes - $2 for low-income students - Hernandez and her partner also saved to buy a trailer home, which they did in December. That is no small feat in Santa Fe. "The golden dream is really a house, but this is a place to start," Hernandez said. The immaculate home isn't large - three bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, nothing fancy. At the same time, Hernandez and her partner scrimped to pay the legal fees for her immigration case - $600, $800, $1,200 at a time. Last June, just as they began to consider buying a home, the first wave of bad news hit. Her petition for residency had been denied because her ex-husband wasn't a legal U.S. citizen or permanent legal resident when she applied for protection - a requirement under the law. Hernandez and her attorney appealed. In February, the government again denied her plea to stay. Since then, Hernandez has struggled with depression. She tries to live as normally as possible, with her future, her heart and her extended family split between two countries. The pull of family Hernandez regularly wires money to her hometown of San Andr‚s Tuxtla - $125 some months; $200 in others, when work is good. The cash is like gold dust in the lives of her Mexican family. Her brother got shoes that blunt the pain of standing for hours on a cigar-factory floor; a grandmother was given a decent burial; her father feasted on fried chicken for his birthday. Leaving was hard for Hernandez, but going back presents a terrible dilemma. If she does, she risks never seeing her children again. If she doesn't, she risks never seeing her parents. Her mother is ailing. Her father is aging. "My mother still doesn't understand why I left," she said. "And it is hard. They called me to say my grandmother had died, and I couldn't go back. And my two uncles died, and I couldn't go back." When her mother underwent surgery late last year for a tumor on her back, Hernandez was left to fret from afar, more than 1,000 miles and an international boundary away. While she dreams of temporary permission to leave the United States, she knows her immigration status would make returning difficult. She follows the debate in Congress, looking for a glimmer of hope. Hernandez wants Ivanna and Ian to meet their grandmother. She wants to see her mother herself for the first time in more than a decade and, maybe, for the last time. "Do I stay or go?," she said. "This is my mother." A world of what ifs For now, with so much up in the air, Hernandez and her family have to live as if their lives weren't on shaky ground, as if what they've built isn't as wobbly as they feel, as if they couldn't be uprooted at any moment. In many ways, her emotions are similar to those of other immigrants who wonder what the future will bring. She tries not to think of the what ifs, all the while planning for them. Hernandez has a network of people in place, friends who could take care of her kids and her home if she received a deportation order. Others look out for "la migra" - immigration officers - and spread the word on their whereabouts. Hernandez dreads the possibility of being separated from her children, but she also fears seeing her ex-husband if she had to return to San Andr‚s Tuxtla. More than anything, she wants an inner peace she knows deep down might never come. "I want to work peacefully; I want to live peacefully," she said, her eyes spilling tears. "I don't want to think that today everything is fine, and tomorrow they could come and arrest me - take me away - and I wouldn't know what would happen with my children." Mexican immigrants eager to start U.S. businesses By Kate Nash 
Tribune Reporter
May 1, 2007 José Duran spent 11 broiling summers and icy winters working construction in Albuquerque. Each day, working for someone else, he learned something new about sidewalks, curbs, driveways. Each night, he took a bit of new knowledge home and tucked it away. Eventually, Duran had the skills to launch his dream of working for himself. "I used to work whatever hours the boss said," Duran said. "Now, I work the hours I want." Duran owns Land of Enchantment Construction Inc., a small construction company on the West Side. In achieving his goal, Duran joined a growing number of U.S. residents of Mexican origin who own their own businesses. More than 700,000 businesses in the United States are owned by people like Duran, who gave up a paycheck for a few months to study for and get his general contractor's license. And businesses like his aren't a small part of the economy: According to U.S. Census Bureau statistics, sales and receipts for Mexican-origin-owned businesses totaled $96.7 billion in 2002. Duran, a legal permanent U.S. resident, is one of millions of people who will celebrate their work today, International Workers' Day, a holiday that in his native Mexico leaves most businesses closed. This year, Duran will be traveling to check out a potential job for his company. Immigrants and their supporters will also be marching and rallying across the country, including in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, for immigration reform, marking the one-year anniversary of massive demonstrations last year. Duran, who immigrated in 1985 from Benito Juarez, Chihuahua, has a lot to be proud of. Growing up in his tiny town, he longed for a better life. Several of his 11 brothers and sisters did, too, and some immigrated with him to the United States and also own businesses in Albuquerque. Duran, a shy man who often looks down at his ostrich-skin cowboy boots, was ready to be boss long before he started his company in 2003. "Once I had the experience, I knew it was time. The hard part is when someone has the experience