Thread: Human traffickers use Utah's desolate roads

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Undocumented workers
Migrants risk lives on roads
Human traffickers use Utah's desolate roads
By Nate Carlisle
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune
Article Launched:04/22/2007 12:38:14 AM MDT

Correction: Utah Highway Patrol Sgt. Rick Eldredge's name was misspelled in photo captions on A-1 and A-6 in Sunday's edition.
BLANDING - On the day after eight people from Guatemala and Mexico died in a rollover, Utah Highway Patrol Sgt. Rick Eldredge stopped several carloads of immigrants.
One vehicle was a Chevrolet Suburban - the same model that overturned on U.S. Highway 191 south of Bluff early Monday.
This time, though, Eldredge was not on U.S. 191. He was on State Road 261, a winding two-lane back road with a long, unpaved stretch that overlooks Valley of the Gods and Monument Valley.
In recent years, immigrant smugglers have taken to these routes rather than the faster - and more heavily patrolled - U.S. 191. The smugglers, UHP says, are trying to reach Interstate 70, where the immigrants will be transported to jobs throughout the country.
While meant to evade the law, traveling the back roads means additional danger for the human cargo. They are not only more hazardous to drive, they are farther from emergency help.
"If they were to crash during the winter at nighttime, if the crash didn't kill them the weather would," Eldredge says. "There's just not enough traffic on that road to find them."
Smugglers of immigrants began taking the alternate routes about three or four years ago, though the UHP does not keep statistics on the number of such travelers. The troopers can offer only anecdotes and observations.
Though police have seen no reported immigrant traffic deaths on the back roads in that time, there have been some accidents, mostly from drowsy drivers. Some of the vehicles have struck cattle.
Eldredge first noticed the phenomenon on Memorial Day weekend 2004, when troopers set a sobriety checkpoint at the junction of state roads 95 and 276.
In addition to catching drunken drivers going to or from Lake Powell, the troopers stopped two van loads of immigrants.
The immigrant traffic on the isolated roads has increased since then, Eldredge says.
On Tuesday night, about 44 hours after the crash that killed eight people, Eldredge stopped three passenger vehicles with immigrants.
One was a minivan, with 11 people on board, on State Road 95. The driver crossed the center line, giving Eldredge cause to stop it.
He stopped another minivan for speeding on the gravel stretch of State Road 261. It was carrying just four people, an unusually small load.
And on SR 261, Eldredge stopped a Suburban, with 13 on board, for speeding. The driver, who identified himself as 25-year-old Jose Martinez, says he was coming from Phoenix and had lived in the United States for 3 1/2 years.
Martinez says he was going to Denver to work installing air conditioning. When Martinez was told Denver was to the northeast and he was traveling northwest, Martinez replied in English, "I had a little map."
Martinez says he had not heard about the crash that killed the Mexican and Guatemalan immigrants the day before. When told the crash victims were riding in a Suburban like his, Martinez's eyes widened and his jaw extended.
Eldredge wrote Martinez a ticket for not having insurance and a warning for speeding. He then told everyone who could to put on a seat belt. Martinez then drove the Suburban away.
Local law enforcement here does not arrest or detain immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally. Federal immigration agents, according to local police, generally do not come to pick up the immigrants unless they are stranded.
For some of the immigrant travelers, scenic overlooks and roadside trailheads become rest stops. On SR 261, at the gravel-lined overlook for Moki Dugway, offering a view of Valley of the Gods from 1,100 feet above the canyon floor, immigrants sometimes stop to discard trash and urinate.
On Tuesday night at the overlook, Eldredge observed more than a dozen wet spots in the gravel and a discarded pair of wet blue jeans.
About 120 miles to the northwest, on SR 95, Hanksville Mayor Stanley Alvey says he has seen immigrants passing through his town for five or six years. Alvey, who owns a Chevron station, says a few vans full of immigrants have broken down or rolled near town. No one has died, and the foreign visitors do not cause trouble, Alvey says.
"They buy gas. They buy food. They keep on going," Alvey says. "They're no problem except everywhere I go, it looks like they're taking us over."
Alvey's station is not manned through the night, but he has a phone number posted so people can call if they need gas.
The immigrants, he says, have awakened him about a half-dozen times.
ncarlisle@sltrib.com


http://www.sltrib.com/News/ci_5725485

In addition to catching drunken drivers going to or from Lake Powell, the troopers stopped two van loads of immigrants.
The immigrant traffic on the isolated roads has increased since then, Eldredge says.
On Tuesday night, about 44 hours after the crash that killed eight people, Eldredge stopped three passenger vehicles with immigrants.

Hmmm........another journalist that doesn't know the difference between "legal immigrant" and "illegal immigrant."

Local law enforcement here does not arrest or detain immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally. Federal immigration agents, according to local police, generally do not come to pick up the immigrants unless they are stranded.