Death, Taxes, and Sweet Potato Fries Read online

  “Jeez,” I said, “before meeting you I thought I was cool.”

  He chuckled. “I’m sure you are.” He shifted in his seat before continuing. “BORSTAR agents are concentrated along the coastal regions, as well as the southern and northern borders of the U.S. We see a small number of illegal crossings along the northern border, mostly through Glacier National Park in Montana, though the mountains and the grizzly bears serve as a natural deterrent. The southern border is much more problematic.”

  He proceeded to give me a quick—and quite disturbing—lesson in illegal immigration.

  “We still have some Mexican immigrants,” he said, “but in recent years we’ve seen many more people from the Northern Triangle area, which includes Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Between the political instability, poverty, and gang violence, those countries have become some of the most dangerous in the world.”

  According to the agent, up to half a million people from Central America fled their countries and hopped rides on northbound freight trains each year. While Mexican police routinely patrolled roads, bus stations, and airports, until recently they’d paid little attention to cargo trains. The trains were known colloquially as La Bestia, which translated as “the Beast.” Unfortunately, the ride was not the wondrous journey aboard The Polar Express or Tom Cruise’s thrilling train-top, spy-versus-spy battle in Mission: Impossible. Migrants would ride on top of the cars where they faced constant exposure and all manner of physical risks. A fall—or a push—could mean the loss of a limb, a permanent debilitating injury, or a painful death. Many people, including children, had fallen asleep atop the trains and rolled off, their lives ended in a real-life nightmare. And if the train ride wasn’t awful enough, violent gangs and organized crime controlled the routes, inflicting a multitude of horrors on the migrants. Sadly, it was the poorest who suffered these fates.

  Those with more means would often hire a smuggler to get them from one country to another. These migrants encountered their own type of woes. Their “travel agents” charged up to ten thousand dollars for the service. Many of the smugglers never carried through on their promises, leaving their clients without their money, their hopes, or any means of recourse.

  Castaneda released a long, loud sigh. “We’ve had a rash of emergency rescues recently in Big Bend.”

  Big Bend National Park was named for the sharp curve in the Rio Grande River that formed the southern border of both the park and the western part of the state of Texas. The park, which shared 118 miles of border with Mexico, sat in the Chihuahuan Desert and was known for its spectacular mountain vistas, river-carved canyons, and beautiful night skies. Despite its natural beauty, it was among the least visited parks due to its remote location and sweltering summer temperatures. It was also known for wild javelinas and both drug and human trafficking. All of this was common knowledge among Texans. But there was lots I didn’t know about Big Bend and the migrant issues, and Agent Castaneda was more than happy to fill me in.

  “Before 9/11,” he said, “Mexicans routinely crossed into the U.S. to buy milk and gas and sell their wares. Americans went south for cerveza and fresh tortillas.”

  He went on to tell me that Mexicans had often provided transportation to tourists via boat or burro. Thanks to the terrorism threat, these cultural and financial exchanges had all but ceased. Many newly unemployed burros were let loose and used their free time to copulate and populate, resulting in a virtual explosion of feral donkeys in the region. Moreover, the fences erected to halt human traffic also impeded wildlife. Habitats became fragmented, and any species that slithered, crawled, or walked could not cross. The harmful effects on populations of bobcats, the already endangered ocelot, and other species were serious.

  Though Agent Castaneda had given me quite a bit of information, he still hadn’t said what any of this had to do with the Internal Revenue Service.

  “What brings you to our office?” I asked.

  “This.” He reached into an official-looking messenger-type bag and pulled out a manila envelope, holding it out to me.

  I took the envelope from him, noting the name “Juan Alonso Alvarez” scrawled across the top of it. Inside I found multiple copies of a certified birth certificate for a man who’d been born in 1987 in Sabinal, Texas, a small town in the southern part of the state, approximately sixty miles west of San Antonio. There were also multiple copies of a social security card in the same name, as well as an Uvalde County voter registration card. In other words, though there was no photo ID, there was sufficient documentation to enable someone to fulfill the requirements of the I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification Form.