but not the money," he said. Depending on the size of the job, Duran normally has between 12 and 15 employees, many of whom are Hispanic, but all of whom have permission to work here legally, he said. Those workers are the backbone of Duran's company and part of the 8 percent of the U.S. workforce that is of Mexican origin. Duran checks Social Security numbers to make sure employees have proper documents, in order to avoid fines of $250,000 or more from federal officials. As for the future, Duran thinks more people will share his success story. "I see lots of interest by Hispanics for having their own business, too," he said. Rachel LaZar, director of the Center for Equality and Rights in Albuquerque, said there are many stories like Duran's. "We know immigrants have a very positive impact, not just filling jobs, but actually growing the economy." Her group is one of several that plan to take part in today's events. "I think we need to get away from the myth of immigrants coming and taking," she said. "We know immigrants come and give to the economy, and it's time to recognize that." Smart Box Workers of the world Today is International Workers' Day and National Day of Action for immigration reform. Several events are planned. In Albuquerque: A celebration starts at 3 p.m. at Tiguex Park, 16th Street and Mountain Road. A 1.5-mile march will start at 5 p.m. In Santa Fe: From 4-7 p.m., pro-immigrant groups, including faith groups, will rally at DeVargas Park at the corner of Guadalupe Street and Agua Fria Road. Smart Box Mexican entrepreneurs • U.S. residents of Mexican heritage owned 701,078 businesses in 2002, or 45 percent of all Hispanic-owned firms. • Sales and receipts for firms owned by people of Mexican origin totaled $96.7 billion in 2002. • Sales and receipts for Mexican-owned firms in the retail trade sector totaled $18.9 million; 116,290 firms were construction companies. • Of the Mexican-heritage residents in the United States who are 16 or older, 14 percent worked in managerial, professional or related occupations; 24 percent worked in service occupations; 20 percent worked in sales and office occupations; 19 percent worked in construction, extraction, maintenance and repair; 21 percent worked in production, transportation and material moving occupations. • The Mexican labor force comprises 8 percent of the nation's workforce. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, March 2007 ON THE BORDER: STATE OF EMERGENCY Chasing a dream: For Mexicans who try to enter the States illegally in search of a better life, the stakes are high. So are U.S. government costs to stop the flow. By Kate Nash 
Tribune Reporter
August 19, 2005 ALONG THE U.S.-MEXICO BORDER - Elizabeth Sanchez Luna left Mexico City hungering for a job that would pay more than the $45 a week she earned in a bakery. She fled, on wheels and then on foot, for a chance to support her two children and her parents. A chance for something better, through whatever job she could find in the United States. But the 29-year-old - dressed in a black sweat shirt and Lycra running pants, lacking a backpack or even a bottle of water - made it just a mile into her dream before U.S. Border Patrol agents stopped her for illegally entering the United States. "I came to look for a job," Luna said in Spanish in late July after being fingerprinted in an office trailer in Columbus, just miles from the border. "Any kind of a job." In the United States, she predicted, as she pulled back her long hair to release heat from her neck, "I can make in a day what I made in a week." Just as Luna would, other immigrants take any job they can find, dashing across the desert for a chance to clean hotels or build homes in Albuquerque or Aspen. To be a sanitation worker in Chicago or a farmhand in North Carolina. They might send money from those jobs home to relatives, but some people say their presence puts stress on social, educational and health care systems in the United States. It's an issue causing waves nationwide - especially in border states like New Mexico. Gov. Bill Richardson last week declared a state of emergency in four southern New Mexico counties, citing an increase in human and drug smuggling in the 185-mile border between the state and Mexico. Much of the $1.75 million the declaration frees up will go to bolster local and state law enforcement. Luna, a first-time offender who said she got separated from a friend after stepping into a desolate stretch of southern New Mexico, was the 97th immigrant caught by agents in the area that day. She later was sent back to Mexico. Her effort - and those of more than 103,000 other immigrants who have been stopped this fiscal year in the El Paso Sector - are keeping Border Patrol agents and borderland residents up all night. They also have kept the federal government pouring out more than $1 billion a year nationwide. In the sector, which includes two west Texas counties and all of New Mexico, more than 1,200 agents last fiscal year caught 104,430 immigrants. The federal fiscal year runs from October through September. No one knows for sure how many others have slipped past, although agents estimate they catch anywhere from two-thirds to 95 percent of those who enter. One way to measure the number they miss is by immigrants' footprints, said Senior Patrol Agent Ramiro Cordero. "If we have six (sets of) footprints and we catch four," he says, "two went somewhere else." A flood of danger Along a cement ditch that funnels water from the Rio Grande to farmers outside El Paso, Cordero spots a blanket rolled up on the Mexican side of the embankment, with a pair of shoes nearby. "Looks like an encobijado," he says, using a word