Tuesday, March 8, 2011

The Ballad of the three Hernández

His name sounds like Valkyrie. A Isolde, who was born in Switzerland green, love for a man drove to the west, where he runs the restaurant Jacumba, in the town of Jacumba, pure California desert in the shadow of the wall that separates U.S. from Mexico. "Every weekend there are about 5,000 people," says a guy sitting on the terrace, toothless smile and cowboy look just run over by a stampede of cattle.

Beside him, silent and leaned back in his chair, is what seems to be a cousin of Steve Buscemi after a night rolling with a Tarantino gangster film. Just move your head to confirm the comment of a friend. "It's true," says Mrs. Isolde with an Englishman who despite years retains the sturdy German accent.

"There are hot springs, behind the swimming pool. We have many customers, although they have previously moved here usually the great artists in Hollywood. " Of these, apparently, there is no trace in this kind of resort from another world, more suitable for scenes of gore terror for romance.

On its walls hang photos of celebrities not. What does this woman collects are buddies, colored pieces of cloth with which the fence jumpers cover their feet to avoid leaving fingerprints. "The meeting on the roof, in the bushes around the property. They are pieces of art, all are fascinated.

" This is the place chosen by Enrique Morones, better known as "the angel of the border," to give a rest to the body. Their partnership, Angels Borders is dedicated to helping Mexicans take to the adventure of seeking a better future. Today has been leaving bottles of water in the path of daring.

Morones, one of the organizers of the march migrant ", which in early February was held the sixth edition, has become a compendium of stories and trivia about the life and death on the border. Some are extraordinary. "In the car I demadera crossing the road because we vigils and prayers.

In 2007, in Douglas, Arizona (where the murder of a farmer in March 2010, allegedly at the hands of Mexican drug traffickers, led the controversial immigration law), the INS had just killed Francisco Dominguez. I always ask someone from the community to say a few words. Came a man. At the end I asked him his name.

"Francisco Dominguez 'he replied. No, he insisted, what is your name. "Francisco Dominguez 'he repeated. Do not know anything. "The history of this man-matching 53, born in San Diego, but his father and mother from Oaxaca, Culiacan has only just begun. On that same trip, there were more events.

In Columbus, New Mexico, decided to stop to see the huge cross installed in honor of Pancho Villa. "There is even a museum dedicated to him. The Americans had taken the money. He decided to enter the country, the only land invasion by the United States has had, and rob the bank. Randomly picked one of my crosses and fixing it there and someone told me, 'what good detail.

" Villa put the name, and you were two. " Next stop, El Paso, Texas, as across town, across the border, is the unfortunately famous Ciudad Juárez. "We organized a prayer circle. I grabbed a cross, paying no attention. What name was? I know it's amazing how much story, but said Juarez. " Jacumba prevails in the restaurant a strange smell, nothing like the perfumes of pine false.

"It's water thermal pool," says the owner. Isolde came through Chicago. Was to make babysitter. Landed for a season and spent more than twenty years. At the end of this stage, the arm of her husband moved to this town, although still a small population of scattered houses arid territory.

"Things have not changed since they put the wall. Come less, although this is still the land of milk and honey. There are always people willing to seek a better place to live. " There are fewer outsiders attempting to defy U.S. law certified by Jerry Conlin, the patrol agent of the border.

"The economic crisis played a role," she says, but it is also essential to the best quality of our work. It is a combination of both factors. " Conlin makes this comment in the sector headquarters in San Diego minutes before taking a route through the fence that separates the two countries.

Apprehensions of Mexicans end of January amounted to 11,056 people. Previous fiscal year (October 1 to September 30) was 68,565. The weighted percentage provides a significant decrease of 23%. It is not sneaking them more, he jokes, is that they try less. The decrease is still much higher compared with the peaks recorded to prick the bubble, 152,460 in 2007 and 162,390 in 2008.

"We do 45% of the arrests carried out in line with Mexico," he said. To them to just over 60 miles (100 kilometers). In 44 feature wall that is not double in all sections. The first is built with the plates that the U.S. military platforms used for landing and takeoff of helicopters in the Vietnam War.

Circulating billboard overlooking Tijuana, on the roofs of some houses of the hill you can see how the Mexicans watching with binoculars the movement of the patrol. Conlin stops in front of a large submarine hatch rate. Down there is the tunnel discovered in December 2009, the most sophisticated found.

Tore in a store the other country and discovered it halfway. "Clearly he was destined to drug trafficking by means construction investment," explains. Despite repeated accusations that the neighbors do not cooperate, Conlin acknowledges that the information came to them from their colleagues on the other side.

But the agent shrugs the question that, conversely, the weapons that leave the United States to feed the Mexican cartels. Last November, they discovered two tunnels. Reason for this year tripled seizures of marijuana. The tour ends in the Pacific, in the shadow of the Tijuana bullring. The nearest beach is divided.

On the south side there are people playing in the sand. On the northern slope, loneliness, although there must be hidden by a patrol ready to take the jet ski and stop the surfer or a swimmer trying to cross the barrier wave nonexistent. At present, the body of the border patrol has 2,600 members, 1,100 more than in 2005.

AConlin seems little. "It would put more fencing and more human and technological resources." David Shirk to disagree. This professor at the University of San Diego and director of Trans-Border Institute argues that "every dollar we invest in securing the border has a low return." The assembly of the current military costs 40,000 million a year, it said.

The contrast is even more expensive if you consider the increase in the number of people killed trying to cross. In the eighties, with no barriers, there were 20 to 40 deaths per year, drowned in the Rio Grande / Rio Bravo or hit the highway. In recent times, with increased vigilance and sophistication, has reached even the average of 400 deaths per year.

Have to seek more risky routes. Dehydration or cold are the main causes of mortality. "We can be safe and have an efficient frontier," proclaims Ruben Barrales, president of the Chamber of Commerce of San Diego. If Conlin requested more surveillance, less red Barrales claims. Your institution tries that in addition to the steps of San Ysidro and Otay Mesa, is opening two more.

'Last year we lose more than 5,000 million for the impact of the queues that make the vehicles and people entering or leaving the United States. " In San Ysidro struck the convoy of trucks. As impressive to see thousands of Mexicans to return laden with bags, who daily cross to go shopping in American supermarkets.

Are those with a special pass, which helps them penetrate 25 miles (40 kilometers) on U.S. territory, for a maximum period of 29 consecutive days. Back to Jacumba, Morones continues his adventures. As seven of Querétaro, which was behind some bushes counting his money. He had asked $ 25 per night in a motel road between Tucson and El Paso, while these, exhausted and without documentation, it claimed 300.

Enrique threatened with a scandal. - But there is no more crosses? - Oh, yeah! Retrieves the thread. On that same trip, and once in Redford (Texas) held a vigil. It was made by Ezequiel Hernandez, a pastor at the Marines mistook for a drug trafficker. He was killed. He was 17. "A case of impact, it was one of the first murders in the border," he says.

"I took a cross from the car and said nothing. How nice, I thought, was beginning to be afraid. When I picked up things, I discovered that the trunk had three crosses together, the three turned and put the same: Hernandez. " That remained the case. "Until last year I did not know why. Anastasio migration Hernandez killed and ten days, Sergio Adrián Hernández.

The three crosses, the three Hernández. " His story has reached the ears of Los Tigres del Norte. "We want to participate in a festival called 'Love has no borders" and raises to a song about this story. " Jorge Hernández. That is called the head of Los Tigres del Norte.

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