CA-Border drain open for hours before 8 entered it

Border drain open for hours before 8 entered it

By ELLIOT SPAGAT, Associated Press
Writer Elliot Spagat, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 58 mins ago AP

SAN DIEGO – A storm drain in front of the nation's busiest border crossing had been left open for hours by U.S. authorities before eight Mexicans used it to try to enter the U.S. illegally.

The migrants had entered the drain within about 50 yards of border inspectors early Saturday morning at the San Ysidro port of entry that connects San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico. The entry was caught on surveillance tape but went undetected until a motorist reported it, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The six males and two females were found in the 30-inch-wide pipe about 20 hours after they entered it. They were dehydrated and hungry but not seriously hurt.

CBP spokesman Vince Bond said authorities learned Friday night that a drainage cover was missing. He declined to elaborate, saying an investigation was continuing.

Rosa Cantera, who sells chips to motorists on the Tijuana side of the crossing, said she saw a motorist drop his visa in the storm drain about 4 p.m. Friday as he opened his door to tell a driver in front of him to keep moving.

A Tijuana street cleaner removed the rectangular drain cover with a screwdriver to retrieve the visa but then dropped the cover in the hole as he replaced it, Cantera said.

U.S. authorities left orange cones around the open hole until at least 2 a.m. Saturday, when Cantera said she saw people enter the drain. It was in one of the few vehicle lanes open at the time, probably making it difficult for inspectors to see people scampering between cars, she said.

"I've never seen anything like that happen, and I've been here for many years," Cantera, 45, said. "They saw the opening, took advantage of it, and went inside."

Illegal immigrants sometimes cross the 1,954-mile U.S.-Mexico border through drainage systems, particularly through large passages connecting Nogales, Ariz., and Nogales, Mexico.

What made Saturday's crossing attempt unusual was that it happened in front of inspection booths in one of the middle lanes of the San Ysidro crossing, where about 40,000 vehicles enter the U.S. daily, and motorists wait for hours during peak times.

One of those who went into the drain, 16-year-old Giobardo Andrade Villanueva, said he had agreed to pay a smuggler $2,500 to lead him across the border.

He and the others stayed in the pipe because two smugglers, who left shortly after the group entered the drain, had ordered them not to leave, the teenager told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from his home in Tijuana.

"We were scared," Andrade said. "(The smugglers) told us to wait inside."

Andrade said rats and other animals crawled around him as he waited inside the pipe. He moved forward on his stomach and urinated in his pants. Some others in the pipe were crying.

"I was thinking I could die inside," said Andrade, whose mother sells gum to motorists on the Tijuana side of the crossing.

Authorities initially suspected the group had quickly made it about 100 yards through the pipe to an open channel in San Diego.

Agents shouted and shined lights inside the pipe but got no response, said Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs and Enforcement. ICE sent in a robot, which repeatedly got stuck.

"There was so much slush and debris inside," Mack said. "It didn't appear that anyone was in there."

Border Patrol agents who crawled through the pipe Saturday night found the group "just kind of laid up in there," said spokesman Richard Smith.

One member of the group, Mauricio Arellano Cabrera of Guadalajara, was charged with re-entering the country after being deported, a felony. The others were returned to Mexico.

The government welded the hole shut on Saturday, CBP said.

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