  I looked up at Castaneda. “Where’d you get this documentation?”

  “Same place I got this documentation,” he said, pulling several more envelopes from his bag and spreading them across Lu’s desk in front of me. The names on these envelopes read “Julio Luis Guzmán,” “Francisco Arturo Soto,” and “Camila Teresa Contreras,” among several others. “They contain the same thing. Multiple copies of birth certificates, social security cards, and voter registration cards, all in the name marked on the envelope. A border patrol agent found them early yesterday afternoon, at the Port of Entry in Presidio. They were in the possession of a man named Salvador Hidalgo, a suspected coyote.”

  I’d heard the term coyote before and knew it referred to those who trafficked people illegally across the border in return for money. While some equated the system to an underground railroad for migrants, Castaneda explained that many coyotes were nothing like Harriet Tubman, who escorted her charges to safer, more welcoming territories. Rather, coyotes treated human lives as nothing more than a commodity.

  Castaneda pulled another document from his bag. This one was a single page containing Salvador Hidalgo’s mug shot and identifying information. The guy had wiry black hair and dark, cavernous eyes. He wore a smug grin that sent a clear message. Fuck you and the free-range donkey you rode in on. A pretty bold message for an hombre who stood only five feet five inches tall, weighed a mere 135 pounds, and had the alias Sally. Then again, I was only five feet two and could pack quite a wallop when necessary.

  “Hidalgo has dual citizenship,” Castaneda said. “He was born in the U.S. and has a home in Dallas now, but he lived in Mexico for several years during his childhood and teen years and became a naturalized citizen there. He routinely crosses the border by car in Presidio or on foot at the Boquillas Crossing Port of Entry, in the southeastern part of Big Bend.”

  He went on to tell me the latter port was established just a few years ago to reinstitute and encourage cross-border commerce between Mexicans and park visitors, and was named for the town of Boquillas del Carmen, which sat on the banks of the Rio Grande. Before this entry point was opened, the closest port was the one in Presidio, a hundred miles to the northwest. Not exactly convenient.

  With no roads or large bridges at the Boquillas site, the crossing handled foot traffic only, no vehicles, and was open only during daylight hours. The crossing was an unmanned station equipped with twenty-four-hour surveillance cameras monitored by staff at the Border Patrol Station in Alpine, Texas. Though it was the first unmanned station along the southern border of the U.S., unmanned stations had been in operation for years along the northern border with Canada.

  All of this was news to me. “If there’s nobody working the crossing,” I asked, “how are people processed?”

  “By computer,” Castaneda said. He explained that computerized kiosks were used by visitors to present passports or other acceptable forms of identification required by the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, such as Trusted Traveler Program cards or military ID cards for those traveling on official business. The travel documents were sent via cyberspace to Border Patrol agents in El Paso. When the Boquillas Crossing was established, some expressed concerns about security risks, but these concerns were addressed by staffing a substation in Big Bend, along with National Park Service rangers. “The officials i
n the park’s substation can respond quickly to anyone attempting to cross the border illegally or to perform physical inspections when necessary.”

  Sounded like a reasonable arrangement to handle crossings in such a remote area.

  Castaneda’s expression became somber. “Besides the emergency rescues I mentioned, there’ve recently been numerous deaths. Sad business. Coyotes sometimes abandon people miles from the nearest town. We found several members of an extended family who’d succumbed to dehydration. Only their toddler survived. They must have given the last of their water to the child. Fortunately, I spotted him from the air when I saw buzzards circling and went to investigate.” He shook his head. “Poor kid. He was terrified and traumatized.”

  My heart went out to the child. As a young girl, I’d been lost once for only a minute or two when I’d strayed away from my mother, who’d been looking at vacuum cleaners in a department store. I still remember the panic I felt when I looked around and couldn’t find her. My pulse still went into overdrive just thinking about it, even though the whole ordeal had been decades ago and lasted only a short time.

