America, Tear Down This Wall

Two tired and thirsty Mexicans approached a retired couple in their isolated south Texas trailer, about 45 miles north of the border.

“Excuse me, sir,” one of the young migrants said in the best English he could muster. “Could we get some water?”

The men had walked for two days in 105-degree heat. Instead of offering help, the couple threatened to call the Border Patrol. When the Mexicans left, the Americans gave chase in a truck.

Armed with a gun, the couple caught up and ordered the pair of trespassers to stay put. When the migrants tried to run, the elderly man fired at them from behind, hitting one in the leg, according to the Texas prosecutor handling the case. The wounded man fell into a clump of cactus, crying for help with thorns stuck in his face and shoulder.

The American woman told the victim to plug up the bullet hole with his finger to stop the bleeding, then called for help. Too late. Before he bled to death, 22-year-old Eusebio de Haro, the oldest of 16 siblings and a father himself, begged again for a drink of water.

The Mexican died thirsty. The alleged gunman lit a pipe.

This cruel confrontation happened in May at the height of the hysteria over vigilante actions along our wide-open, arid borderlands. In late August, The Times ran the story as reported by Associated Press, but nothing since.

Believe me, the case is still a big deal down in Brackettville, Texas, where Samuel Blackwood, a 75-year-old retiree from Arkansas, is awaiting trial on charges of deadly conduct. Under Texas law, that means doing something that endangers the life of others.

That’s also a pretty good definition of vigilantism, if you ask me.

Over the last year, tough-talking, rifle-toting Arizona ranchers have taken immigration law into their own hands. These self-appointed sentinels of U.S. sovereignty prowl their vast properties, trapping trespassing Mexicans by the thousands and holding them for the Border Patrol. They say they’re just doing the job the Feds have failed to do.

Predictably, the showdown has riled passions on both sides of the immigration fence. Joining the fray from Southern California were the forces behind Proposition 187, the anti-immigration measure that critics say helped spawn the current climate of confrontation.

On Friday in Mexico City, the Ibero-American Federation of Ombudsmen, a coalition of human rights watchdogs from Spain and Latin America, called for the United States to punish its citizen vigilantes. Next month, the Arizona Border Rights Project (https://www.afsc.org/az/dh2.htm) is convening a grass-roots conference in Tucson to explore solutions “centered on the right of human mobility.”

I’m ashamed to say I’ve sat on the fence during this heated controversy. People expect me to take a stand on the issue, I reasoned. My position will be too predictable and too easily dismissed.

Then one day recently, a song snapped me to attention in a record store. It was from a new CD by Los Tigres del Norte, a veteran norteno group that often sings about the immigrant experience. I was riveted as the song warned about groups in the United States that use the Internet, the lyrics state, to urge the killing of “our suffering countrymen, whose sin is to enter where they are not wanted.”

Se invita por Internet en los Estados Unidos/A unirse a matar a nuestros paisanos sufridos/Pues su pecado es pasar por donde no son queridos.

It’s titled “A Quien Corresponda--To Whom It May Concern.” I decided it definitely concerns me.

The organized Arizona vigilantes have disavowed racism publicly and say they are committing no crime. They certainly have a right to protect their property, just as the nation has a right to defend its borders. Yet, people also have the right to work and feed their families.

Our troubled border marks a moral challenge, drawn on the line between poverty and plenty. Hundreds of migrants die of exposure, not vigilante bullets. By sealing off safer access near cities like San Diego, the Border Patrol has forced them to march to their deaths in dangerous wilderness crossings.

Walling off America from Mexico’s huddled masses evokes medieval images of tattered peasants starving outside the castle gates. The United States can’t afford to get comfortably ensconced in its prosperity--which ironically finances better border barriers--while letting its neighbors die at its doorstep. Eventually, the paupers storm the turrets.

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan’s call for freedom across the old Berlin border: America, tear down this wall. As Los Tigres tell us: “La solucion es urgente/The solution is urgent.”

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Agustin Gurza’s column appears Tuesday. Readers can reach Gurza at (714) 966-7712 or agustin.gurza@latimes.com