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Saturday, April 8, 2000

Border Patrol: Ranch's ban of agents puts immigrants in danger

By Jeremy Schwartz
Caller-Times

David Adame/Caller-Times

U.S. Border Patrol agents Thomas Galluch (left) and Keith Woodland stand in front of the Kenedy Foundation gate where an illegal immigrant in need of medical attention was taken out of the ranch Thursday. Border Patrol officers have been banned from the Kenedy Foundation property.

For three days, Gilberto Moreno Villegas, a 43-year-old undocumented immigrant from Guerrero, Mexico, wandered without food or water across the Kenedy Ranch before a hunting guide chanced upon him Thursday afternoon.
   Near death, Villegas was taken to the gate of the ranch and turned over to the U.S. Border Patrol. The federal agents helped load him into an ambulance and saw that he was taken to a local hospital and revived with intravenous fluids.
   Border Patrol officials and local law enforcement now say they're worried such incidents could multiply with the approaching summer heat if regular patrols of land owned by the John G. and Marie Stella Kenedy Memorial Foundation are not reinstated.
   Border Patrol agents have been banned from the land since March 17, when the foundation voted to revoke access after two illegal immigrants were run over by Border Patrol vehicles.
   Since then, Border Patrol officials say not enough is being done to help immigrants in danger of dehydration and heat exhaustion.
   In 1999, 19 immigrants died while crossing Kenedy County brush country. Officials said the foundation's land, which encircles the Border Patrol checkpoint in Sarita, is a well-traveled thoroughfare for immigrants and human smugglers trying to evade the checkpoint.
   "We have the manpower, equipment and training to do rescues," said Fred Borrego, agent-in-charge of the Kingsville Border Patrol Station. "Hopefully somebody has a plan. Surely they're not going to let people die or treat them inhumanely."
   The Kenedy Foundation cited humanitarian reasons in banning Border Patrol from its land.
   Foundation attorney Richard Leshin said the foundation is in the process of putting together a plan to deal with sick or dying immigrants on foundation land, but gave no details.
   Foundation President Joseph Mueller said the sheriff's department is free to patrol the land.
   "They're allowed on the land at any time; he just has to notify us," Mueller said. "We do everything we can to aid those people to the full extent of the law."
   But Kenedy County Sheriff Rafael Cuellar said foundation officials told him Friday that the foundation would vote Tuesday about whether to allow him to patrol the land. Mueller said that with the large number of ranch hands, oil workers and hunters on the land, an immigrant in need of help should be found.
   Cuellar said he contacted the foundation about two hours before the immigrant was found, requesting permission to patrol the land and look for immigrants who might be in need of help.
   "I thought that since nobody's in there, somebody should go and see," Cuellar said. "My instincts were telling me there was something wrong out there."
   "These things will continue happening," Cuellar said. "Somebody needs to be out there."
   After a hunting guide found Villegas and notified Border Patrol, he was brought to a boundary of the ranch where he was handed over to Border Patrol agents and taken to Christus Spohn Hospital Kleberg, officials said. He was later released into custody of Border Patrol.
   "It's hard when you get a call, but you can't go in," Borrego said. "This shows we need to be in there. If we're not there, who's going to be there?"
   The Border Patrol is currently negotiating with the foundation in hopes of regaining access to the land. Juan Garcia, assistant chief of the McAllen sector, said he did not think Thursday's incident should damage relations between the two sides.
   The Border Patrol had previously been denied access from 1996 until last September in response to damage caused by agents on foundation land.
   Foundation officials have expressed concern that federal officials will seize the foundation's land as Leshin said the FBI threatened to do in 1998.
   Officials said the immigrant was found near a pipeline that many immigrants and smugglers use as a trail through the Kenedy Ranch.
   Cuellar said immigrants are often dropped off in cars by smugglers near Armstrong or Raymondville, where they are left to walk through the ranch to avoid the checkpoint.
   The immigrants are then usually picked up near Riviera once they have successfully navigated the ranch, Cuellar said.
   "If they get sick, they go real slow and they can get abandoned," Cuellar said.
   Borrego said during the summer, each Border Patrol vehicle will be equipped with jugs of water and a first aid kit.
   "I'm seriously concerned about what's going to happen this summer," Borrego said.
   "If we do get notified, we're just going to have stand at the gate, and precious minutes are going to be wasting."
  

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