  “These stories are all too common,” the agent said. “The most notorious was the one about the Yuma fourteen. Smugglers abandoned them in the Arizona desert, promising to return with water. The smugglers never went back. Some of the group became so desperate and sunburned they sought out help, even knowing it would mean their journey had been for naught. Fourteen of them died of heatstroke.” He shook his head. “People have no idea what they’re getting themselves into.”

  He said there’d also been numerous reports of women and girls being sexually assaulted. Even if the migrants were lucky enough to find a place to live and work in the U.S., they had to live a clandestine life under constant worry that they’d be caught and deported. Some employers lacking in ethics used these fears against them, paying less than minimum wage, threatening to turn them in if the workers made a report. “Some become modern-day slaves.”

  The better life these people sought often eluded them. What’s more, immigration was an extremely controversial subject among Americans, and many immigrants found themselves shunned or persecuted or blamed for everything from declining wages to unemployment rates. Others, however, saw many migrants as refugees and believed humanitarian concerns should prevail, that families should be reunited. The federal government had attempted to institute compromises through programs such as DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) and an expansion of DAPA (Deferred Action for Parents of Americans). However, these plans had been challenged in the Supreme Court by none other than the State of Texas. While mi casa es su casa might be the philosophy south of the border, it didn’t extend into the U.S.

  “To put it mildly,” Castaneda said, “the past few years have been a real shit storm. Border Patrol is caught in the middle, not only of the government battle I just described, but in the middle of citizens, too. On one side, we’ve had pastors and concerned citizens establishing watering stations along some of the more heavily traveled migrant routes. On the other side, we’ve had the Minutemen.”

  The Minuteman Project was an anti-immigrant movement of unofficial, self-appointed, and heavily armed people who performed patrols along the border. Chris Davis, a commander of a Minuteman unit in Texas, had been featured in a YouTube video instructing members of the organization how to handle a confrontation with an undocumented migrant. “You see an illegal, you point your gun right dead at them, right between the eyes, and say, ‘Get back across the border, or you will be shot.’” He also instructed members that if law enforcement gave them any flak, they should respond by saying the land belonged to them and was their birthright. Davis should have paid more attention in his high school history class. The U.S. Constitution said we were entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but there was nothing in the document guaranteeing anyone land.

  Given that the Minuteman group attracted extremists, who are prone to disagreement and irrational behavior, the movement imploded, with many of its members ending up dead or imprisoned for their actions. Shawna Forde, one of the Arizona activists, turned to crime to fund the operations and was convicted of murdering a man and his nine-year-old daughter after a botched armed robbery of the victims’ home. Another problematic member was J. T. Ready, a neo-Nazi Marine veteran who’d been court-martialed twice and discharged from the military for bad conduct. Ready murdered his girlfriend and three of her family members at his home in Gilbert, Arizona, before committing suicide.

  “At the time of Ready’s death,” Castaneda said, “an FBI domestic terrorism investigation had been looking into his connection to a number of dead migrants whose bodies had been found in the Arizona desert.”

  I swallowed the lump of emotion that had formed in my throat. I’d faced a lot of ugly things during my time at the IRS. Con artists. Killers. The mob. I’d seen elderly people lose their retirement savings in investment scams and families lose their homes in mortgage schemes. But it never seemed to get easier and this situation had my insides squirming. “My, my,” I said in reply, attempting to mask my horror with humor. “You’re just a ray of sunshine, aren’t you?”

  Castaneda offered a mirthless chuckle. “I hate to tell you, Agent Holloway, but I’m just getting started.”

  chapter three

  Held for Ransom

  Agent Castaneda pulled another manila envelope from his bag and handed it to me, his expression pensive and pained.

