Border Culture’s Complicity With Smugglers Put to Challenge

They are the most callous, most violent, most dangerous men in the lucrative world of migrant trafficking. That’s what the U.S. Border Patrol said when it released the names and photos of eight men on its first most-wanted list of migrant smugglers.

The men run vast networks that not only sneak thousands of immigrants across the border from Mexico, but also are responsible for the growth in the number of immigrants who are led astray, sometimes to their deaths, in the desert, officials said.

“It’s not immigration we’re focusing on, it’s the deaths,” said Raleigh Leonard, a spokesman for the Border Patrol’s San Diego sector. “We figure that if we could put these guys out of action, we won’t have to issue 300 body bags, like we did last year.”

Creation of the most-wanted list was meant to do more than aid in the smugglers’ capture. It was the first step in a public relations blitz to challenge the tolerance with which Mexicans have long viewed so-called coyotes.

Border Patrol agents say they are tired of being painted as the bad guys in the border drama. Agents are tired of rescuing half-dead immigrants who have entrusted themselves to smugglers, tired of finding bodies in the desert, and tired, they say, of seeing most Mexicans embrace the culprits.

The most-wanted list is a challenge to the reputations, to the honor, of figures who have not only eluded the law but have been seemingly immune to public censure. The Border Patrol dreams of the day when Mexicans will turn hostile at the sight of one of the wanted coyotes.

“In the two different countries, the perceptions of these guys are entirely different,” Leonard said. “We want these guys to walk down the streets in Mexico and have [people] say, ‘Hey, look, there goes a criminal.’

“Far too often, people point the finger at border policy. We’re not to blame, and we’re going to change that perception. It may take five or six years, but we’re going to change it.”

But as long as U.S. border agents stop the desperate from crossing illegally and coyotes help the migrants do it, the attitudes will not change, advocates of immigration reform say.

Coyotes have an entrenched place in the mythology of border culture. At worst, they seem to be viewed as a necessary evil. At best, they are romanticized as Mexican Harriet Tubmans, guiding the downtrodden northward to prosperity and freedom.

When the most-wanted list ran in Tijuana newspapers, it was translated as “los mas buscados,” or “the most sought after.” It is a phrase that neatly sums up the ambiguity many people in Mexico feel for the people smugglers. As any migrant about to slip over the border will say, a successful coyote is, of course, in high demand. And what better measure of success than making the most-wanted list in the U.S.?

“There are coyotes who are legends, whose deeds are the subject of folk songs and stories,” said Victor Clark Alfaro of the Binational Center for Human Rights and a longtime immigration activist.

Three smugglers are credited with guiding half the town of San Martin Hidalgo in Jalisco state to the San Luis Obispo area.

“Thanks to them, thousands of migrants have arrived successfully in the United States,” said Clark, who has an extensive acquaintance among coyotes. “Someone’s little grandmother made it safely, or their husband, or their whole family, and people are grateful.”

Earlier this month, U.S. investigators announced that they had taken a bite out of the smuggling profession by arresting a dozen people who ran the largest Latin American child-smuggling ring that investigators had ever encountered. But officials acknowledged that the deep dependence of parents on coyotes for family reunification remains a barrier to cracking down on the smuggling.

The nicknames people give the smugglers also illustrate the dichotomous world they inhabit. One of the eight, Silvestre Rivera, is popularly called “Rambo.” Is he the violent miscreant who flouts the law, or the defender of just causes, merely misunderstood by the authorities?

Rivera’s partner, Alfonso Zapien Carillo, is called “Chivero,” meaning “goat herder.” Is he the kind shepherd leading his flock to greener pastures, or the mercenary directing his charges to slaughter?

The best measure of the border culture’s complicity with the smugglers can be found near Tijuana’s red-light district, the Zona Norte, where Zapien operates out of the Hotel Guadiana, coordinating the recruiting of migrants. Two police officers stand at a nearby corner, chatting. Here, Zapien plots the movement of clients from south and central Mexico, their transportation to the hotel and then across the border to safe houses, authorities say.

