Many Cross, Few Patrol at Border Spot

On some stretches of the border, a steel wall topped with floodlights divides the United States from Mexico. On others, a human fence of federal agents holds the line against illegal immigrants and drugs.

Here, where the Rio Grande curves around the remote western reaches of Texas, anybody can cross any time they want--back and forth, without impediment, all day.

Don Pepe is even waiting to provide transport, his leaky rowboat moored on the U.S. side of the river, although he returns home to the Mexican side every night. His round-trip fee is $2 for Americans, most of them touring the desolate grandeur of Big Bend and eager to glimpse a foreign land. He paddles gratis for his fellow Mexicans, most of whom come into Texas to pick up their mail, use the phone or buy gas--amenities that don’t exist in their own speck of a frontier town.

“I suppose that, technically, what I do is illegal,” said Pepe, a 56-year-old grandfather who has worked this spot since 1962. “But I like to think of it as a service, a convenience that benefits everyone.”

For as long as anyone can remember, the boatmen of Big Bend operated with impunity, their trade practically sanctioned by the U.S. government. The National Park Service published brochures for visitors, explaining how to catch the rowboat to Mexico. The U.S. Border Patrol designated the crossings as Class B ports, meaning they were so isolated that no immigration inspector was necessary. The nearest U.S. Customs station was a cumbersome two-hour drive away.

But not even this unpopulated stretch of the Rio Grande has been able to escape the increasingly charged politics of the border.

Under federal immigration reforms that took effect in April, all Class B ports were eliminated, meaning that such informal crossings now are unlawful. Worried about drug traffic in the region, Customs officials have threatened to impose hefty fines--up to $5,000 for a first offense--on anyone who enters the country outside of an official port. The park service now gently reminds Big Bend visitors that Don Pepe’s skiff no longer constitutes an authorized means of passage.

“I think there’s been this implied belief that crossing the border, in Big Bend or some of these other remote areas, is OK,” said Roger Maier, a U.S. Customs spokesman in El Paso. “Essentially, it’s not OK. It’s flat out against the law.”

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Still, it continues, largely because there’s nobody around to enforce that law, so rugged and secluded is the terrain. Although federal officials in Washington say they are working on a plan to bring the Big Bend river crossings into compliance, nobody expects a sudden infusion of resources to seal off a span of the Rio Grande hundreds of miles from a major city or commercial airport.

It’s just another reminder that the border--a metal curtain in some places, wide open in others--is often ambiguous, never absolute.

If the Texas side appears barren (Big Bend is one of the largest and least-visited national parks in the continental U.S.), the Mexican side borders on the middle of nowhere. Two impoverished little villages cling to the southern lip of the river, Santa Elena (population 240) and Boquillas del Carmen (population 200). The nearest cities within Mexico are even more distant, all-day bus rides down chalky dirt roads.

Without access to the United States, neither Santa Elena nor Boquillas del Carmen would have much reason to exist. There is no industry to speak of, other than the estimated 30,000 tourists who visit each year from Big Bend. The main attraction is cold beer. Neither of the Mexican towns has phones or mail, medical facilities or gas stations--and other than a few solar panels, Boquillas doesn’t even have electricity.

“This is the only way we have to survive,” said Pepe, blowing smoke at a knot of flies swirling above his New York Rangers cap in the triple-digit heat.

To find him, or one of the other chaluperos with whom he takes turns, you drive about 20 miles southeast of the Big Bend park headquarters, past mounds of volcanic rock and rusty limestone buttes, through acres of blossoming ocotillo and sprouting candelilla, across earth that looks and feels like crushed bone.

The paved road turns to dust, then winds through a gateway fashioned from wood and stone. “Boquillas Crossing: Bienvenidos,” the sign says, although you still haven’t left the United States.

There is a parking area, and a dirt path down to the riverbank, where a battered old flat-bottom boat rests in the mud. An empty jug of bleach, the bottom cut open, is used to bail out the vessel after each trip. Pepe figures he has crossed thousands of times. “I know it’s another country, but to me it’s like crossing the street,” he said.

The river here is certainly no wider than that, hardly a boundary of mythical proportions. There are no fences, no gates, no sentries. The voyage takes all of a minute.

On the other side, a tired burro paws at the gravel. A couple of dollars buys an inelegant ride atop him, across the flood plain, up a sandy hill and into the cinder-block town. That’s when you realize that your destination was the journey itself.

“We have nothing here,” sighed Ofelia Falcon, stitching a blouse with needle and thread on the patio of her family’s restaurant. For a dollar, she serves tiny burritos and tacos, filled only with refried beans and shredded cabbage. A fierce afternoon wind was blowing down from the Sierra del Carmen, scooting rickety chairs across the floor. Her husband, Jose, the town’s unofficial mayor, was asleep inside, taking his siesta.

“If they closed the crossing, that would be the end of us,” said Ricardo Moran Espinoza, who has spent the last 32 years behind the counter of The Park Bar, the other anchor of Boquillas’ tourist trade. “We’d be dead.”

There are dozens of other age-old crossing points up and down the border, connecting families and farm towns on both sides of the Rio Grande. But only Boquillas and Santa Elena have the distinction of being linked to a national park, bestowing upon them a sort of semi-official status.

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Big Bend’s rangers generally view the crossings as an asset--an interesting southbound trip for tourists and a welcome northbound source of commerce. Some residents of Boquillas and Santa Elena even work in the park, commuting across the river each day. “Because the area is so isolated and so sparsely populated, it’s fairly evident who’s who,” said park spokeswoman Valerie Naylor, adding that most people who cross, in either direction, “aren’t intending to go anywhere from there, and couldn’t easily even if they tried.”

The Border Patrol, which has a checkpoint at the northern end of the park many miles from the river, takes a similar view. Although the crossings are no longer protected by the Class B designation, “people for generations have been coming across and getting their groceries and going back,” said Eyleen Schmidt, an Immigration and Naturalization Service spokeswoman. “It’s not a particularly high priority for us.”

The objections come mostly from the Customs Service, which has been waging a dogged war on drugs, known as Operation Hardline, at the nation’s official ports. To them, it makes no sense to scrutinize traffic entering the country in San Ysidro or Nogales or Laredo while giving a free ride to others just because they happen to cross at a more remote point.

“The laws are on the books, and people need to recognize them,” said Maier, the customs spokesman. “It’s like driving on an interstate highway in the middle of nowhere--even though there may not be a state trooper around doesn’t mean you should be doing 130 mph.”

But neither would most people be doing 55. They would be like Barbara Janacek and her brother, Mike Wagner, on vacation from La Grange, Texas. After a cold Carta Blanca in Santa Elena, they returned to the United States the way they had left: in Saul Ortega’s 14-foot aluminum rowboat.

Planting a foot back on American soil, Wagner, a 37-year-old reserve deputy sheriff in a camouflage hunting cap, seemed dismayed by the lack of vigilance. “Very odd,” he said, shaking his head.

But Janacek, a 41-year-old bank account manager, still was glad that nobody had stopped them. “We just wanted to say that we went across,” she explained, trudging up the muddy banks of her native land.