that translates as "someone who is rolled up in a blanket" but that on the streets signifies someone killed by criminals. "They kidnap and torture and roll you up in a blanket and throw you anywhere as a sign," he said. From the dirt road along the border he's patrolling, Cordero looks into another country, watching. The blanket is picked up by a man on the other side of the river. There's nothing inside. He wraps it around himself and walks away. The border is a dangerous, mysterious place: The risks of crossing can be intertwined with the hazard of getting caught in drug, gang or turf wars. About 600 miles to the southeast of El Paso, in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, more than 100 people have been killed this year, including 18 police officers and a city councilor. The U.S. State Department last month extended a travel warning it had issued for American citizens along the border, and the U.S. Consulate in Nuevo Laredo shut its doors briefly. In Juarez, hundreds of women have been slain and left to rot in the desert since the early 1990s. In and around El Paso, another kind of death lurks. Immigrants drown as they try to cross into the United States. Miles to the west, in southern New Mexico, they die of dehydration. This fiscal year, 25 people have died in the sector; 399 have been rescued. In the 2004 fiscal year, 18 people died and 87 were rescued, according to the Border Patrol. Cordero said the increase in reported deaths this year over last could be because the patrol is keeping better records. But the desert swallows bodies nonetheless. Cordero, a former El Paso police officer, is tasked with a mighty job: stopping the immigrants who risk it all for a chance at something better. It's a job others want to do as well. Civilian members of the Minuteman Project plan to patrol the New Mexico-Mexico border this fall, saying the Border Patrol has not done enough to secure it. Some Minutemen volunteers say terrorists, specifically members of al-Qaida, could be entering the United States from Mexico. And while Border Patrol officials hope that won't happen, they say they've got to be on the lookout. "We have to be vigilant," Border Patrol spokesman Doug Mosier said. With seemingly thousands of people desperately wanting in from a variety of countries, the United States has spent billions to keep them out. A homeland security bill passed by the Senate in July contains funding for an additional 1,000 Border Patrol agents. Already, 300 agents are scheduled to head to the El Paso Sector in the next 12 months, Mosier said. For now, Cordero and other agents walk the line, searching out lawbreakers and taking them to a detention facility in downtown El Paso. Some agents - members of the Border Patrol Search, Trauma and Rescue Team - also rescue those in danger of dying. With his high-power binoculars, Cordero can see Mexico across from him. In some places, the country is just feet from where he works, but in so many senses, it is worlds away. Scheming against the schemers Farther west, in New Mexico's Luna County, Field Operations Supervisor Jack Jeffreys has binoculars, too. They allow him to see in the dark, giving him a green, grainy picture of the desert at night. Mammoth moths and jittery jack rabbits dart about. Lights from traffic along the Mexican side of what's called Border Road sweep light trails over his eyes. The night-vision goggles are among the high-tech devices the Border Patrol, part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, uses. Agents patrol the border area in SUVs and Hummers. On ATVs and horses. From the air and by bike. They've got dogs, mirrors, sensors, cameras. Name any high-tech surveillance gadget, and the patrol probably has it. But those who smuggle drugs and people have technology, too. GPS instruments help them navigate remote and rugged terrain, Jeffreys said. Forget craggy landmarks or dusty meeting places stomped out in the sand. Smugglers use geographical coordinates to decide where to meet and load the cars that whisk immigrants off to new lives. Apart from technology, criminals also have an arsenal of tricks to enter the United States, Border Patrol officials said. Some strap carpet strips to the bottom of their shoes so agents can't follow their footprints in the sand. Some clip cow hooves to their footwear, to leave animal prints in their wake. Some have dressed up as clergy or soldiers, while others have used fake government vehicles, including those of a New Mexico Department of Transportation truck and a Border Patrol unit. Others have stuffed children into pi?atas or sewn people into car seats to get them through ports of entry. Less-sophisticated standbys remain: a pair of bolt or wire cutters to take out fences; an immigrant sent to distract agents while others sneak across the cactus-dotted countryside. Creeping along in his SUV with the lights off, Jeffreys tries to find a small group of immigrants, six or maybe eight, who were spotted by an agent manning the control tower for the cameras that line the border. He drives through the creosote bush, tumbleweeds and mesquite, steering with one hand and leaning out the window, peering through his night-vision goggles. The group he is after turned south toward Mexico, the voice on his radio says. Radio traffic, however, crackles with reports of other groups giving it a go in other parts of Jeffreys' patrol area, which includes 53 miles border miles and 14,000 square miles. The later it gets, the busier. Immigrant traffic picks up, on public land and on private ranches. Dogs guarding homes bark their owners awake. One rancher 22 miles down the road from the Columbus office estimates 500 immigrants cross