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BP: Many immigrants claiming to be Salvadoran lying
BY KEVIN SIEFF
The Brownsville Herald

HIDALGO — While driving along the winding dirt roads that line the Rio Grande, Border Patrolman Roy Cervantes received a call he has become accustomed to hearing.

Six men and five women had been caught trying to cross the river illegally. All were from El Salvador.

According the Border Patrol, 24,373 Salvadorans were apprehended in the Rio Grande Valley during the last fiscal year, making them the most commonly apprehended other than Mexican, or OTM, group in the area.

When Cervantes opened the doors to the small white trailer hitched behind a Border Patrol sport utility vehicle, he saw the faces of the massive El Salvadoran migration. Six men — their elbows resting on their knees, their bodies haggard after 30 days of traveling — turned to the Border Patrol agent.

All six men tell Cervantes the same story. They have come from El Salvador to meet with a friend or relative in the United States. Although the story is a common one, Cervantes doesn’t buy it.

“You aren’t El Salvadoran,” he told one man.

After more than 15 years with the Border Patrol, Cervantes has learned to be skeptical when undocu-mented immigrants claim to be Salvadoran.

Many of them, he said, are lying.

Because of the 1982 Orantes injunction, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has to treat Salva-dorans differently from other undocumented immigrants. While the vast majority of detained immi-grants are subject to expedited removal, or removal without a judicial hearing, Salvadorans are released on their own reconnaissance and given a notice to appear in federal court.

Because of the large number of Salvadorans who attempt to cross through South Texas, the contro-versy over the injunction has hit home in the Valley.

“Part of it is geography,” Cervantes said.

Cervantes also points to the Valley’s relative proximity to large hubs, such as Houston and Dallas, as a part of the area’s appeal to OTMs.

Border Patrol agents are concerned that among the Salvadoran immigrants who enter the country via the Valley are members of MS-13, a Salvadoran gang known for drug smuggling and gun running along the border.

“We consider them an emerging threat to our communities,” Cervantes said. “A part of our national Border Patrol strategy calls for responding to emerging threats like MS-13.”

The gang uses the Rio Grande Valley as a staging area before they move on to other parts of the coun-try, he said.

In addition to security concerns over the MS-13, Border Patrol agents are looking for a way to distin-guish Salvadorans from immigrants who are hoping to exploit the Orantes injunction.

“We rely on officer experience to be able to identify that,” Cervantes said after closing the doors to the Border Patrol trailer.

Inside, six men — Salvadoran or not — are left to contemplate their fate.

ksieff@brownsvilleherald.com



Posted on Jul 21, 06 | 12:00 am