The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

The U. S. Mexican Border Has Become a Sieve of Death

By Martin Brass (Part III of V)

Silent Invasion, Deadly Consequences

"The pilgrims begin their journeys, or return to the United States, after holidays in January, February and March, when the Border Patrol prepares for the biggest influx.

"They drown, they die of the desert heat, they die of hypothermia" Miguel Reyes, a protection officer for Mexico's foreign ministry in south Texas told Reuters.

"There is a belief that if you cross in the desert that the snakes will not cross the railroad tracks" Reyes said. Six Mexican immigrants who believed that sleeping on railroad tracks would protect them from poisonous snakes were crushed by a freight train near Norias, TX in 1998. Their mangled bodies, smashed with cans of beans and tortillas, were unidentifiable.

The tales are endless.

Thirteen immigrants nearly suffocated in a sweltering 140 degrees inside a boxcar in San Antonio TX before they could struggle out. The rotting bodies of seven of them were found under a tree a week later.

Smugglers hire truck drivers to smuggle their human cargos over the border, and from state to state. A passerby on U.S. Highway 77, outside of Victoria TX, called the police to report a hand, waving a bandana out of a hole in the back of a white 18-wheeler, in 2003. "A flood of human beings" spilled out, said U.S. Attorney Michael Shelby. Eighteen out of 100 Mexicans, El Salvadorans, Guatemalans and Hondurans were asphyxiated in a trailer abandoned by three traffickers. The trailer was registered to Tyron Williams of Schenectady, NY, who was later arrested.
Felipe de Jesus Preciado Coronado, head of Mexico's National Immigration Institute told the Washington Post that the government has identified at least 57 organized smuggling bands. Jim Chaparro, head of the anti-smuggling office at U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, INS - abolished in March, 2003 and incorporated into the Department of Homeland Security - said that the small and informal smuggling business has evolved into a powerful web of "literally hundreds of syndicates, some at a low level and some at the kingpin level… Gangs are ripping off aliens from other smugglers and holding aliens captive until they sell them to a buyer." Drug smugglers have turned to alien smuggling.

Prices for transport have increased dramatically, partially to pay for high-tech equipment. Encrypted radios, cell phones, and the internet, used for warning of patrolling U.S. agents have replaced the flashlights that were once used to cross the Rio Grande.

Those that charge the most offer computer generated fake documents, or stolen visas and passports. Migrants from Asia and Europe pay far more than Mexicans -- upwards of $50,000 to get in U.S.

"The flow of illegal aliens has become much more organized, and that has opened the opportunity for these groups to market their services to non-Mexicans," Armand Peschard Sverdrup, director of the Mexico project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies told the Post.

Arrests of coyotes have been publicized for years. A cursory examination of the records of Office of the United States District of Arizona alone reveals numerous arrests monthly this year.

Four Smugglers were arrested after a four-month investigation of the Raul Green and Jose Humberto Marquez human trafficking organization in February 2004. Cesar Balderas-Grandos, a Mexican citizen was convicted of trafficking after a U.S. Border Patrol agent saw the knees and elbows of humans bouncing in the bed of his truck.

Grandos refused to stop. He was arrested after a multi- Border Patrol unit high-speed chase. Eleven undocumented aliens were in the bed of the truck and fourteen in the cab of the truck. The defendant had previously been deported from the United States.

Jose Guadalupe Chairez-Jauragui was indicted in February for smuggling 65 illegal aliens. A canine, conducting a routine sniff around his trailer, made the alert. Border Patrol agents had to remove pallets stacked in the back of the trailer and found the smothering aliens. Also in February Alonso Ruiz Avila was indicted in Arizona for transporting 50 aliens in a Freightliner tractor-trailer. The aliens were stowed behind crates of citrus.

Maria Christina Baez and Laura Gastelum were arrested for smuggling five children. The women were paid $50 for each child and were to turn the children over to a stranger. They did not even know who the children were.

In March, Breton Rodriguez, an illegal alien, attacked a Border Patrol agent, and grabbed the agent's Beretta from his holster. The gun discharged, striking the agent in the groin.