his property every 24 hours, leaving a trail of garbage, broken water lines and freed cattle. As Jeffreys drives, with the lights on now, he has time to reflect on the strange things he has seen, where even at night it's almost unbearably warm and undeniably lonely. Smugglers or guides once led a group of more than 150 immigrants through his patrol area, apparently to see if they could get away with it, something more common in busier border states like Arizona, he says. He talks about the old school buses he says smugglers use to transport immigrants between staging spots on the other side of the fence. The windows on the passenger portions of the buses are painted black or blocked by dark plastic. When the buses drive west from the town plaza in Palomas, Mexico, to drop people off in a tiny outpost called Las Chepas, mere feet from the United States, agents with binoculars can't see in. When the buses drive back east to Palomas, the driver's side windows are unobscured. The buses are empty. While Las Chepas looks like little more than an abandoned village, Border Patrol officials say it's a major staging area for border crossers. Richardson last week called on the Mexican government to bulldoze the area. In nine years as an agent, Jeffreys has seen many tricks. But he knows there likely will be more. "I wouldn't put anything past anybody," he said. All for a job Walking along N.M. 9 the next day, Cruz Alberto stops to talk to the passengers in the first car he has seen since sunrise. He asks a reporter and a photographer standing outside their SUV where he is and whether there is work nearby. The stocky immigrant from Tabasco state says he left his town of Villa Hermosa seven days ago and hitchhiked to northern Mexico. The oldest man in his family, Alberto is in charge of his mother and seven sisters and brothers. He is 29, lost, sunburned, dusty. Dressed in black because legend has it that Border Patrol won't be able to see him at night, he didn't know he had crossed the border. "It's not like there was a sign or anything," he says in Spanish. He's carrying an almost-empty bottle of water, as warm as the nearly 100-degree day. He hasn't slept much and woke up on the desert floor the night before when a rattlesnake slid by his eye, he says. His job as a delivery driver in Mexico pays $50 to $80 a week. "It's not enough to feed potatoes to my family. . . . I just need an opportunity to work." Crying for a minute under his black hat with a bent bill, Alberto says he'll try his luck to get past the Border Patrol, if it means there's even a possibility he'll make it to a place with work. Seven or eight miles from Columbus, 320 from Albuquerque, and likely hundreds more from creating a new life, Alberto keeps walking. ON THE BORDER: STATE OF EMERGENCY One border ranch's battles By Kate Nash
Tribune Reporter
August 20, 2005 LUNA COUNTY, NEW MEXICO - The dogs at the Johnson ranch bark nearly all night, warning residents of the immigrants who are crossing this remote ranch land at the southern edge of New Mexico. They bark at the people they can't see, hundreds at a time, stealing into the night and into the United States. From his front porch, after the sun has set, cattle rancher Joe Johnson can hear immigrants converse as they stream in from Mexico. He can't see them, but when the sun rises, he'll know the damage they've done. As Johnson wakes up, often cringing at the thought of the work he'll have to do to fix his cattle fence or his water lines, his dogs head to sleep for the day. That's not the only thing that's out of sync with the rest of the world down here. Down here, Cadillacs and minivans are abandoned when they get stuck in the Johnsons' sand. Piles of backpacks, clothes, water bottles and trash line the arroyos. And residents seethe, living in the wake of what thousands of immigrants a year leave behind. While Border Patrol officials aren't sure of the exact increase of immigrants crossing into the United States in the area around Deming, Johnson estimates traffic has increased 500 percent this year over last. The debate over how to handle the situation has been ratcheted up, as well, with Gov. Bill Richardson last week declaring a state of emergency in four southern New Mexico counties and with civilian members of the Minuteman Project set to monitor the border this fall. "We are being invaded by another country," says Johnson, whose family started living off the land in Luna County in 1918. `An emergency-type situation' Johnson, a looming 42-year-old with a sun-battered cowboy hat, can't recall the first time he realized immigrants were using his ranch as a gateway to the United States. Mexicans have been crossing for pretty much as long as he can remember. With the recent increase, response times from law enforcement have declined, he said. The Johnsons say they put in almost daily calls to the Border Patrol's El Paso Sector, which employs 1,229 agents and includes two western Texas counties plus all of New Mexico. Law enforcement also includes a handful of State Police officers and Luna County sheriff's deputies. They used to respond within minutes but now take an hour or more, Johnson said. "It's strictly because they are overwhelmed," he said. Johnson is too. Tired, inundated and fed up. He recently lost 155,000 gallons of water from a storage tank when he says immigrants broke one of his water lines in search of something to soothe their thirst. Immigrants, who have carved foot paths as well as dirt roads across Johnson's property, break holes in his fence, which for eight miles is the U.S.