Posted on 07/25/2004 1:40:47 PM PDT by DumpsterDiver
Agents, families upset over closing
The Diaz family appeared to have it all: the big-screen TV, the boat, the new 3,000-square-foot home. But last week, Lora Diaz, 39, sat in her darkened family room in dread, seated across from her husband, Raul, a U.S. Border Patrol agent. The wood blinds of the couple's Lathrop home were shut, and she was dressed in black, as if someone or something had died.
Raul Diaz, a 20-year veteran of the agency commonly referred to as "La Migra," is one of five agents who work the interior of the state and part of Nevada. But now, the Diazs' American dream is about to be yanked from its roots and sent to the border. At the same time, a bit of social history in Stockton will come to an end.
On Saturday, the Border Patrol's interior headquarters, which is based in Livermore and oversees Diaz's Stockton station on Rough and Ready Island, will shut down for good.
These are the final days of the U.S. Border Patrol in Stockton.
Diaz, 42, has spent his entire career sending other people back home to their countries of origin. Now he will try to figure out where home will be for him. His wife is loath to leave. "We don't want to lose our home," she said.
But soon, a new group from a different wing of the Department of Homeland Security, agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement will take over. And the Border Patrol agents -- La Migra -- will be gone. Agents then will be responsible for protecting the borders and managing customs.
In late June, Raul Diaz was given two weeks to make a decision: relocate or quit. Reluctantly, he chose to transfer. "If they had told us a year ago, we wouldn't have bought a new house," said Lora Diaz, still angered over the "unfamily friendly" treatment by the new Department of Homeland Security.
Raul Diaz's sister, Connie Borjon has taken the emotional upheaval the hardest. "He's my best friend," she said. "When I think about it, I cry every day."
Diaz knows that in some parts of the community, there's little sympathy for "La Migra." "Some people love us. Some people hate us," said Diaz, half-Filipino, half-Mexican, and born and raised in Stockton. He's arrested relatives' neighbors, even old classmates from Stagg High School. "Border Patrol agents are seen as racists. I hear it all the time," he said.
That's when people ask him, "How can you do this to your people?"
"They're not my people," Diaz said. "My people are my family and friends. I have a job to do." And he'd rather keep doing it right where he is.
Diaz and partner Brian Naluai in Stockton, along with intelligence agent Millie Creager in Livermore and agents Steve Munoz and Rafael Velarde in Fresno, are the agents who work the Border Patrol region that covers everything from Oxnard to the Oregon border, from the Pacific to northern Nevada. Like the mythic Greek figure Sisyphus, who each day pushes a boulder uphill only to have it tumble downhill again, the agents are asked to plug a seemingly endless flow of undocumented workers flooding across the Mexican border.
According to the sector's arrest figures, the agents are doing a good job, in spite of years of staff reductions that saw the sector go from 80 to just five agents. This year, the five have rounded up more than 900 deportable aliens and 800 criminal aliens with no loss in efficiency.
But their numbers make those at the border look bad, said Naluai, 50, a 16-year-veteran agent. He said it exposed the shortcomings of the current strategy of fence-watching guards at stationary positions.
Border Patrol union representatives, led by President T.J.Bonner, met with the agents after the closure announcement in June. "They said we were an embarrassment," Naluai said.
The agents began to wonder about the departmental politics behind the closure. "Instead of being recognized for doing what we're asked to do, they're covering up," Naluai said. "So they don't have to explain why their efforts at the border aren't working."
They aren't doing much work at the Livermore headquarters these days either -- just dismantling it. A doormat welcomes you with the name "Border Patrol, Livermore Sector." But the door is locked. There's no receptionist. On entry, the offices have the emptied out, offering the ghostly feel of college dorms at term's end. In the hallway, flags on poles hang limply next to a thick binder of agents' names -- those who have died in the act of duty.
In an adjacent office sat Gilbertina Bravo-Paisley, the acting deputy Border Patrol agent in charge.
"I'm the heavy here," she said. "I was sent from San Diego to close this down. I have no control over that. It's a directive from D.C. But it's been difficult."
Bravo-Paisley admitted that the agents' work has been exemplary. But she said closure is just part of the overall change in emphasis at the year-old Department of Homeland Security. "ICE is on the immigration end of the house, and we've become customs and border protection," said Bravo, explaining the new duties. "ICE is the interior, and we're on the border."
The transition has slowly begun locally. But even Bravo-Paisley indicated it would be a challenge. The current agents under ICE working with the Border Patrol are mainly transporters. "Bus drivers," Bravo-Paisley said. Now, ICE is giving the detention and transportation officers a crash course -- six-weeks of immigration law and Spanish, so they can do the same job as the Border Patrol agents.
ICE will take over the Border Patrol space at Rough and Ready Island.
But the Border Patrol agents are concerned about the undocumented people who will slip through the gaps: the small-fry violators and people who enter legally but overstay visas. Chuck De More, the special agent in charge for ICE based in San Francisco, admitted ICE won't be doing everything. "Frankly, we will respond to criminal-alien calls," De More said. "Our resources are more focused to criminal and egregious offenses." He added that none of the changes was made for budget reasons.
"It goes back to the philosophical debate of whether the Border Patrol should be deployed that far from the border," he said. "Their decision was they should be on the border."
But De More was not without sympathy. "A reorganization on par with the creation of Homeland Security will cause stress, anxiety and discomfort among all of us," he said.
Outside the headquarters, a Dumpster was slowly becoming a kind of museum of immigration enforcement and bureaucracy. A thick congressional report of immigration reforms written in 1994, the year that advocated fences at the border and mobile sweeps to stymie smugglers, was discarded unceremoniously. There were broken-down chairs and attaches, and documents with now-defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service logos.
