Thread: Busted On The Border

Busted On The Border
By: Grace White
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<strong> Every night, deputies in rural counties try to catch who they can as hundreds of undocumented immigrants are smuggled through South Texas.

As the sun goes down, the day is just beginning for the oneBrooks County deputy on patrol.

Things are quiet until darkness sets in and the chaos arrives.

Around 8:30 p.m., we're dispatched to a bail out.

That's code for a group of undocumented immigrants jumping out of car to avoid being caught.

"How often do you see bailouts?" asked White.

"It happens on a daily basis," said Deputy Moe Saavedra, Brooks County.

This bailout happened just moments ago.

We're off 281 just south of the checkpoint.

A Brooks County deputy told us he saw 20 people jump out of this SUV.

"This is the kinda food they travel with that they pack for the woods," said Deputy Moe Saavedra, Brooks County.

"Right here you can see all the foot tracks where they crossed," said Saavedra.

Everyone got away except this one.

"Were you the driver?" asked White.

"Of course, of course. It's my vehicle," said the man.

"Are you worried about your friends out there in the rough terrain?" asked Photographer Nefty Gonzalez.

"I ain't got nothing else to say man," he said.

But he kept talking, "I just gave them a ride. I picked them up at the store but that's about it man."

"Why do you think they left you?" asked White.

"Oh, what I said, it's what I said. I ain't got nothing else to say," he said.

"A lot of times before we can even get the vehicle to a stand still the smuggler's wind up sending messages to the other scouts or other smugglers and by the time we actually get it taken care of, they send messages like that," said Deputy Brett Zable, Brooks County.

While we were on this scene, another bail out happened a few miles up the road.

"The wrecker actually picked up that one and then we called out that Brett had another bailout, so round and round we go," said Saavedra.

At 9 p.m., we head to a third bailout.

This one in apart of the county we were just patrolling an hour ago.

Deputies say the next driver crashed into a fence.

The center console and the backseat were ripped out of the truck, all signs deputies say this car was used for smuggling.

"They said anywhere from 20-25 people... If they stick with the guide or the coyote, if they stick with him, they will normally just lay low through the night and they'll get another vehicle to come in. It's just a waiting game for them," said Saavedra.

Believe it or not, sometimes in the middle of the night they call 9-1-1.

"They are really in distress or they just want to get picked up," said Israel Gonzalez, Brooks County dispatcher.

Israel Gonzalez says there's one call he will always remember.

"We had sometime at the beginning of the year, a lady called her husband had died in her arms," said Gonzalez.

"It's political, nobody wants to come out and say it's not secure down there or up here but the sad reality is, it's not secure," said Chris Cabrera, who sits on the local chapter of National Border Patrol Council.

It's a group that in recent years has been more outspoken about their needs.

Specifically, Cabrera's group wants a processing center that would speed up the intake process and free up agents to go back into the field.

"With so many bodies coming in and the system being so slow; we're just seeing a lopsided ratio of agents inside as opposed to outside," said Cabrera.

Brooks County deputies feel the same way.

"We are real short handed, can't be everywhere at once," said Saavedra.

Especially when there's only one deputy to patrol the entire county.

"You can just imagine if we had a lot more manpower what could be achieved here in this county," said Saavedra.

One of the reasons Brooks County can't hire more deputies is because of their budget.

Since they're not technically a border county, they don't receive the federal funds other counties do.

http://www.foxsanantonio.com/newsroo...id_15242.shtml

Dead Dreams in South Texas
By: Grace White
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It's the immigrant death toll on rural ranches that's leaving a small South Texas community crying out for help.

In Brooks County, 2 1/2 hours south of San Antonio, officials say they are running out of room to bury the dead.

They are mothers, fathers, siblings and friends, but their graves have no names.

"These are people we don't know who they are, they are John Does, unknowns," said County Judge Raul Ramirez, Brooks County.

They are immigrants who risked everything for the chance at a better life, but they didn't survive the journey.

Their dreams ended here at the Brooks County cemetery, roughly 80 miles north of the border.

The problem now, the county is running out of room.

"We basically hit a plateau that we've now got to look for more land," said Ramirez.

The immigrant death toll here is rising.

In 2012, the county reported 129 bodies.

That's more than double the year before.

In South Texas, it's the ranchers who find themselves on the front lines.

"This is the body... (of) a 14-year-old girls that we found out here," said Ronnie Osburn, a rancher.

"How long do you think she had been out here?" asked White.

"Really not that long, maybe 7-10 days," said Osburn.

It's the rugged terrain that many can't survive.

"It's very, very sandy here, you walk a mile in this sand. It's like walking 3 miles or more," said Osburn.

We found eight make-shift tents on the ranch Osburn manages.

They're basically shelter for the night.

We found an empty can of corn and even a sock left behind.

"There's groups coming through this ranch probably as we speak," said Osburn.

He says it's a sign the border is far from secure.

"There's so many more illegal aliens coming in through South Texas than they are reporting in Washington DC," said Osburn.

What is reported are the immigrants who get caught.

"Back in the 1990s when we were apprehending about 250,000 people here annually, to where we are total under 100,000 last year," said Enrique Mendiola, Border Patrol Spokesman.

The Border Patrol says that's progress, but what isn't reported are the get-a-ways.

If you ask agents in Falfurrias, "This is the busiest we've seen this checkpoint now," said Mendiola.

Their sign touts more than 11,000 arrests and that's only since the fiscal year began in October.

That breaks down to an average 57 immigrants arrested every day in and around the checkpoint.

Agents say once immigrants cross the border here, they are driven up Highway 281 and told to bail out to avoid the checkpoint.

They hike through ranches and are picked up on the other side by coyotes.

Border Patrol agents say they are doing what they can to make sure people survive.

"This is just one of the 8 rescue beacons we have deployed out on some of these ranches," said Mendiola.

The beacons are mobile and agents move them to the areas where the most recent bodies were found.

There's relief water and a way out if they choose.

"All they have to do is punch this button and it will automatically send a signal off for help," said Mendiola.

Border Patrol agents have also marked more than 900 landmarks with numbers that correspond with a GPS location.

So if someone is in trouble, they can find them faster.

But lately, autorities can't seem to find them fast enough.

"We didn't budget for 129 bodies, but the law says we got to pay for them. We will pay for them," said Ramirez.

"So where do you make up the money?" asked White.

"We rob Peter to pay Paul. We don't give employees raises, we cut their departments, we don't fix county roads," said Ramirez.

Because Brooks County is not technically on the border, it doesn't get the federal funding other counties do.

"I just can't absorb this happening in my county and that this many people have died and perished here. We should only have one grave out here, not these kind of numbers," said Ramirez.

Every number is someone's loved one, loved ones who the county now has to find more room to bury.

Brooks County is now partnering with Baylor University to identify some of the remains.

Coming up Monday on Fox News at Nine, hear from a man who was busted smuggling a group of suspected illegal immigrants.
http://www.foxsanantonio.com/newsroo...id_15187.shtml