Posted on 12/12/2009 10:51:29 AM PST by WestTexasWend
Express-News OJINAGA, Mexico — A day after being caught in Arizona by the U.S. Border Patrol, a weary and disoriented Federico Vélez Vargas found himself a free man in Texas, hundreds of miles from his last point of reference.
“I don't have any idea where I am. I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't have any money to go home,” Vargas, 37, said as he collected his thoughts in the Mexican immigration office at the international bridge.
Around him, dozens of other Mexicans who also had just arrived from Arizona were eating sandwiches, pulling their belongings from plastic bags marked “Department of Homeland Security” and trying to make sense of it.
Some 12 hours earlier, all had boarded a silver Wackenhut bus in Tucson that headed east through the chill desert night.
Arriving at midday in Presidio, the shivering deportees were sent trudging across the Rio Grande bridge into Mexico.
In October, when the long-distance repatriation program was announced by the U.S. Border Patrol, West Texas officials reacted with concern that the deportees might stick around or cross back into the United States.
Gov. Rick Perry quickly used it as ammunition in his ongoing political war with the federal government, accusing the Obama administration of dumping thousands of unauthorized immigrants on unprepared West Texans.
If “they are faced with the Chihuahuan Desert or Texas? They're turning around and going back to Texas,” he declared of the deportees in a speech in Midland.
But despite Perry's predictions, local communities so far have been unaffected.
“We haven't had a bit of trouble,” said Brad Newton, city manager of Presidio, a community of 6,000 with minimal infrastructure.
“If we didn't know they were going over there, we wouldn't even know they were coming through,” he said of the Mexicans who arrive twice daily by bus.
The mayor of Ojinaga, a quiet Mexican city of 18,000 people, is likewise relieved.
“I was very worried, but so far, it's working,” Cesar Carrasco said of the repatriation program.
“While these Mexicans have a complete right to be here, we are encouraging them to go to their hometowns,” he said, noting the city has only one small shelter for the homeless.
The program was launched without much notice to Mexican officials, according to Raul Acosta, the Mexican consul in Presidio, whose office is coping with up to 94 needy countrymen each day.
“The Border Patrol did not coordinate this with us. It's a unilateral program. They didn't give us time to plan or listen to our objections,” he said.
Caught by surprise
The theory behind the long-distance deportation program, which also is used by the Border Patrol in California, is to add another obstacle to the already daunting task of illegally entering the United States.
“The basic idea is to get them away from the smugglers who brought them across the first time,” said Bill Brooks, a Border Patrol spokesman in Marfa.
Thanks to Mexico's effort to quickly move the immigrants out of Ojinaga back to their hometowns, none appears to be staying around, much less trying to sneak back across the Rio Grande.
“I can tell you we're quite pleased with the way it's turned out. To our knowledge, no one has crossed back over in the Marfa sector,” Brooks said.
In November, he said, some 2,100 immigrants were transported from Arizona and sent back to Ojinaga. According to immigration officials there, a couple of hundred Mexicans were being sent back each month before the start of the long-distance repatriation program.
Despite the continuing assurances from federal officials, Presidio County Judge Jerry Agan remains uneasy with the program, which he said caught local officials by surprise.
“I'd rather they do it somewhere else. I'm still not comfortable with it,” Agan said. “That's a lot of people being put in our rural area, but I didn't have a vote in the matter.”
The repatriation program works smoothly only as long as there are funds on the Mexican side to quickly transport the deportees out of Ojinaga.
“This is a multiagency program. The state of Chihuahua is helping us with funds for bus tickets, and Chihuahuenses (the local bus line), is providing a big discount,” said Elsa Villa, an official at the Mexican consulate in Presidio.
Mexican immigration officials also are helping to process the deportees.
With two busloads arriving daily, it costs Mexico about $135,000 a month to accommodate and transport the deportees inland, according to figures provided by another Mexican official.
“On average, it costs about ($62) per person to buy them food and a bus ticket to their place of origin,” said Julieta Nuñez, a spokeswoman for Mexican immigration in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua.
Carrasco worries about what might happen if funds run short.
“If the money ends, we'll have a big problem. If we can't help them leave, they'll stay here, and we don't have the capacity to handle them,” he said.
Despite these concerns, Acosta said the Mexican government is committed to underwriting the repatriation program.
“We have funding to finish December and start January. We are requesting additional money from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and are assured of funds to support this program,” he said.
“We cannot leave our nationals in the port of entry, knowing nothing about what they are going to do,” he said.
Six kids in Arizona
While family groups caught in Arizona usually are sent directly back to Mexico, men traveling alone may find themselves being released almost 600 miles to the east.
The long-distance repatriation program is limited to Mexican men between the ages of 20 and 60, who are traveling alone and haven't committed any offense beyond illegally entering the United States, Brooks said.
