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Feds park truck driver this time
Web Posted: 08/05/2005 12:00 AM CDT

Guillermo Contreras
Express-News Staff Writer

In June, an Arkansas trucker accused of smuggling seven undocumented immigrants went free after prosecutors in San Antonio declined to prosecute him.

A return trip to South Texas this weekend landed him back in jail. This time, federal prosecutors charged him with illegally transporting another seven undocumented immigrants who officials reported finding in the cab of his rig.

But the flip-flop has some immigration groups questioning why he wasn't prosecuted to begin with and one saying such inaction could do harm to the country's safety.

"For a representative of our government to respond to this facet of immigration enforcement with indifference is unimaginable and indefensible," said John Keeley, director of communications for the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank in Washington that supports stricter immigration controls. "I would think it would fairly embolden the criminal syndicates to keep at it."

Angela Kelley, deputy director of the National Immigration Forum, a pro-immigrant policy group in Washington, said, "I think that we're dealing with a much bigger problem here, and while we need aggressive prosecution of smugglers, that's not going to begin to stop the underlying issue which is illegal immigration."

The matter came to light in the case of David Wayne Bulkley, 56, who was arrested July 30 on charges that he had five Brazilians and two Bolivians hidden in the cab of his rig.

A trooper with the Texas Department of Public Safety reported the discovery after pulling Bulkley over for a traffic stop on Interstate 35 near Pearsall.

Some of the immigrants reportedly told agents they were going to be charged $4,000 each to be smuggled to Florida.

The feds are prosecuting Bulkley, who was granted bond Thursday but remained in jail, in connection with the July 30 incident. It was a different story a month earlier.

On June 17, another DPS trooper at the weigh station in Devine reported finding one Guatemalan immigrant and six Brazilians in the cab of Bulkley's rig, court records said.

DPS called the Border Patrol, and its agents notified prosecutors, who declined to prosecute Bulkley, according to a criminal complaint filed in his most recent arrest.

Bulkley's high blood pressure was cited as a reason for that dismissal, the complaint said.

The U.S. attorney's office in San Antonio said it generally does not comment on its reasons for declining prosecutions.

But in the June incident, "questions about the adequacy of proof, as well as his physical health, entered into the decision not to prosecute him then," its statement said. "Those concerns do not apply to his more recent arrest, and this office intends to prosecute him accordingly."