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March 20, 2006, 10:49AM
HUMAN TRAFFICKING
A shootout last week underscores the dangers of 'drop houses' as tougher border enforcement raises the stakes for smugglers
Deadly way stations



By ROBERT CROWE


On the journey into the United States, a stay in one of Houston's "drop houses" often is the last stop illegal immigrants make before their lives begin in this city.

It's a dehumanizing experience. Immigrants — treated as cargo — are known as pollo, or chickens. They're often held at gunpoint and forced to subsist for days or weeks in stifling and filthy conditions before their smuggling debts are paid.

These houses are all over Houston, say federal authorities, who find at least one a week. A shootout last week in southwest Houston underscored how problematic these illegal transfer sites have become as rival smuggling gangs target them to kidnap illegal immigrants to collect fees.

"It's similar to narcotics traffickers and groups that do rips of drug shipments," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Edward Gallagher. "In Houston, it's still not on par with the violence in Phoenix and Los Angeles — where smugglers are shooting each other in the middle of traffic — but we did have a shooting last week at 9 o'clock in the morning."

At least one suspected smuggler was shot by rival gang members who kicked in a door at 9011 Sandpiper on Tuesday morning, authorities said. It looked like a scene from an action movie to neighbors such as 89-year-old James DeMoss, who watched as police and immigration officials surrounded the drop house.

"I heard seven shots, total," he said. "It was like the Wild West."

Twenty-one men suspected of being illegal immigrants were taken into custody at the scene. Jose Monsivais-Muniz, 25, Jesus Gomez-Ibarra, 21, and Roberto Carlos Lopez-Dominguez, 30, were charged with harboring illegal immigrants.

Members of the rival group fled and are still being sought.

Tight enforcement on the Texas-Mexico border has made it more difficult for immigrants to enter the country. So smugglers, or "coyotes," have begun kidnapping illegal immigrants from rival gangs to collect fees ranging from $1,500 to $3,000.

"The stakes for illegal aliens are higher now," said Luisa Deason, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "We see more weapons and, at times, you see people shot."

Investigators are still trying to sort out how the rival gang learned the home on Sandpiper was a drop house. Gallagher said smugglers often get such information through the grapevine.

According to the criminal complaint, Monsivais-Muniz, Gomez-Ibarra and Lopez-Dominguez were paid $300 to $500 weekly to stand guard with guns over the immigrants. The house would receive up to two loads of 25 immigrants each week, authorities said.

Gallagher said the Justice Department has prosecuted two similar cases of smugglers rustling immigrants from drop houses in the past two years.

A third case, awaiting trial, stems from a November incident in which a group of suspected immigrant rustlers was arrested after a botched kidnapping of a rival smuggler.

Manuel Cano Jr., Carlos Gallegros, Eduardo Enrique Rivera and Luis Miguel Gutierrez-Sanchez were charged with kidnapping Leonardo Ibarra.

According to a criminal complaint, Ibarra told investigators he transported immigrants to various Houston drop houses for a man whose name he could not remember.

The complaint states that Cano and his men kidnapped Ibarra after they saw him transfer immigrants from a northeast Houston gas station.

The men approached him and, when Ibarra could not produce a drop house with a stash of immigrants, they kidnapped him and sought a $30,000 ransom, authorities said.

The plot was foiled when Harris County sheriff's deputies caught the men after Ibarra's brother alerted authorities. The case is set for trial next month before U.S. District Judge Sim Lake.

Gallagher said smuggling cases have become so common that prosecutors must be very selective about which ones to pursue.

"This is taxing on our agencies," he said.

Some immigration experts say that the increasing violence seen in Houston, Phoenix and Los Angeles demonstrates the flaws in U.S. immigration policy.

"This problem can't be solved without immigration reform taking place," said Arnoldo García, justice program coordinator for the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights in Oakland, Calif.

Katharine Donato, a demographer and associate professor of sociology at Rice University, said the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act was the last serious effort in Congress to address immigration policy. She said inconsistent enforcement of the law may have fueled an increase in violence by raising the stakes in the smuggling business.

The law significantly increased funding to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border and created penalties for employers who hire undocumented workers.

In the early years of the law, immigrants paid smugglers about $200 to cross the border. But the price has increased as the U.S. Border Patrol stepped up its enforcement efforts, Donato said.

At the same time, she said, prosecutions for hiring illegal immigrants have been rare.

"You have this policy that makes it harder to cross the border but, at the same time, you haven't reduced the demand for migrant labor," she said. "Maybe our policy wanted to increase the cost of crossing but, when someone is turning over up to $3,000 to enter this country, you've created huge payouts for smugglers."

robert.crowe@chron.com