Thwarted Border Crossers Fill Tijuana

Tijuana shelters are filling up with people turned back by snowstorms, freezing rain and icy conditions that have killed 13 illegal immigrants in nine days, including four found dead early Thursday in the snow-covered Laguna Mountains of eastern San Diego County.

Illegal immigrants are returning from Mexico in the annual post-New Year’s exodus, a trek that has grown more perilous since the Clinton administration implemented a border crackdown, Operation Gatekeeper, in urbanized western San Diego in October 1994.

Immigrants who once scrambled from a Tijuana colonia into a San Diego suburb now risk their lives on a potentially lethal journey through the rugged eastern mountains of San Diego County. Their flimsy jackets and tennis shoes are no match for the snow and overnight temperatures that have plummeted into the 20s in recent days.

More than 120 immigrants seeking shelter from the rain began to crowd into the Casa del Migrante, the main Tijuana shelter, on Wednesday night, said administrator Raul Ramirez. On a typical night, 40 to 100 immigrants are there depending on the time of year and the weather, he said.

Mary Galvan, a social worker at the Madre Assunta shelter, a Tijuana facility for immigrant women, said 36 people waited at the shelter early Wednesday for weather conditions to improve. The shelter usually houses 25 or less, she said.

“The shelters are filling up,” said Jim Pilkington, a Border Patrol spokesman. “The border in the San Diego region is more difficult to cross than at any time in history. People are waiting to cross, and in many cases, they’re running into defeat.”

One woman caught in a rainstorm in eastern San Diego staggered into the shelter early Wednesday suffering from hypothermia and a fever. She rested for a few hours, ate and left again that night with 14 others to try again, Galvan said.

Mexican and U.S. officials have stepped up campaigns to warn immigrants about the dangers of the passage. But Galvan said many are so desperately poor that they are willing to take the risk.

“I tell them they are putting themselves in terrible danger,” Galvan said. “They say Mary, the only thing I want to do is go to the United States and work. Their arguments are very disarming, because if I were in their place, I would do the same thing.”

Four days ago, three cousins from the impoverished state of Chiapas set out with five others near the Mexican town of Tecate, bound for the Bronx, N.Y., said Luis Antonio Corzo Ramos, 21. None of them had ever seen snow.

By Wednesday night the three cousins had made it to the Manzanita Indian reservation in the Laguna Mountains, when one of the men, Alejandro Ramos, 19, could walk no farther, Corzo said.

Corzo stayed with Ramos, while Candido Ramos Toledo, 18, went on alone to search for help. Somehow he lost his shoes, and for six hours, he walked barefoot in the snow, his feet swelling painfully from the cold, Corzo said. He finally found a house where someone called the Border Patrol.

In the meantime, Ramos died as Corzo huddled with him in a vain effort to keep him alive.

Using flashlights, Border Patrol trackers traced the immigrants’ steps, Pilkington said. By dawn, they had found Corzo and Ramos’ body--stumbling across the bodies of two members of the group along the way, Pilkington said. At daybreak, a sheriff’s helicopter spotted the fourth body in the same area, he said.

“I’m very concerned that Gatekeeper is pushing people east, and they’re dying there,” said Roberto Martinez, director of the U.S.-Mexico border project for the American Friends Service Committee. “Nobody’s educating people on how to be better prepared, to dress better and bring enough supplies to travel longer distances.

“What they need is a year-round educational program,” he said. “They can publicize tourism 365 days a year, but they can’t seem to offer information year-round that could save lives.”

Those who still try to cross in Tijuana in spite of the corrugated-steel fence and beefed-up staff take more risks crossing in bad weather, which reduces visibility and makes muddy back roads more difficult for the Border Patrol to traverse.

Juan Jose Perez Gonzalez, 22, died of exposure near Dairy Mart Road close to the San Ysidro border after crossing the swollen Tijuana River in chilling rain Jan. 7, the Mexican Consulate said.

The body of one unidentified man was found the same day in San Ysidro, just across the border from Tijuana’s Colonia Libertad, the consulate said. He appeared to have been murdered.