http://www.themonitor.com/SiteProcessor ... Valley,911

Immigration push seeing new life
September 11, 2006
Cari Hammerstrom
Monitor Staff Writer


McALLEN — The debate over illegal immigration has always existed, but 9/11 propelled rhetoric — and actions — about open versus closed borders to unprecedented levels.

In the five years following the terrorist attacks that murdered thousands, citizen groups have guarded the country’s southern gate in the memory of the Revolutionary War Minutemen who could muster, literally, in minutes to protect their towns from foreign invasion.

Latinos, and to a lesser extent other minorities, have filled the streets of nearly every major U.S. city calling for a path to citizenship. Some waved American and Mexican flags and even sang the Star Spangled Banner in Spanish, enraging some already on the fence about illegal immigrants’ mere presence.

The U.S. government has sent National Guardsmen, some of whom had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, to this country’s borders to help fight what could be called a war on illegal immigration.

And Congress, too, has introduced a wide range of bills addressing the issue. Some proposals put up walls; others tear them down.

President Bush even made a visit to the Rio Grande Valley to stump for his five-point immigration plan, which includes a guest worker program and a glimmer of hope for those who would literally die to be Americans.

Not since the Civil Rights Movement has the plight of a huge disenfranchised population produced so much compassion or so much scorn. Illegal immigration is one of the most fiercely debated topics of the day.

But why?

The 19 hijackers who entered the United States exploited legal means. They came and went from 10 major U.S. airports a total of 33 times, according to the 9/11 Commission’s report.

However, 9/11 showed the nation just how far people who hate America are willing to go to do it and its people harm. That day opened up all new possibilities.

"You say, go after the criminals," said Joe Garza, retired chief patrol agent over what is now the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley sector. "… You know you are a good person, but do I know you are a good person?

"You have to keep a level of security or else people will take advantage of it … If they can bring in tons and tons of marijuana, why can’t they bring in weapons of mass destruction?

"Good guys are inconvenienced for the safety of this country. This is how this is interlinked," Garza said.


Government response

The U.S. government also made a connection between terrorism and illegal immigration when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was created in 2003.

The traditional missions of the 22 agencies lumped into the new department had to change.

For the Border Patrol, the new mission is "nothing less than preventing terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering the country," said Assistant Chief Mario Villarreal of the Border Patrol’s Valley sector.

But the Border Patrol also had to continue to detect and deter people and contraband from illegally entering the country, he said.

As the agency began to be infused with dollars from an administration that gave top priority to border security, both missions expanded.

"Immigration has been around for decades, quite a long time. The laws have been in place for many years," Villarreal said.

Yet after 9/11, "The Border Patrol was empowered by the people."

Garza said the Border Patrol never had the same level of support it does today.

"You would hear about illegal immigration, but it was not getting the support its getting now. It took 9/11 to bring up a sense of awareness," Garza said.

But immigrant organizations and sympathizers point to the fact that this so-called "awareness" is also responsible for anti-immigrant backlash.

Members of La Union del Pueblo Entero, a local immigrants’ rights group that looks to the memory of United Farm Workers leader Cesar Chavez for immigration, believe that the law proposed by the U.S. House of Representatives to make illegal immigrants felons and build a wall along stretches of the southern border with Mexico unfairly marginalizes, criminalizes and dehumanizes immigrants.

Immigration reform is definitely needed, but more reform is needed to help people obtain legal citizenship, said Juanita Cox, an organizer with LUPE.

"Everybody says that this immigration system is not working," she said. "How can you fix a system that is broken by focusing on one part of a very complex issue?"

Even the community hearings on border security only focus on the enforcement part of the issue, she said.

"As long as immigrants can find employment here, they will still come," said Jose R. Hinojosa, emeritus professor of public policy and administration at the University of Texas-Pan American.

Putting more agents on the border has not made the country safer, said Ray Ybarra, a racial justice researcher with the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, because the Canadian border and the 90,000 miles of coastline are still welcome mats to whoever wants to cross.

In his comments to a recent Texas Senate hearing on border security, Ybarra wrote that federal policies, National Guard troops and giving local law enforcement immigration duties has only instilled fear into immigrant communities.

Based on his experience dealing with a large illegal immigrant population, Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño said most of the people who enter this country are looking for work.

Unless the government removes the carrot, they will still come, he said.

Bush backs a temporary worker program, but it is hotly contested in Congress where business, labor and human rights issues clash. Washington watchers say it’s unlikely that the House and Senate will hammer out a solution before November congressional elections.

"The Minutemen have not been able to separate the immigration issue from the terrorist issue," Hinojosa said. "We forget that the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center were legal immigrants. All came through the Northeast or Canada. It should be looked into very carefully, but the issues are not related. These are both people that come, but their purpose and reason for being is different."


BUT IS IT ENOUGH?

Dr. Mike Vickers, a Falfurrias veterinarian and president of the Texas chapter of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, realizes that not all border crossers are terrorists or come to do harm.

Many are economic migrants, he said.

When he first moved to his ranch 21 years ago, two to three people at a time would wander upon his property and ask for work, he said.

He remembers giving the less fortunate food, water and clothing.

"My little girl gave her new tennis shoes to a little Mexican girl," he said.

But as the years went on, the groups of illegal immigrants became larger, destructive, violent and aggressive.

On the day of 9/11, he remembers finding 38 empty and discarded water jugs on his ranchland.

Before 9/11, he’d dealt with this kind of property damage from trespassers. But in light of the situation, he actually began to think about who these people were.

And it troubled him deeply.

During the Minutemen’s month-long operation in April in which men and women from all over the country came to South Texas to monitor and report illegal activity, Vickers said he saw a group of 10 carrying loaded-down backpacks crossing an area near one of the observer’s outposts.

He assumes the group was carrying drugs, probably as payment to their coyote — who sometimes double as drug smugglers — but acknowledges he will never know the contents.

The Border Patrol couldn’t respond when the Minutemen reported the incident, he said.

"How can you deal with the possibilities?" Vickers asked incredulously. "Every one of them got away."

"We know people are coming from (special interest countries). They are coming here," he said.

But after 9/11, most illegal immigrants still go "unscathed, untouched."

The terrorists, he said, are already here. He referred to testimony by Zapata County Sheriff Sigi Gonzalez during a recent hearing at Mission’s City Hall.

This summer, Gonzalez told members of the Texas Senate Subcommittee on Transportation and Border Security that "It’s not just illegal immigration. Something more serious is happening in this country."

Federico Lopez has been with the Zapata County Sheriff’s Department, the only law enforcement agency in Zapata County, for 23 years.

"As you can see, this place is wide open," he said during a recent ride-along. He patrolled the area west of U.S. Highway 83 to the river as part of the operation.

Winding on bumpy dirt roads parallel to Falcon Lake, Lopez said very few Border Patrol agents patrol this part of the border.

There is a high-turnover rate, in part because few agents want to settle down with their families here. They wish to be in more urban areas and where their careers can advance, he said.

"You come out here and you try to do the best you can. You hope that if someone tries to cross through here you can stop them," he said. "We want to protect this country, but sometimes it looks like a losing battle."

"These guys will tell you that the terrorists are here," Vickers said. "It’s not if, it’s when.

"I don’t think they realize how much traffic is going through here," he said. "… I have to believe people are coming to do us harm."

And it’s not only the Southern border Vickers worries about. The northern border is wide open and not every piece of cargo is checked at our land and seaports, the Minuteman said.

"It’s something we’ve learned to live with," he said. "It’s like living in a war zone."