Thread: Border rapes cause alarm

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Posted on Tue, Jun. 06, 2006



Border rapes cause alarm

BY DAVID MCLEMORE
The Dallas Morning News

McALLEN, Texas - Two attacks occurred shortly after midnight. The third came in bright daylight.

The terrible geometry of violence that draws smugglers, robbers and immigrants together at the border is expanding, say federal and local authorities investigating three recent attacks on illegal immigrants just south of here.

Border thugs on both sides of the Rio Grande have long preyed on illegal immigrants in crimes of opportunity. But the three incidents in Hidalgo County in May showed signs of a changing pattern for the human smugglers, Border Patrol officials say.

Smugglers - who extort thousands of dollars from immigrants to ferry them across the border - are teaming with criminals to rape and rob the immigrants along the way.

In the three incidents, 55 illegal immigrants were victimized, and five were sexually assaulted - all within a half-mile of the same weed-choked bend of the river.

"The coyotes (smugglers) tell the (immigrants) they'll track them down and kill them if they talk," said Roy Cervantes, spokesman for the Border Patrol's Rio Grande Valley sector in Edinburg, Texas. "And they know the (immigrants) don't have anyone they can turn to. It takes great courage for the women to report the rapes after what they've been through."

The exact number of sexual assaults committed against illegal immigrants along the border may never be known. The Border Patrol turns over complaints of violent crimes directed at illegal immigrants to local authorities for investigation. And it doesn't keep statistics on sexual assaults.

But officials at headquarters in Washington estimated that the Border Patrol receives reports on about three to four rapes a day of illegal immigrants along the 2,000-mile border - or 1,040 to 1,460 a year.

"These are just the reported rapes along both sides of the border made to our agents during interviews with those apprehended," said Border Patrol spokeswoman Maria Valencia. "We don't know about those we don't apprehend. And for those we do, it's very unusual for an illegal immigrant to report a sexual assault."

In the first incident, smugglers took a group of 29 immigrants, including 15 women, to a staging area on the Mexican side of the border. The smugglers then separated the women and sent them across the river first.

"When the women arrived on the U.S. side, three or four men emerged from the brush, armed with machetes and a handgun. They ordered the women to disrobe and then waited for the men to cross," said Cervantes. "They too are stripped."

The robbers knew to search the clothing for money and jewelry hidden in the seams, Cervantes said.

Then they turned their attention to the women - many of whom were molested. Three later reported they had been raped.

Over the next two weeks, two more women were similarly assaulted in separate attacks, including one raped in the middle of the afternoon after the Border Patrol stepped up night patrols along the river bend.

Many of the immigrant women who are victims of sexual assault wind up at Mujeres Unidas, a women's crisis center in McAllen, said Dammae Theis-Gonzalez, a long-term sexual assault counselor.

Each year, the center's caseload of sexual assault and domestic violence cases exceeds 3,000 women and children. About 40 percent of these women are "without Social Security numbers," said Theis-Gonzalez.

She declined to give any specifics about the five women raped, citing client confidentiality. But she did acknowledge that the center is working closely with Border Patrol and Hidalgo County deputies investigating the case.

"Usually, the authorities hear ... from someone else in the group that the rapes occurred. The women may even deny it at first," Theis-Gonzalez said. "But when the agents start to talk to them about it - and they're very gentle in how they do it - the women will start to cry. Then we know something has happened."

Theis-Gonzalez stressed that the number of rapes reported by immigrant women is just a hint of what actually takes place.

"I'd suspect that 80 percent of the sexual assaults that occur along the border go unreported. The only ones we know about are those sexual assaults reported by women apprehended by the Border Patrol," she said. "We don't know how many of those who never got arrested were raped. ... These are people who are scared and at risk of attack every step of their journey."

In March, during an appearance before a House subcommittee hearing on border violence, Larry Devers, sheriff of Cochise County, Ariz., gave chilling testimony about how little value the culture of human smuggling places on the dignity of the people they traffic in.