-Mexico border. That fence keeps his cattle in and Mexican cattle out - a boundary that's crucial when it comes to controlling livestock diseases. "It could be horrendous for the industry. If foot-and-mouth came across, it could be horrible," Johnson said. While Johnson's cattle have plenty of space to roam in the Chihuahuan desert, that same vastness causes him some consternation. The Border Patrol has told the Johnsons to avoid some pockets of their 102,000-acre property, especially at night. "There are areas where if you have work to do, you'd better get it done early," said Teresa Johnson, Joe's wife. In this rugged space where crime seems as far away as New York or Seattle, the Johnsons could talk all day about the problems they've had with immigrants. Joe Johnson said he and his brother were held at gunpoint once, by immigrants who then stole their pickup. Late last month, Johnson said, seven people knocked on the door of his brother house, saying other immigrants were shooting at them and had kidnapped three women who were traveling with them. The women were released a short time later, Johnson said. The Johnsons have become increasingly vocal about their situation. They've talked to their state representatives, to their U.S. representatives, to anyone who will listen, he said. "We've done everything but get down on our knees begging," he said. Part of a homeland security bill recently approved by the Senate contains money for 1,000 new Border Patrol agents nationwide. It also would appropriate about $256 million for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Artesia. Both Sen. Pete Domenici, an Albuquerque Republican, and Sen. Jeff Bingaman, a Silver City Democrat, have praised the bill and the money it will bring to the state if approved by the House in its current form and signed by President Bush. Still, residents doubt any solution will be quick. "If it takes two years to get control, I can't imagine. I couldn't imagine the way it is today," Johnson said. Knowing that more agents might be heading to the border doesn't put Johnson at ease. Agents are in training for 19 weeks before they are assigned to their posts. "I think it's an emergency-type situation. We need someone here now. We can't wait. They need to deploy more agents or the military or National Guard. Somebody." Sitting at their kitchen table, Teresa Johnson agrees. "We have so many people over there fighting (in Iraq), and maybe I'm selfish, but I think we need to look out for No. 1." Who'll guard the border? An hour west of the Johnsons' ranch, in nearby Grant County, just miles from the Continental Divide but not much else, horse trainer Robert Been is also fed up. A member of the Rough Riders, a mounted subset of the Minuteman Project, Been says he watched St. Catherine of Sienna Catholic Church in the outpost of Hachita slowly get ruined by immigrants taking shelter. Locals earlier this year boarded up the church because of the garbage, the rotting food and the human waste inside. That's just one sign that the area is changing, Been says. "We used to never lock our doors. Now it's like you don't dare leave it open," Been said. Like the Johnsons, Been has had problems with his water. "I have to haul my water. I don't need 20 or 30 people taking a bath with it," he said. His neighbors have been robbed of food, clothes, guns and trucks, he says, and left with piles of water bottles and twisted bicycles, which immigrants ride until the tires go flat. The bitter joke in this area, ringed by the Hatchet and the Cedar mountains, is that the 40 or 50 residents ought to start a bike shop. Or a plastic bottle recycling business. Stationing the National Guard along the border doesn't sound like a bad idea to Been, either. New recruits could get some experience in the harsh landscape, he said. Richardson, however, has said he doesn't think Guard members are needed. His emergency declaration frees money for more state and local law enforcement. Doug Mosier, a U.S. Border Patrol public affairs officer, said the government wants its agents to do the often-dangerous work. "We would always prefer to have trained Border Patrol agents to do that kind of work," he said. "We understand the passion and commitment of U.S. citizens." Been says he'd like to see dozens more agents stationed closer to the border than N.M. 9, the southernmost paved road in Luna County. While Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Robert Bonner recently floated the idea of a civilian group that would help the Border Patrol, Mosier said he's not aware of any plans to do that. A Department of Homeland Security spokesman has said there are no plans to use a civilian patrol. Been and other Minutemen say something has to be done, especially in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. "Bush should go explain to the victims of 9-11 why he hasn't secured our border. If someone was trying to break into my house, the first thing I would do is close the doors," said Been, looking almost like the Marlboro Man as he smokes and leads a horse along in the desert, which for a fleeting moment is cloudy. Come October, Been and other members of the Minuteman Project plan to patrol the border, looking for crossers and reporting them to the Border Patrol, an undertaking similar to a recent monthlong operation in Arizona. The group, however, has been met with some ire. Jackie Hadzic, state director of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said her group opposes the Minutemen but supports law enforcement. While neither group wants criminals entering the country from other places, "we don't have enough workers," she said. "Americans don't take the jobs, even in cities with 30 percent unemployment." Many immigrants, she said, are simply looking for a better life. "They are hardworking