FATHER OF FIVE

Sent back to Mexico but planning to return
'I work. I pay my taxes. My family depends on me,' arrested immigrant says in vowing to re-enter.
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By Juan Castillo
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, June 30, 2007

HIDALGO — As sure as the June heat hits 98 degrees in the afternoon and howling southeast winds whip up the hot air, a bus will roll up to the port of entry to drop off illegal immigrants apprehended on their failed journeys north.

On a parking lot mere steps from the international bridge, they are checked off a passenger list before collecting their meager belongings, stored in the bowels of the Wackenhut Corp. bus that brought them to Hidalgo from Border Patrol lockups across South Texas.

As he waited recently for an agent to hand him his two white crucifixes, Alex Martinez was a study in quiet concern.

The 27-year-old from Veracruz in East Central Mexico wore a purple shirt, jeans and work boots. His dark hair was closely cropped and his sun-beaten skin the color of copper.

Martinez said agents had apprehended him and a dozen other people three days earlier near Falfurrias, at the start of their multistate trek to harvest watermelons.

He said the United States has been his home for 10 years. His wife and five children are U.S. citizens, and the family lives in nearby Edinburg.

Martinez said that he was sorry he had broken U.S. immigration laws and that he wished there were a way for him to stay in the country legally. "I love it here. I have a trailer home. I work. I pay my taxes."

A short time later, he said he would try to re-enter the United States as soon as possible, which might hinge on when he could afford to pay a smuggler.

"My family depends on me," Martinez said earnestly. "If I don't provide, who will?"

Standing nearby, a Border Patrol spokesman said tales like Martinez's "might or might not be true."

"You hear these sad stories, then you fingerprint them, and they've been arrested here and there," Camilo Garcia said.

Martinez was last seen jogging toward the pedestrian bridge leading into Reynosa, Tamaulipas.

Before departing, he said that a border fence won't stop people like him as long as there are jobs in the U.S. and economic opportunities are meager in Mexico.

"We already know that," Garcia said. "We're just hoping (the fence) helps."

jcastillo@statesman.com; 445-3635




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