Thread: Another day, another haul of immigrants

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Another day, another haul of immigrants
But vanloads of people often set free because ICE unable to respond

By Daniel J. Chacón, Rocky Mountain News
June 14, 2006
Lee este artículo en español
BURLINGTON - State Trooper Bert Kirby feels powerless in the fight against illegal immigration.

Almost daily, the patrolman comes across a caravan of illegal immigrants traveling through this rural stretch of eastern Colorado on Interstate 70.

"It doesn't even shock us to see 20 people stuffed in a vehicle," he said.

Kirby always notifies U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement about his findings, but federal immigration agents rarely retrieve the human cargo, he said.

"I can't even say for sure, but one out of 10 (responses from ICE) would be extremely generous," he said. "Maybe it would be one out of 20."

The breakdown is happening even as a law passed this year will create a special unit within the Colorado State Patrol to tackle the flow of illegal immigrants.

Kirby, 26, is impartial about the new law, but he said ICE can't handle the vanloads of illegal border-crossers he stops and reports now.

On a Friday and Saturday in March, for example, Kirby pulled over seven vehicles carrying 115 suspected undocumented immigrants.

ICE "came out for one load of 20," he said. "To be honest, I was surprised they came out at all."

The fragile situation repeated itself on a warm and windy morning the first Wednesday in April.

About three miles east of Stratton, Kirby's boss, Master Sgt. Lance Wheat, stopped a large, white passenger van for following a vehicle too closely on eastbound I-70.

Behind the dark-tinted windows,Wheat found 17 suspected illegal immigrants, including a lone female and a curly-haired 13-year-old traveling without his parents. Members of the group said they had been living in Arizona and were headed to Chicago to look for work in a factory.

Wheat reported the vanload to ICE in Denver, but he said he received an all-too-familiar answer.

"They're full," Wheat said as the group of Spanish-speaking immigrants huddled in silence on a golden patch of grass along the freeway.

"Like (ICE), I have no place to put them," he said. "I certainly can't take them home."

Wheat arrested the van's 22-year-old driver, Dionicio Luqueño Vargas, for following too closely, driving without a valid license and driving without proof of insurance. The only ID that Vargas had was from an Arizona jail.Vargas pleaded guilty to felony possession of drug paraphernalia in Arizona in 2002. The charge was reduced to a misdemeanor when he successfully completed probation in 2004.

Vargas told the Rocky Mountain News he had been deported at least twice and returned.

After Vargas was whisked away to the Kit Carson County Jail, tow truck driver Joe Tatkenhorst and his son drove the van and the 16 other immigrants to Burlington. They dropped them off in the middle of town near a McDonald's.

"I think it's a poor deal they don't get punished," said Tatkenhorst, who was born and raised in the area.

Within minutes, the suspected illegal immigrants - who had one cell phone among them - had disappeared.

"They always manage to find rides," Wheat said.

Wheat said he doesn't blame illegal immigrants for trying to escape poverty in their native countries.

"If the roles were reversed and the economy here sucked, we'd be doing the same," he said. "You can't get mad at people for trying to survive."

But Wheat wonders how often illegal immigrants are caught and released elsewhere if it happens regularly in this isolated area near Kansas.

"We're just a small post here," he said. "What's going on throughout the U.S.? What's being ignored?"

Wheat, a 29-year law-enforcement veteran, said the influx is unlike anything he's seen before.

"This is a problem that seemed to explode in the last six, seven years," he said. "People talk about a revolving door, but it's almost like there's a wide-open door."

Wheat and Kirby say they don't profile vehicles. They initiate a stop only after a traffic violation. They said some troopers even ignore illegal immigrants they see because it takes too much time to deal with so many people, and they know ICE may not pick them up.

"Most loads we stop, we fully expect we're going to be turning them loose," Wheat said.

During his police academy training in Golden about three years ago, Kirby said no one ever mentioned the steady flow of illegal immigrants.

The sight of men, women and especially children squeezed into a vehicle, traveling long distances with only the clothes on their backs, has taken an emotional toll, he said.

"We see this every day, but it doesn't make it any easier," he said. "It doesn't help me and it doesn't help them to be in this situation."

A law passed this year makes it a state crime to smuggle humans for money. But it won't apply to Vargas, the van driver.

ICE never picked him up from the county jail, and he was released about a week later. His whereabouts are unknown.

chacond@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5099

ICE never picked him up from the county jail, and he was released about a week later. His whereabouts are unknown.

ICE is a bad joke on us all. Don't know who's worse - FEMA or ICE.

Guess you all heard the reports this week of the outrageous items FEMA paid for for Hurricane Katrina victims.

FEMA did manage to recover $200 from Hooters if that is any consolation. It wasn't a total waste.

It was outrageous the things some of the Katrina victims did with that money.

That is just smokescreen though, folks. It is being reported to keep you mind off the fact that FEMA wasted millions and millions of your dollars. The sweet contracts they gave -=

$2500 to staple a blue tarp to the top of a house.

Ordering all those trailers they knew could not be used on the coast

putting people up on cruise ships - nice income for those ship owners during off season (hurricane season). Wonder who their connection was?

No one mentioned the many trips the President made to NO to stage his little events to prop up his image. They were totally unnecessary and were all just for show - a huge waste of tax dollars.

How much money did the other FEMA people waste on their trips down there? I say waste because they did nothing for a very long time - and what exactly have they done in total?

My suspicion is that the amount wasted or ill used by some Katrina victims is peanuts compared to the millions or billions being bilked by the politicians and big guys.

This is a smokescreen - don't fall for it.