people," she said. "Do you know how hard it is to be working in fields? "They pay into Social Security, they pay taxes, they are helping us out, and we are helping them back." Her group, which has held anti-Minutemen protests in Las Cruces, is looking into how to express its opposition to the group this fall. William Norris, southern coordinator for the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps of New Mexico, said members of the group are getting trained for October duty. "Our primary concern is national security," he said. "You don't know who is bringing what." Norris said he's particularly worried about the number of OTMs, or Other Than Mexican people, entering the United States. "Abdul has a very similar complexion to Juan. You can't tell them apart," he said. Border Patrol officials estimate that OTMs make up about 3.5 percent of immigrants apprehended in the El Paso Sector but 35 percent to 40 percent in parts of south Texas. While the Minutemen have created a stir in Arizona and southern New Mexico cities like Las Cruces, Norris and Been say they aren't an anti-immigration group. They say their group is active on the Mexican and Canadian borders. But, they say, immigrants need to follow the law. "You need to come through the gate and do it right," Norris said. Norris, who constructs rock walls for a living, said he's disappointed in federal officials for not doing more to defend the border. "They want cheap labor, and they are willing to risk terrorism to get it," he said. BORDER AT A CROSSROADS? Has governor's emergency declaration discouraged immigrants? Depends whom you ask By Kate Nash Tribune Reporter
September 30, 2005 LAS CHEPAS, MEXICO - Migrants about to jump into the United States from Mexico still stop in at Ignacio Juarez's homefront grocery store, a last chance before the U.S.-Mexico border for a frosty drink, toilet paper or a chance to reconsider the danger in the desert ahead. Juarez and his wife, Erlinda, still take in the badly injured, the dehydrated and the tired. With its rare electric and phone lines in this remote parcel of northern Chihuahua state, the Juarez's casita is a place where Mexicans compare notes on getting past the Border Patrol and making it into the United States. But Juarez and others who live and work in northern Mexico say Gov. Bill Richardson's 6-week-old declaration of a state of emergency along the border has discouraged some immigrants from crossing over. Ranchers on the U.S. side disagree. This outpost, a migrant staging area abandoned but for 30 people, looks emptier today. Mexican police last week plowed down 32 buildings where immigrants hid as they prepared for their journeys. It's quieter than it was. More Border Patrol agents, Luna County sheriffs and New Mexico State Police are working to deflect would-be crossers from the border, a quarter-mile from the Juarezes' home. On a recent night, Carlos Sanchez, an agent with Grupos Beta, a division of the Mexican federal government charged with helping migrants along the border, says he has never seen so many Border Patrol vehicles. The SUVs are perched on lookout points along the main road into Las Chepas from Palomas, Mexico. Sanchez, a 12-year veteran of the agency, estimates the number of migrants trying to leave Mexico has been cut in half since mid-August. U.S. Border Patrol statistics show a slight drop in the number of apprehensions, but not by 50 percent. In July, agents caught 11,569 immigrants in the El Paso sector, which includes two west Texas counties and all of New Mexico. In August, 12,104. As of Tuesday, with three days left in September, the number was 9,212. Sanchez and colleague Marcos Armenta say the true number of migrants trying to leave Mexico doesn't make a big difference to them. Dressed in day-glo orange uniforms, the agents are busy, talking to the migrants who want to cross. Just five minutes into their shift on a recent evening, they pull over a nine-passenger van on a dirt road heading into Las Chepas. Nearly 20 migrants are jammed into the van. "I'll take a job in whatever there is," says Puerto Vallarta resident Ernesto Garcia, who trims hedges and pulls weeds for a living. As Garcia talks about his goal to earn more than $5 a day, Sanchez and Armenta stick their heads in the van and hand out fliers that explain immigrants' rights if they are apprehended in the United States and outline perils of the landscape. If you are going to go, keep drinking water, they say. Watch out for snakes. Don't sleep in the arroyos. Don't leave anyone behind. The pair give the same advice an hour later, when they come across 15 men ducked behind a cement and stone wall, waiting for night to turn the sky black. Guerrero state native Alfonso de Jesus Viviano says he can't be afraid of what might happen in the next few days. He's got to get to a place where he can earn enough to feed his wife and three kids - anything more than the $7 a day he makes as a butcher. "Better fear for now than hunger later," he says. While the agents try to persuade immigrant countrymen to turn back, few do. As he drives along the border, Armenta points to the landscape, New Mexico's Luna County on his right, a blank chunk of Chihuahuan desert on his left. "Look at the Johnson ranch," he says, his hand pointing north to a lush green field dotted with red stripes. "There's money and water, and they are growing chile, onions, watermelon." "Over here," he says, "We're growing chamisa." Earlier this summer, Joe and Teresa Johnson estimated that 500 immigrants crossed their 102,000-acre ranch a day. This week, Joe Johnson said it's hard to estimate how many are crossing. But he believes the number is increasing, perhaps