"Smuggling routes are often marked with `rape trees' - women's undergarments hung on tree limbs where a rape occurred, warning everyone of the consequences of failing to cooperate with the coyotes who prey on them," he said.

Nor does the violence start when illegal immigrants enter the United States.

Devers estimated that 80 percent of the people being smuggled into the United States have been victimized by criminals before they reach the border.

The State Department estimates that 18,000 to 20,000 people are brought into the country each year involuntarily to work in the illicit-sex business or other criminal enterprises. That does not include illegal immigrants who voluntarily pay to be smuggled illegally into the United States and are later coerced to work as virtual slaves for the smugglers.

In the 2004 crime statistics recorded by the Texas Department of Public Safety, Hidalgo County reported 103 rapes, roughly 6.5 percent of the 1,563 rapes reported by the state's 256 county sheriffs. Overall, law enforcement agencies in Hidalgo County reported a total of 196 rapes.

"Every community along the border has a significantly higher criminal investigation load to carry because the federal government has failed to stop illegal entry," said Hidalgo County Sheriff Guadalupe Trevino. A majority of the sexual assaults in this county involve crimes against illegal immigrants or are committed by illegal immigrants.

What happened in May is no exception, he said.

"In three days in May, I suddenly have five sexual assaults and 60 aggravated robberies added to my load that, to be honest, may never be solved," Trevino said. "This preying on illegal immigrants is not new. But it does seem to be getting bigger."

Rogelio Nunez, director of Proyecto Libertad, a human-rights organization in Harlingen, Texas, that provides legal services for immigrants, said that about half the organization's 1,000 active cases involve sexual violence against women.

"Beatings and rapes are just one means the coyotes use to keep them under control," Nunez said. "There is no code of ethics or moral concerns on the part of the smugglers."

The violence directed at immigrants is simply a part of the overall picture of immigrant crime, said Trevino. On any given day, he said, 15 percent of the 1,200 inmates his jail holds are illegal immigrants.

In January 2004, federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested five men as part of a sex slavery ring in McAllen.

Four of the men were convicted on human smuggling charges and sentenced to prison for terms ranging from four months to 14 years. The ringleader, Juan Soto, 26, a native of Nueva Italia, Mexico, was convicted and sentenced to 23 years in prison, the longest sentence to date under the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act passed in 2000.

The four women, ages 19 to 40, were relocated in the United States with refugee status.

Since his election in January, Trevino has created a criminal immigrants investigation unit, using Operation Linebacker funds provided by Texas Gov. Rick Perry to give border sheriffs resources to fight border crime.

The five-member unit focuses solely on follow-up investigations of felony crimes committed by illegal immigrants.

"In the first month of the unit, we cleared four murders and a large number of assaults and burglaries. Our crimes-against-persons rate dropped 32 percent."

In May, there were 188 incidents reported involving criminal activity by illegal immigrants, including the three immigrant attacks along the river.

That doesn't mean Trevino is turning his officers into immigration agents. Hidalgo County's official policy is that its law enforcement officers will not question anyone's nationality or legal status.

"As long as people in this county obey the law and we have no probable cause they committed a crime, my deputies aren't going to ask their nationality," the sheriff said. "Immigration control is a federal job, and I'm not going to use my deputies to chase illegal immigrants. The people who were attacked along the riverbank are both victims and witnesses, and we need them to cooperate in our investigation."






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I say if we really want to get serious about this illegal smuggling business we have mandatory life sentences for these smugglersand see this law enforced, i am sure a lot of it would subside if they knew we took it seriously. I hate these people getting victimized, they have to know what is waiting on them before they start out,they have to accept some responsibility for what is happening to them!

Originally Posted by nittygritty

I say if we really want to get serious about this illegal smuggling business we have mandatory life sentences for these smugglersand see this law enforced, i am sure a lot of it would subside if they knew we took it seriously. I hate these people getting victimized, they have to know what is waiting on them before they start out,they have to accept some responsibility for what is happening to them!

I agree. They know what's going to happen before they cross the borders, no one is forcing them to come here. They knowingly come here illegally, and then they complain because they get victimized!