Thread: Mexican family finds work, then loss, in US SOB

Mexican family finds work, then loss, in US

By ELLIOT SPAGAT, The Associated Press
1:43 p.m. October 19, 2009

EL CENTRO, Calif. — Esteban Contreras had a bad feeling when his daughter and her husband said they were going to sneak across the border with their children.

He remembers telling his son-in-law: "You're going to put your children's lives in danger. You're going to put your wife's life in danger, your own life."

"He replied that he found a good smuggler, that everything would be all right, nothing would happen," Contreras said Friday in an interview with The Associated Press.

A few days later, his daughter, son-in-law and 10-year-old grandson were among six passengers who drowned when a sport utility vehicle packed with about 20 suspected illegal immigrants plunged into a canal near the border after a police chase. His 12-year-old granddaughter, Cecilia Cid-Contreras, survived.

The teenager who prosecutors say was driving the SUV is on trial for murder in a case that highlights the extreme risks that some migrant smugglers take to elude capture. Alejandro Toribio Gama, 16, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted in the July 2008 crash. His attorney maintains he was not the driver.

The girl, now 13, testified for nearly three hours last week at the trial in Westmorland, about 120 miles east of San Diego.

Cecilia recounted waking up underwater, unable to breathe, and swimming to a bank. Showing no emotion as she spoke through an interpreter, she testified that Toribio Gama kicked her in the stomach when she pleaded for help saving her family.

The crash followed a five-minute police chase on a dirt road in which a Westmorland police officer said his speedometer reached 70 mph, according to court testimony.

Cecilia testified that the driver ignored passengers' pleas to slow down after the chase ended. The SUV crashed about 10 minutes later.

Toribio Gama's attorney, Benjamin Salorio, says the crime doesn't amount to murder even if the government can prove the defendant was driving.

"I'm not an assassin," Toribio Gama told reporters Friday after court adjourned. "It was an accident. ... I feel very badly about everything that happened. I could have even lost my life."

The defendant said he crossed the border illegally on his way to Atlanta, where his relatives work in restaurants. He came from a farming village in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero and says he hopes to eventually find a job working with computers.

Cecilia and her family are from San Pablo de los Remedios, a village in central Mexico known for growing corn, oats and barley – and for sending people to the United States. She is now being raised by her grandfather.
Esteban Contreras says he earns the equivalent of about $1,500 a year harvesting corn and feeds the family with milk from his cows and eggs from his chickens. Neighbors work at a nearby factory that pays about $50 a week.

One son went to the U.S. about four years ago, and three others followed about two months before the crash. They work construction in New York City.

Before leaving for Southern California, his daughter, Angelica Contreras Reyes, sent her children's birth certificates to a sister-in-law to enroll them in school. She was 33 when she died.

Contreras' son-in-law, Avelino Velasco, quit his job as a truck driver. He died at 40.

Cecilia refuses to go inside the home where she lived with her parents and her brother, Juan, though her grandparents are keeping it for her.

"The only thing she wants to do is study," her grandfather said. "She says, 'I'm going to do something with my life.'"

Cecilia's appearance in Imperial Superior Court surprised some trial watchers. Officials at the Mexican consulate in Calexico, Calif., had told The Associated Press and the defense attorney that the girl's family opposed her testifying.

Jesus Gutierrez, head of the consulate's citizen services section, insisted Contreras told a Mexican official shortly after the crash that his granddaughter wouldn't testify. He added that the Mexican government paid to return the corpses to their hometown for burial.

Esteban Contreras, who traveled with her to court, said he didn't hesitate when a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent invited his granddaughter to testify.

"I asked her, 'Do you want to go or not?'" Contreras said. "She said, 'Yes, let's go, Grandpa.'"

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/ ... dex=185333

If they weren't doing the wrong thing this would not have happened.

Originally Posted by ELE

If we had immigration reform this would not have happened.

Fixed it for you. :P

Originally Posted by ELE

If they weren't doing the wrong thing this would not have happened.

EXACTLY!

"I'm not an assassin," Toribio Gama told reporters Friday after court adjourned. "It was an accident. ... I feel very badly about everything that happened. I could have even lost my life."

How selfish can one be? You and a young girl (that you allegedly kicked) are alive, while your stupidity killed so many.

Originally Posted by Tony_Montana

Originally Posted by ELE

If we had immigration reform this would not have happened.

Fixed it for you. :P

I trust you were joking but if you weren't, let me say this; based on this logic, if they'd just reform those pesky bank robbery laws, there'd be a lot less arrests of bank robbers who just want a better life by stealing what belongs to someone else too. Dontcha think?

ELE didn't write that, looks like lil tony changed her words.

Hate to burst your bubble lil tony - not gonna sneak another "reform" by. It's been done and failed like a dozen times? It didn't work before and it won't work now.

We now demand enforcement, which was promised for the last 20 years. Guess what? It works. :P

Originally Posted by PatrioticMe

Originally Posted by Tony_Montana

Originally Posted by ELE

If we had immigration reform this would not have happened.

Fixed it for you. :P

I trust you were joking but if you weren't, let me say this; based on this logic, if they'd just reform those pesky bank robbery laws, there'd be a lot less arrests of bank robbers who just want a better life by stealing what belongs to someone else too. Dontcha think?

Yes..I was being facetious.

Jury acquits driver of murder in border crash
AP


Tue Nov 3, 8:39 pm ET

EL CENTRO, Calif. – A California jury has acquitted a Mexican boy of murder in the drowning of six suspected illegal immigrants but convicted him of gross vehicular manslaughter for driving a sport utility vehicle into a canal in the fatal crash.

The jury in El Centro deliberated for about six hours over two days before delivering its verdict Tuesday in the trial of 16-year-old Alejandro Toribio Gama, who was tried as an adult.

Attorneys say he faces a maximum sentence of about 12 years in prison. If convicted of murder, he could have been sentenced to life.

During the nearly one-month trial, a 13-year-old Mexican girl testified that she woke up underwater, unable to breathe. Her parents and 10-year-old brother died in the July 2008 crash.

http://news.yahoo.com