as much as 40 percent, since Richardson declared the emergency Aug. 12. The Johnsons have long struggled to keep immigrants from tearing apart their fence, eight miles of which runs along the border. They've fought to make sure cattle aren't scared from their water troughs by bathing immigrants. "We are seeing more Border Patrol, but they (immigrants) are still trampling over the top of us," Joe Johnson says. "I just hope we keep getting more agents or military. We have a positive start, even though it's getting worse." Old school buses that leave from the town center in Palomas and drop riders in Las Chepas, where they wait to enter the United States, now make a third stop at the southern edge of Johnson's property. "We do applaud the governor's efforts," Johnson says. "We just need more help." About 15 miles northeast of the Johnson place, rancher Steve Allen has a theory about what he says is an increase in immigrants coming through his ranch. "It's like they said, `If we're going to cross, we better do it now,' " Allen says. The immigrants he sees these days hustle faster through the mesquite and creosote that decorate the landscape. He thinks word got out about the state of emergency, and an expected influx of Border Patrol agents, and immigrants rushed to the border to avoid having to cross with increased patrols. One hundred five new agents started work earlier this week in the Deming and Lordsburg areas, doubling the number of agents assigned to the Deming station this fiscal year. The El Paso sector is slated to receive 305 new agents by the next fiscal year. Officials say that staffing increase is unrelated to the emergency declaration and part of a long-term border security plan. While the stepped-up law enforcement near Columbus and Deming includes more mobile checkpoints on local roads, some of what the $1.75 million in emergency declaration money will buy has yet to arrive. Columbus Mayor Martha Skinner says her village of 2,000, three miles from Mexico, will hire three new police officers in as soon as six weeks. That will more than double the local police force. Skinner is grateful for the help. "Of course, (the money) just lasts a year," she says. "We're going to try and do it for a year and see what happens." ON THE BORDER: STATE OF EMERGENCY To the rescue Pilots group parachutes water and information to immigrants trying to cross the border through heat of the desert By Kate Nash
Tribune Reporter
August 20, 2005 EL PASO - From the corner of his eye, Armando Alarcon thought he saw a person stranded in the desert, 1,000 feet below. In the instant it took to look down from the airplane where he was training for his pilot's license, whoever was moving was gone. But the memory, and the possibility that the person needed help, wasn't. On his car radio, Alarcon had been hearing stories about immigrants from Mexico dying after they entered the United States through scorched sections of southern New Mexico. He knew he had to do something. "It hit me that this would be a perfect platform," he said of the Cessna 172 from which he now spends two or three days a week looking for immigrants who might need help. Haunted by the story of an 8-year-old girl who died after she crossed into the Sonoran desert of Arizona, Alarcon last year bought the plane and started a group called Paisanos al Rescate, or Fellow Countrymen to the Rescue. "It's a humanitarian issue," said Alarcon, a 37-year-old sales manager for a large trucking company. "From up high, we just know they are immigrants." To connect with the people below, crossing into the United States like his parents did 36 years ago, Alarcon lobs bottles of water from his plane when he sees someone. A lifeline. The 2-liter bottles have penlights and parachutes attached to them. Printed on the silk parachutes are tips on surviving in extreme heat, signaling for help and contacting the Mexican consulate. Last year, Alarcon and his group of volunteers sent more than 100 bottles spiraling down from the sky. So far this year, he has dropped 47. He has received donations from around the country to keep his plane aloft, especially this year, when his volunteers faced financial difficulties after he had to pay for plane maintenance. Pilots donate time, and a Juarez businessman donated jet fuel. Someone else came up with a way to print the information on the parachutes. While the Cessna is equipped with a GPS system so Alarcon can give the U.S. Border Patrol the location of any immigrants who need help, he hasn't had to request any rescues. Most weekends, he's out looking. "It's just sad. You've got little kids, old people out there. Are you going to let them die?" Alarcon, who is married with three kids, isn't the only one working to save immigrants who dare to cross the deadly expanse. The Border Patrol, charged with catching immigrants, works to save those who didn't bring enough water, who've been walking too long, who are too sunburned or sore to go on. A team called the Border Patrol Search, Trauma and Rescue Team is assigned to rescues as well as patrols. Other humanitarian and religious groups on both sides of the border offer what they can. This year, 399 immigrants have been rescued, either from the scalding sand in southern New Mexico or from the Rio Grande, which in places between El Paso and Ciudad Juarez can rage at 35-40 mph and is 8 feet or more deep. As of early August, 25 immigrants had died, nine from the heat, one from the cold. Six others were killed in two car accidents, and another six drowned. Two of those found dead were skeletal remains, and one person died from being in a confined space. In the 2004 fiscal year, which runs October to September, 18 