After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists attacks, a newly created Department of Homeland Security took over the INS. Raul Diaz said that at times, it felt like Homeland Security had heaped the five agents and the dozen support staff of Livermore into the Dumpster along with everything else. "It's depressing," he said as he sat in the employee lunchroom.
The closure has changed the agents' basic routines. No longer do agents go down to the jails to check for criminal aliens. City patrols, where arrests were made on the streets and work sites and agents responded to public complaints, were phased out years ago, when Stockton went from 13 agents to two.
"We did everything," Diaz reminisced. "I felt like we were all making a difference." In the final days, Diaz doesn't even bother putting on his uniform. There is nothing to do but take down the radio gear, move some ammo and add more to the Dumpster.
Past some empty, dark holding cells, Livermore intelligence agent Creager sat in her office cleaning out her desk. She found some unfinished work. She read from a long list of names that the shutdown had prevented her from processing. Scanning the list, she rattled off labels of criminals she would not apprehend. "Rapist, pedophile, multiple rapist," said Creager, 49.
She's convinced of the need for what the Border Patrol does on the border and in the interior. But she felt the closing of Livermore is just the beginning. "We're the guinea pigs," she said. But she doesn't mind leaving and is willing to relocate. "I love my job. I love kicking dirt bags out of my country," she said.
Others like Naluai are concerned about being forced to separate from his wife and two young children. Diaz regrets leaving his new home. But Creager, a single mother with five dependents -- two children of a deceased daughter, and a younger daughter with two children -- has requested to move to a sector in Washington state. Just a year away from retirement, she needs the job. She just doesn't like the way the things have been handled.
"It's not worth the emotional upheaval," she said. "This is totally wrong. You don't do this to people."
The agents said their expenses will be paid and jobs assured. But the same kind of deals weren't offered to support staff. Others are still waiting for reassignment, some at lower rates of pay.
Joyce Smith, 52, a supervisory law enforcement communications assistant, isn't answering calls anymore. The radios are dead. And so, she fears, is her career. After 15 years, she's making $60,000 and is unwilling to start all over again or leave the area.
"I've had three grandbabies in seven months," the longtime Livermore resident said. "I'm not going to leave my family." Her eyes water as she realizes that on Monday, the radio room will be totally stripped and not worth locking. "I have nothing to do," she said.
Back in his home, Diaz wondered if the new Department of Homeland Security will ever achieve the kind of unity it sought post-Sept. 11. "I don't see where we've all come together," he said. Still, he has made a choice to stick it out.
The family waits to hear if they'll be reassigned to Riverside or Temecula in Southern California, where housing and living costs are higher than in Stockton. "They could have offered us positions locally, but they say it's not possible," said Diaz, counting the days to the end. "It could happen. They can wait to the last minute and surprise us and treat us like decent human beings. But they can say no. Then we have to go."
* To reach reporter Emil Guillermo, phone (209) 546-8294 or e-mail eguiller@recordnet.com
Chuck De More, the special agent in charge for ICE based in San Francisco, admitted ICE won't be doing everything.
I get the feeling that they won't be apprehending as many illegals as the BP agents did.
"Frankly, we will respond to criminal-alien calls," De More said. "Our resources are more focused to criminal and egregious offenses."
Sounds like he doesn't want to be bothered with your everyday, run of the mill illegal aliens.
He added that none of the changes was made for budget reasons.
Were they done for hispandering purposes?
This article is long, but I thought it was well worth the read.
They are just shifting some of the responsibilities around right now, giving power to different people and trying to get as many watching the border as possible while charging the local police with apprehending the ones already here.
I expect to see lots of gang bangers being deported. Not!
Is all this bawling about some govt. employee being transferred to another town? If he can buy a 3000 sq/ft house, I'd say he was doing pretty good.
Bwahahahahaha more like they will now be responsible for NOT enforcing the laws regarding illegal aliens...
imo
Great post, thanks.
Sad as it is, these folks know that requests to relocate are the price they may have to pay for their job security. I was disturbed that they were tossing out archival materials that may have helped the ICE group get a running start. You highlighted the comment from the woman citing criminals she would have personally seen deported after their sentences were up.
ping
The intentional crippling of America is occurring slowly but surely.
bump
Hispandering is the trademark of the Bush administration and the one previous to that.
From the stories I have been reading there are more roundups going on. Many construction workers in vegas are scared. Something is going on.
I guess if they had been told they would have sold their old house and missed out on the $50k+ appreciation.
"Get-past-the-first-line-of-defense-and-you're-home-free" ping.
I worked with a gal whose husband flew for Border Patrol. He was so disgusted with the lack of enforcement after he busted his a$$ to round up the cayotes.
It's a tough job. I was talking with a San Diego sector agent a couple of days ago. They're interdicting the aliens so well that the smugglers have moved to very rough terrain in order to try to elude the agents. Consequently, the BP is taking a lot of casualties. Pursuing groups of people in rocky hills almost guarantees injuries.
He worked his tail off flying a helicopter and getting shot at nightly and when he'd report in, there was always a "reason" that the PD in CA couldn't round them up. Of course, that was some 17 years ago.
I don't believe things have changed, but I haven't lived in Ca for a long time. I do remember the "watch out for folks crossing the highway" signs.
These days, the reason the PD would give him would be, "we don't enforce federal laws, that's your problem." Then the mayor starts griping about how much the "undocumented immigrants" (cuz you can't work in government and allow the words "illegal aliens" to pass your lips) cost to educate, jail, blah blah blah, and demands federal money. Unbelievable.
Indeed.
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