Far from being romantic figures, Zapien and Rivera have often endangered the lives of migrants in their care, U.S. officials said. The arrest of Zapien or another of the eight most wanted would have “an immediate and significant” effect--reducing the perils faced by immigrants, they said.

The U.S. once had Zapien. Caught smuggling migrants in San Diego in 1999, he and several co-defendants pleaded guilty to several smuggling-related charges. But he jumped bail before sentencing. With their investigation of Zapien’s activities expanding, U.S. officials believe that they could send the smuggler to prison for many years.

The U.S. cannot simply go and capture Zapien in Tijuana. Before U.S. agents would even attempt extradition--which would require reams of documentation--they want to complete their investigation of the smugglers’ operation, U.S. officials said. They want to do nothing to interrupt their work.

So Zapien works away in the hotel courtyard, undisturbed.

“Of course we know where he is,” said the Border Patrol’s Leonard. “All I can say is that we’re working closely with people on both sides of the border, trying to place these criminals behind bars.”

The U.S. should not expect overwhelming support from the Mexican people.

At a migrant shelter for women and children in Tijuana, Claudia Martinez and her husband, Israel, cuddle their 7-month-old baby while planning their trip to Vista in northern San Diego County.

Last year, a smuggler took her and 17 others through the desert east of San Diego. For three weeks, they were lost, with little food and water.

Despite her ordeal, Martinez insists it is not fair to call all smugglers bad. A few are heroes, she said. Of Zapien, she said only: “Well, if the Border Patrol wants him, he must be good.”

Next door at the Casa del Migrante, everyone is making plans. Slightly more than half the men will soon head across the border, while the rest, who already have been caught by U.S. officials and deported, consider trying again.

“Everyone knows who the good [coyotes] are,” said Father Luiz Kendziereski, who runs the shelter.

“The increased vigilance at the border has created this demand, so a good [smuggler] will have a good reputation. It travels by word of mouth.”

Clark, of the binational rights center, defends the integrity of many coyotes but acknowledges that there are bad ones.

“I have seen the majority do their job with responsibility--although it sounds strange to say it,” he said. “They are experts on the border region, experts at guiding people safely.”

Clark said he believes that an older generation of smugglers, many now in their 40s and 50s, provides the best and safest transit for their clients. A new generation of brash young men in their 20s, including some drug addicts, has led people astray and caused most of the problems, he said.

Far from the pseudo-travel agents of yesteryear, who offered package deals for cars and hotel rooms, these younger smugglers see migrants purely as merchandise.

UCLA professor Abel Valenzuela has surveyed day laborers at 50 sites throughout Los Angeles, most of whom crossed the border illegally. Virtually all used coyotes, Valenzuela said, and in all his 250 interviews he heard no complaints.

“I don’t think they saw the smugglers as criminals, but many don’t even see themselves as criminal” for crossing the border illegally, he said.

Even with benevolent Mexican attitudes toward the smugglers, U.S. immigration officials said they are making progress.

“We’ve been working very closely with the Mexican government on migrant-trafficking cases, and we have an outstanding relationship with Mexico currently,” said Scott Hatfield, the Immigration and Naturalization Service officer in charge, based in Tijuana.

Hatfield declined to discuss the details of Zapien’s case, except to say the smuggler is of “strong interest” to officials.

Back at the Hotel Guadiana, Zapien--lithe and dark, with thick black hair--is talking on the phone in the courtyard when a reporter and photographer approach. His eyes snap to menacing attention at the sight of unexpected visitors. As a reporter begins to ask questions, he stops talking and hangs up. Several men come out onto the balcony above the courtyard to peer down silently.

A hotel employee at the entrance said: “You cannot ask any questions here, and you cannot take any photographs here. What you do on public property is fine, but not here.”

Zapien stares but does not speak, his business interrupted. For a moment.

Do not ask him questions; he does not want to talk, the hotel guard said firmly. And with a smile that never reaches his eyes, he gives a final piece of advice: “You should go,” he said. “You should go now.”