Thread: Immigrant Copes With Deaths in Van Crash

http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centreda ... 086918.htm
Posted on Fri, Jul. 08, 2005

Immigrant copes with deaths in van crash
ELLIOT SPAGAT
AssociAted Press

SAN DIEGO - Galdino Perez was crouched in the fetal position on the floor of a minivan when his dream of bringing his family a life of opportunity in America ended.

The smuggler who was driving Perez and his three-months' pregnant wife and two children fled when confronted with a Border Patrol checkpoint, swerving into oncoming traffic.

Perez remembers the van ceiling illuminated by a patrol car's flashing lights. He clutched his wife and 11-year-old daughter as the out-of-control smuggler "went faster, passing more cars, passing more cars, passing."

The patrol car eventually gave up its pursuit, but the smuggler kept going, slamming head-on into a pickup truck in a crash that killed Perez's 22-year-old wife, his daughter, his 13-year-old son, and two other immigrants. Perez and five others, including two of his cousins, were injured in the June 30 crash; the van driver was charged with murder.

Such crashes are a periodic feature of life near the border, and the tragedy highlights the extreme danger immigrants face in relying on smugglers. Smugglers sometimes try to evade border checkpoints by veering into oncoming traffic, often at night, at times with their headlights off.

"These are people who have no regard for human life," Luis Cabrera, the Mexican consul general in San Diego, said of smugglers.

Perez, 32, had worked five years in the United States before he returned to Mexico three months ago to fetch his children, hoping to provide them comforts he could not give them in Mexico City.

"I wanted to be with them, to come here, to all be together," Perez said in Spanish from his hospital bed at Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego.

Perez, with an unshaven face, spoke softly and haltingly, fighting back tears, punctuating his recollections with an occasional "Ay!" He often cringed in apparent pain - his ribs are injured and left hip required an operation.

He is able to change television channels with a remote control, get on his feet with a walker and feed himself a lunch of creamed chicken and salad.

When, that is, he can stomach food.

"I'm not hungry," he said. "I'm sad."

During his previous time in the United States, Perez landed a $7.50-an-hour job washing dishes at a Mexican restaurant in Sacramento, where he met his wife, Marta Alcala Estrada. Three years ago, they moved to Ohio, where Perez earned $8.50 an hour at a bacon processing plant.

The couple recently returned to Mexico City to pick up Perez's children - Nancy, 11, and Christian, 13. He hadn't seen them in three years.

The family flew to the sprawling Mexican border city of Tijuana, just across from San Diego, where they met a smuggler who promised passage to Los Angeles for $1,500 each. They planned to resettle in Sacramento.

Perez recounted a journey that began last Thursday:

For about two hours, a pair of guides led them through wooded mountains east of San Diego - a popular crossing point for immigrants. The guides deposited the groups at two-lane California State Highway 94. About five minutes later, the 2005 Chrysler minivan arrived.

The driver was considerate at first, slowing down for a speed bump. Then things went horribly wrong.

Perez couldn't see exactly what happened, but remembers the van picking up speed and the lights flashing.

He clung to his wife and daughter, one stranger on each side of them. One row back, his son was sandwiched between two cousins. The driver was silent.

After about two minutes, Perez said, the lights went out. The driver continued mashing the engine. Another minute more, the fatal crash.

There were 10 people in the van, eight of them undocumented Mexicans.

The Highway Patrol identified the other driver as a 69-year-old San Diego woman who suffered minor injuries after being hit by the van.

The minivan driver - identified as Fidel Wilfredo Gonzalez, 19, of Los Angeles - pleaded not guilty in his hospital room Wednesday to five charges of second-degree murder.

According to the California Highway Patrol, Border Patrol officers saw the minivan cross into oncoming traffic and blow past the checkpoint, but authorities were not pursuing the vehicle when it crashed near Jamul, about 20 miles east of San Diego.

Migrant rights groups say the checkpoints endanger lives because they force drivers to flee. But Border Patrol spokesman Mario Villarreal defended roadside checkpoints as a critical enforcement tool in deterring smuggling.

Perez said he was anxious to see his cousins.

"I want to speak with them," he said, "to know how they're doing."

He added that he also wanted to see the bodies

One more reason to secure the border.

Migrant rights groups say the checkpoints endanger lives because they force drivers to flee. But Border Patrol spokesman Mario Villarreal defended roadside checkpoints as a critical enforcement tool in deterring smuggling.

Do you have to have an IQ under 50 to be in one of these migrant groups?
And if they weren't illegally in this country they wouldn't have to worry about fleeing.

Amazing how the logic works there, ain't it?

Law-abiding *'undocumented migrants'.....an oxymoron to anyone except a migrants rights activist.

*'illegal alien' to anyone who actually obeys the law.

Just think, if he had stayed in his own Country, his wife and children would be alive. He has no one to blame for the death of his own family than who he stares at in the mirror.

Migrant rights groups say the checkpoints endanger lives because they force drivers to flee.

Ha, ha, ha...now thats a hoot! The checkpoints are perfectly legal, while those "forced" to flee (out of fear of being CAUGHT), are not.

This should truely stand as a cautionary tale to those that would attempt to break our laws by entering the U.S. illegally. While the drivers actions caused the deaths of his passengers, Mr. Perez will live the rest of his life baring partial responsibilty for the deaths of his underage children. After all it was his decision bring them along that placed them in that van in the first place.

Those that survived and are being cared for at taxpayer expense in San Diego Hospitals will be allowed to stay here to testify against the coyote and when the coyote is convicted will the rest be deported?

I am tired of this let us blame the coyote and have pity for those paying to get across are you? Deport all of them right now and skip the trial which will just cost the taxpayes more money!

If that Bacon processing plant in Ohio pays $14.50 an hour with a benefits package then AMERICANS will do this work.....INSTEAD OF $8.50 AN HOUR AS THE ARTICLE STATES!

There was a meat packing plant in Billings, Montana that closed in 1986 or 87 and I guarantee that few if any illegals worked there!

AMERICANS WILL DO THE JOBS IF PAID THE WAGES THEY DESERVE!