  My stomach shrank into a hard ball as I opened the clasp and pulled out the contents. Inside were photographs of three young women who bore a strong resemblance to each other. All had dark hair, brown skin, dainty noses, and warm, innocent smiles. The oldest appeared to be in her early twenties, the middle around eighteen, and the youngest fifteen or so. I looked from the photos to Castaneda, my eyes asking the questions my mouth was too afraid to ask. Who are these young women and what’s happened to them?

  “Those girls are sisters,” he said. “Nina, Larissa, and Yessenia. Yessenia is the oldest. They’re from San Pedro Sula, one of the most violent cities in Honduras. The leader of one of the gangs had set his sights on Yessenia and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Other gang members had begun to harass the younger sisters. Their aunt lives here in Dallas with her husband. They came here from Honduras two years ago and are undocumented. They’d hired a coyote to get themselves into the country, and they hired the same man to bring their nieces here. They thought they were getting their nieces out of danger.”

  His intonation told me the danger wasn’t over yet and my stomach clenched even tighter. “But something happened, didn’t it?”

  “Yes.” He exhaled a sharp breath. “The girls left Honduras three weeks ago. They contacted their aunt every two or three days along the way until last night. That’s when Yessenia called in tears and told her aunt they’d been kidnapped by two armed men.”

  Lu and I gasped in unison. “Kidnapped?” Lu squeaked out.

  Castaneda’s jaw flexed as he nodded. “I’d like to tell you this is an isolated event, but I’d be lying. We’ve seen multiple cases where migrants are kidnapped for ransom. In some cases, the kidnapping is staged by the smugglers themselves in an attempt to extort money from the victims’ families in the United States. I suspect that’s what’s happened here, that Hidalgo and his men are behind this kidnapping. In these kidnappings, the families are in extremely vulnerable positions because they feel they can’t go to the authorities for help. These girls were lucky their aunt is willing to risk deportation to try to help them.”

  Though I understood the point he was making, it was hard to see anyone in this situation as lucky.

  Castaneda filled us in on the rest of the events. “After Yessenia told her aunt they’d been taken, a man got on the phone and told the aunt she had one week to pay the kidnappers five thousand dollars or they’d never see the girls again. She was told she would receive a phone call next Monday with instructions, that she’d be given the
name of the bank and the account number for making the deposit. She also was told if she contacted authorities, the girls would be killed. They said they’d have someone watching her and her husband to make sure they didn’t speak to law enforcement.”

  How could the smugglers do such a thing? I glanced down at the photos again. These young women should be shopping for shoes at the mall, taking in a movie, giggling about boys. Not being held somewhere for ransom, living in terror, wondering if their days were numbered. “This is all so…” I couldn’t decide which word to use. Horrifying? Heartbreaking? Disturbing? Unconscionable? None seemed adequate.

  He didn’t wait for me to come up with a word, but dipped his head in acknowledgement of my unnamed emotion.

  “So Hidalgo was the aunt’s coyote?” I asked. “And the one who was smuggling the girls?”

  “It wasn’t Hidalgo himself,” Castaneda said. “The aunt said the man she hired went only by the name Zaragoza. But she said he regularly checked in with another man via cell phones and radios, and that the other man seemed to be the one in charge. We believe Hidalgo’s got several men working under him, and that Zaragoza is likely part of Hidalgo’s network. Unfortunately, she never heard Zaragoza identify the man by name, and we can’t seem to get enough information to make a direct link between this Zaragoza and Hidalgo.”

  I took it the two weren’t Facebook friends, hadn’t posted photos of themselves taking in the scenery of Big Bend together. “How’d their aunt get in touch with you?” I asked.

  “The aunt used her phone to get onto the Border Patrol Web site and sent an e-mail. She figured that would be the most private way to contact us. She and her husband don’t have the money to pay the ransom. They spent every last cent when they made arrangements with the coyote to transport their nieces. To make things worse, they have no way of getting in touch with the kidnappers to see if they can negotiate more time.”