http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/3820053.html

April 26, 2006, 12:37AM

TRAPPED IN THE VALLEY
Beefed-up checkpoints are disrupting the lives of undocumented residents, but enforcement advocates say that's part of the plan
By JAMES PINKERTON
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

HARLINGEN - Stepped-up immigration enforcement in South Texas has made a long-standing predicament even worse: Increasing numbers of undocumented residents find themselves trapped, unable to get past beefed-up highway checkpoints.

Many are teenagers who rarely stray from their towns and neighborhoods for fear of getting deported.

''These kids go to school here, they've grown up here, and are as American as anyone, except they have no documents," said Kyle Brown, a McAllen immigration lawyer. "They can't go back to Mexico and can't go out of the Valley. It's a problem we see over and over."

Such immigrants are thought to number in the tens of thousands, Brown and other immigration lawyers say, and their ranks are growing as the illegal immigrant population swells.

Typical is the Carrizales family. Irma Alvarado de Carrizales is a legal U.S. resident. But two of her four children have no documents.

Travel is risky, said Carrizales, who lives in the McAllen area. And family getaways — jaunts to Sea World, the Alamo or Six Flags Over Texas — are out of the question.

"South Padre Island is the only place we can go," she said. ''We are prisoners of the Valley."


Worries grew after 9/11
Concerns about border security grew after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Since then, U.S. authorities have increased the number of permanent highway checkpoints in South Texas from seven to nine, and they have upgraded and expanded many of the older checkpoints.

The newest permanent checkpoint is a $15.5 million state-of-the-art facility along Interstate 35 north of Laredo. It opened April 14 and is part of a security buildup during the past five years in which the budget for the U.S. Border Patrol increased by $451 million and its staff by 1,722 agents.

Roadside checkpoints are located all along the U.S.-Mexico border, some of them more than 80 miles inland.

Agents say the interior checkpoints are an essential second layer of defense, part of a broader net that in 2005 snagged more than 1.2 million illegal immigrants and more than 1 million pounds of drugs.

And, enforcement advocates say, if the checkpoints are disrupting undocumented immigrants' lives, well, they must be working.

''The idea that if you break the law and put yourself and your family in that situation, that it's unfair for the government to take action against you, doesn't make any sense," said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federal for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, an immigration reform group that has nearly 200,000 supporters. "It's unfortunate when these thing happen, but you have to look at who created the situation in the first place."

In the Rio Grande Valley, many residents don't consider a lack of papers such a serious offense. It's traditionally been more of an inconvenience, a paperwork problem. And, they perceive the border to be more a blur than a sharp line.

So if there's a checkpoint, residents find a way to drive or walk around it.

But now, many residents say that's too risky. Not only are there two more permanent checkpoints in South Texas, there are roving tactical checkpoints to worry about, as well.


School trips affected
Not surprisingly, school officials increasingly fret about the logistics of class trips.

In January, a bus driver taking the Santa Rosa High School girls basketball team to a game in Hebbronville allowed at least two undocumented passengers — apparently his relatives — to go along for the ride. They got out once the bus passed a highway checkpoint near Sarita and escaped detection.

But a student videotaped the episode, which later aired on a local television station, and the bus driver was fired.

Erica Schommer, an attorney with Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid in Weslaco, said she gives her clients ''stern lectures" warning against smuggling relatives. But some "get impatient and try and take a family member past the checkpoint."

Legal residents can be deported if they are convicted of smuggling.

''It's a mess," said Nathan Selzer, director of the Valley Movement for Human Rights. Families either decide to live in the Rio Grande Valley indefinitely, he said, or they make life-changing decisions and return to their home countries to apply for U.S. residency.

"So a lot of folks are just hanging out," he said. "You can't leave."

Undocumented children endure the greatest hardships, said Brown, the immigration lawyer. As they get older, many find they can't go to college or work legally.


Who is to blame?
The immigrants, not the government, are to blame, said Mehlman, of FAIR.

"When they make the decision to come to the United States, they are often making the decision to leave people behind," he said. "The law cannot guarantee they are going to be reunited with their family."

The illegal immigrants who broke the law are responsible for their relatives' hardships, he said.

Carrizales, the mother of two undocumented children, said she was only looking for a better life when she and her husband, 50, a manufacturing engineer, journeyed north from Guadalajara. Five years later, she is considering the unthinkable: Giving up her coveted green card and going back home.

That's because she's been told that the fastest way for her to gain residency for her two undocumented, teenaged sons is to go back to Mexico and do the paperwork from there.

''It's very complicated," she said. ''I don't even want to tell people about it because they won't understand."

A maze of U.S. immigration laws often gives families more than one way to bring their relatives or legalize those who are already here.

Carrizales' immigration counselors told her she ought to try to resurrect an old 1990 residency application. But to do that, she'll have to surrender her green card.

''It's risky because a visa is not a sure thing," said Rosalva Contreras, her immigration counselor at the nonprofit South Texas Immigration Council. But ''this is the option we believe is best for her."

If her application is approved, a visa should be ''immediately available," Contreras said. "She will not have to wait for years."

Carrizales hopes the plan works. ''I have faith, that with help from God, that we will be approved," said Carrizales, whose jobs have included picking cucumbers and packing vegetables. ''I don't think we are undesirable people. We came to work."

james.pinkerton@chron.com