immigrants died, and the year before, 10 people's journey ended in death. Along the Mexican border, rattlers, scorpions and temperatures in the 100s aren't uncommon. The mesquite and cactus are sharp, the sun makes mirages, and huge flies hover. Unprepared immigrants also aren't rare, with some leaving their backpacks behind at the request of smugglers who don't want their customers weighed down and unable to move quickly. With no end in sight to the immigrants who will dart into the United States, Alarcon hopes his group can buy another airplane and base it in Tucson, a popular area for immigrants to cross. For now, he'll keep doing his work, hopefully keeping some of his fellow countrymen alive. "If they are deported, at least they'll go home alive, not in a box." INSPECTORS WORK ALONG BORDER TO STEM DISEASE OUTBREAKS IN CATTLE, WHILE OTHERS IN N.M. TRY TO PREVENT AGROTERRORISM By Kate Nash Albuquerque Journal Capitol Bureau August 29, 2004 SAN JERONIMO, Mexico -- George Perea sticks his fingers into the ear of a steer three times his weight, checking for fever ticks. He runs his hand down its neck, feeling for bony lumps. And he swoops his hands under its belly, making sure it has been castrated. Perea's work here on the Mexican side of a cattle inspection station that straddles the U.S.-Mexico border is the beginning of a multiagency effort to stop a contagious livestock disease outbreak in the United States before it begins. The station, with employees of the USDA and the Chihuahua regional cattlemen's union, is a checkpoint for cows crossing the border from Mexico -- and for the diseases they may carry. "We don't want anything wrong with them. We want them as healthy as can be," said Perea, an animal health technician. And while Perea works to ward off any natural disease outbreaks, others in the state are studying ways to stop epidemics that could be caused by something very unnatural: terrorists who would weaponize diseases that could wipe out our food chain. Agroterrorism So-called agroterrorism is of growing concern to domestic safety officials, said Brig. Gen. Annie Sobel, who runs New Mexico's homeland security office. While the state spends much of its millions of dollars in federal security money on equipment, including command centers and specialized communication systems, it also spends its cash learning how to stop a disease outbreak. "Statistically, a natural outbreak is much more likely," Sobel said. "But my job is to think about the unconventional or the low probability event because those are the ones that would really have more of an impact on the agricultural market," said Sobel, an expert on weapons of mass destruction. Officials in rural states like New Mexico and Texas are reaching out to cattle growers and dairy farmers to make them aware that terrorists could spread diseases as easily as cows could. An infectious disease or toxin could be easily introduced into the food supply, Sobel said, and "could have zero traceability if it were to occur." So state homeland security officials, as well as representatives from the New Mexico Livestock Board, are taking their message to the state's pastoral enclaves. "Make sure you understand who the workers are transporting milk and where they are taking it," Sobel said her office tells farmers. "And make sure they adhere to the timelines for deliveries. If there are any deviations from the schedule, the delivery points, you have to have traceability as to who, what, when, where, how." Other states, too, are beginning to realize just how devastating an outbreak could be, especially if it crossed state -- or country -- lines. Texas cattle officials last year did an interagency exercise aimed at understanding how best to respond to a contagious disease outbreak. They concluded there is no national plan to deal with animals in transit from state to state, which could be key to impeding a disease from spreading. A report issued after the two-day exercise said Texas needed a list of places where in-transit animals could be held in isolation from others during an outbreak. It also said the state should determine how to stop livestock movement and how animal owners might be compensated in case of a catastrophic event. New Mexico plans to conduct a similar exercise with Mexican officials later this year, in hopes of figuring out the best way to isolate, contain and confer about an outbreak across the New Mexico-Chihuahua border. "We want better communication by the participants. We want to talk about movement control. Communication is going to help whether we're crossing borders or not," said Daniel Manzanares, executive director of the New Mexico Livestock Board. Careful screening Back at the border, outside the 40-acre cattle inspection station, U.S. Department of Agriculture veterinarian Walter Howe uses a paintball gun to mark cattle he can see are lame. Howe's marksmanship is just one part of the screening process that those here say is the best on the border. The cattle, who come to the station with extensive paperwork on their health and origin, also are checked for a tag indicating they've been tested for tuberculosis. Technicians like Perea also look for cuts or symptoms of contagious diseases such as brucellosis, foot and mouth or mad cow. About 5 percent a day are rejected by inspectors and are held from crossing. Once approved by inspectors, the animals, which sometimes include horses, are all dunked in a bath of insecticides. They then wait in another pen and dry in the arid desert. Then, once more paperwork is completed, they are sent across a several-foot no-man's-land and into the United States, moving just in front of the shouts of "Yee-ah!" and "!Epa!"