Thread: Honduran illegal: 5 deportations=Badge of honor

http://www.amarillo.com/stories/012509/ ... 2900.shtml

Patrolling the Panhandle
Immigration arrests down
By Sean Thomas
sean.thomas@amarillo.com


Michael Schumacher / Amarillo Globe-News

Kelvin Fabricio Lemus-Villatorro, a 25-year-old Honduran national, has been detained by the Border Patrol three times, according to agency records. With one wife and child in Honduras and another wife in New Hampshire, Lemus-Villatorro said he isn't interested in U.S. citizenship. He is only looking for work and higher wages.
Michael Schumacher / Amarillo Globe-News

Border Patrol agents Polo Ortega, background, and Robert Green arrest five undocumented immigrants traveling Interstate 40. Agents search the suspects along Bushland Road south of Interstate 40. The immigrants from Mexico and Honduras were heading for ranch jobs in the Texas Panhandle.
Michael Schumacher / Amarillo Globe-News

Illegal immigrants fill the holding cells at the Border Patrol office in Amarillo. Agent Polo Ortega processes each immigrant, looking for prior detentions and outstanding warrants.

He's made a life out of breaking in. He first gained entry to America at 15, stowing away on a cargo ship from his native Honduras to Florida. Since then, he's been in and out of the country several times.

Kelvin Fabricio Lemus-Villatorro wears his crime as a badge of honor, grinning when he mentions his illegal trips into the U.S. The 25-year-old is facing his fifth deportation.

Lemus-Villatorro is one of thousands of illegal immigrants who will be rounded up this year in the Border Patrol's Marfa sector, a vast region extending from Oklahoma south through the Texas Panhandle down to the Mexican border in the Big Bend region.

But the number of apprehensions has decreased dramatically since 2000. Nearly 14,000 illegal immigrants were caught in 2000 in the Marfa sector, and the number has since plummeted to slightly more than 5,000 last year.

"We think we are in a better enforcement posture than we were, which would attribute for some of the drop," said Bill Brooks, public affairs officer for the Border Patrol in the Marfa region. "There are just not as many people coming in because it's just more likely they are going to get caught."

While the ranks of the Border Patrol have swelled - the number of agents nationwide will grow from 12,000 in 2006 to better than 18,000 in the next couple of years - the Amarillo office has just three agents who cover the entire Texas Panhandle.

Agents in Amarillo busy

The lack of manpower can make it difficult to adequately patrol the area, and Robert Green, resident agent in charge, said he wants to see more agents working out of Amarillo, a substation of the Lubbock office.

A recent January morning highlights the demands placed on the few agents in Amarillo.

Green sits in his unmarked white sedan, parked underneath an overpass alongside Interstate 40 west of Amarillo.

The ruts in the grass are evidence its a favorite spot to sit and monitor traffic. Green doesn't wait very long. Within a half-hour, agents have a van pulled over on a side street in Bushland.

The Chrysler Town & Country has South Carolina plates, one of the key hints to officials who say smugglers use old minivans with out-of-state plates. A small yellow sign in the rear window read "Baby on Board." Agents instead find five illegal immigrants.

Lemus-Villatorro was among them. He'd been in the country for two months hanging drywall and Sheetrock in Phoenix. He and the others were lured to Texas expecting to find jobs paying $17 an hour as ranch hands. In Phoenix he worked 13-hour days for $7 an hour.

The money is the reason he's here, he says.

"My country - there is no work."

He sends money home to his wife and 7-year-old son to finish work on their home.

Keeping criminals out

But Green said it's easy for media to trot out accounts of those who come to America illegally looking for work. He said rarely is the spotlight on the criminals who cross.

In fiscal year 2007, Border Patrol agents nationwide apprehended 876,000 people trying to enter the country.

According to the agency, more than 144,000 of them had criminal records. The most common crimes were aggravated assault and narcotics, 5,400 and 11,700, respectively.

The Border Patrol's beefed-up security, from the supplemental use of National Guard troops to new technology such as unmanned aerial drones, has discouraged criminals trying to cross the Texas-Mexico border. Officials say as patrol efforts improve in Marfa, immigrants look elsewhere to cross, more often turning west and entering illegally into Arizona and California.

Lemus-Villatorro said he tried to find work in the U.S. legally. He filed immigration papers when he was 17, two years after his first illegal entry. He tried again after he married his second wife in New Hampshire. But he isn't interested in making America home - only making money for his home.

"He doesn't want to live here. He doesn't want papers," said an agent translating for Lemus-Villatorro. "He's kind of sad. He uses his money and everything he spent to get here. He's not here to drink or smoke. He's here to work."

A costly crossing

Crossing is an expensive proposition.

Green said it can cost $500 to $6,000 depending on the country of origin and the mode of travel. Lemus-Villatorro spent $2,000 on his last trip. It took him 19 days to reach the U.S.-Mexico border from Honduras, and he says most of his money went to paying off Mexican immigration officials to let him pass.

"If you don't have money, you go back," he said.

Green has sympathy for those who are smuggled into the country, those who pay thousands of dollars only to be squeezed into a van, stacked on top of each other and forced to urinate in bottles because smugglers don't want to stop.

A van riding low to the ground is often a sign that it's packed with immigrants, Green said. Another sign is on a cold day when moisture fogs up the windows from all the people stacked inside.

"It's ungodly how they pack people in," Green said.

Green has compassion for those smuggled into the country, but he conveys his view of illegal immigration in a simple metaphor.

"It's our mutual home. If someone comes to the door, 'I'm hurt. I'm hungry' - we have a tradition to do everything to help them," he said.

"But when someone comes through your window in the middle of the night. It's a different story.

"That's how I look at illegal immigration."

By the numbers:

Apprehensions

Border Patrol arrests in the Marfa sector:

2000 14,952

2001 12,087

2002 11,392

2003 10,319

2004 10,530

2005 10,536

2006 7,520

2007 5,536

2008 5,391

2009 YTD 1,471

Texas and New Mexico comprise five sectors:

Apprehensions in the five sectors in fiscal 2008: 175,595

Apprehensions to date in fiscal 2009: 28,009

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With one wife and child in Honduras and another wife in New Hampshire, Lemus-Villatorro said he isn't interested in U.S. citizenship. He is only looking for work and higher wages.

Oh yeah! I feel real sorry for this guy. Maybe the consulates should start teaching about bigamy laws in this country.

Dont you dare deport this fool ... lock him up for a 10 year sentence picking matters and taters for 10 cent an hour and the other 16.50 an hour goes to the states to recoup loses to the American workers that are no longer employed

YES