Most are shipped out of Arizona the same day they are caught. Upon arriving in Ojinaga, the deportees are greeted by Mexican consular officials, and as needed, given clothes, food and medical attention. Each also is offered a ticket voucher for a trip back home.
“I always tell them, ‘You are welcome back in Mexico. You're in Ojinaga,'” said Villa of the Mexican Consulate in Presidio.
“We tell them how difficult it will be to try to get back on this side. We tell them Ojinaga is a very small city, with no jobs. We tell them if they want to go back home, we will help them,” she said.
As Vargas and the other arrivals quickly learned, there was little time or opportunity to go astray. While the tired and dirty deportees were busy eating and replacing shoelaces taken from them by agents in Arizona, immigration officials already were handing out bus vouchers.
Idling just outside the immigration office was a sleek gray Chihuahuense bus.
Within an hour of arriving, most if not all of the deportees would be bound first for Chihuahua City, Chihuahua, and then to their hometowns.
Vargas, who was caught on his first attempt to enter the U.S., had no plans on returning.
“I'll feel better to be back in my hometown. I was two days in the brush. I was suffering over there,” he said.
Other deportees, however, were grappling with far more complex situations, among them two other Mexicans who had arrived with Vargas. Unlike him, both already had deep ties in the United States.
“I'm a cook in Atlanta. I've been working there for seven years,” said Gilberto Diaz, 22, a lanky youth from Guerrero who said he was caught coming back through Arizona following his first visit home.
Diaz said he promised to pay a smuggler $2,000 to get him back to Atlanta, where his job in a Japanese steak house awaits. He was ambiguous about his future plans.
“I've already got my ticket and I'm going back home. After that, I don't know what I'll do,” he said.
Seated nearby on a blue plastic chair, wearing a donated winter coat and eating a bologna sandwich, was Israel Hoyos, 32, who didn't plan to stay in Mexico.
A native of Mexico City, Hoyos said he'd lived in Arizona for eight years, rising to become a foreman in a framing company before being deported following a traffic stop.
“I can't go back to Mexico City. I've got a wife and six kids back in Arizona,” he said, proudly displaying a business card with his name and company.
“I have to go back to Arizona, although I have no idea how.”
Probably said the same thing about the Mexican wife and kids a few years ago.
Not only should these illegals be deported to Chiapas, but their employers should be prosecuted to the fullest extent the law allows.
I’m pretty sure that man’s employer will be in trouble. AZ has put into place some pretty strict laws about employing illegals even if you don’t realize they’re illegal.
I say more power to them! Hooray for AZ ~ more states need to do this. If an AZ business is caught w/illegals the 1st offense is 10 days suspension of their business license. The 2nd offense is a total withdrawal of the business license.
There, cleaned up that little pile of PC crap.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Sorry...forgot to attach the quote with the previous post.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Raul Acosta, the Mexican consul in Presidio, whose office is coping with up to 94 needy countrymen each day. “The Border Patrol did not coordinate this with us. It's a unilateral program. They didn't give us time to plan or listen to our objections,” he said.
This pendejo thinks that US law enforcement agencies should "coordinate" with him before enforcing our laws, and that we are somehow obliged to listen to his "objections" to the way that we are enforcing our laws, and that we should not enforce our laws unless he says its OK. These people do not have a clue, about the rule of law or anything else, but perhaps this program will provide them with some.
“While these Mexicans have a complete right to be here, we are encouraging them to go to their hometowns,” he said, noting the city has only one small shelter for the homeless.
A complete right to be here? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? What part of ILLEGAL do you not understand?
Mexico certainly doesn’t “consult” with the countries south of them when they kick their illegals out of Mexico.
.....none appears to be staying around......
Because there is nothing there
No, the mayor of Ojinaga (Mexico) said that. He was pointing out that his (Mexican) town had a homeless shelter too small to accommodate all the deportees, and said they should go back to their (Mexican) home towns.
That’s the key, prosecution to include years in jail and heavy, heavy fines. It would be good to hit some homeowners with fines as well; most of them know damn well when illegals are mowing their lawn.
A week or so ago I was having lunch in a local fast food restaurant. The manager on duty sat down to interview a Spanish-speaking woman. I listened carefully (I know some Spanish) to discern whether he'd asked her about her immigration status. I did not hear him ask her about that. The interview was a brief one. I don't recall having seen her hired as an employee at that particular place, but I don't go there all the time.
That was my first reaction - if you don't take care of the problem, WE WILL, and we don't need no steeking "coordination".
One other thing, A native of Mexico City, Hoyos said he'd lived in Arizona for eight years, rising to become a foreman in a framing company
He got to be foreman because he could speak the workforces' lingo. My neighbor's boy was a foreman of a work crew in Las Vegas and got fired becuase he couldn't speak Spanish. Such is the bullshit going on. Hang these damned employers.
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