by Marlys Hersey

On May 10, 2002, US Border Patrol agents in the Big Bend, much to the surprise and dismay of locals on both sides, began to, suddenly and without warning, enforce Title 19 of the US Code of Regulations, which governs entrance into the US, maintaining that legal entry must occur only at legal border crossings, despite the decades-long trend of fluid, non-officiated travel in this area between the US and Mexico. Prior to this, those who lived in (and visited) communities in the Big Bend of Texas and just across the Rio Grande in Mexico used to enjoy easy travel back and forth across the river – and commerce, friendship, and cultural exchange. By enforcing this law, US Border Patrol agents (and those from other federal entities, such as the National Park Service) have thereby made the often wade-able Rio Grande a sometimes unlikely but definitive international boundary.

Here, in part 2 of our series, we focus on efforts to organize relief efforts for those in beleaguered Mexican communities just across the border – and to galvanize a movement to re-open the border.

On the evening of May 11 of this year, a group of approximately 50 people gathered at the Study Butte Community Center to discuss the border closure. Discussions of this kind take place often, in smaller groups. This meeting, initiated by Danielle Gallo, was an invitation to a more formal public discourse on the matter. One of her goals was “to revive an active interest in the border closure. Here, people are always interested, but after trying, lots get discouraged, disgusted, feel impotent – and they let it go….”

Moreover, Gallo wanted to create a opportunity “so that others who wanted to know what I did could ask questions, discuss the border closure…. Maybe some could even answer the questions….” The thrust of the discussion at the meeting was on how the closure has negatively impacted the Mexican communities just across the Rio Grande: Santa Elena, Boquillas, Paso Lajitas, La Linda, San Carlos. And who’s responsible. And how best to help those who live there.

While the aforementioned towns were relatively poor to begin with, at least prior to May 2002 Mexican residents were able to wade, boat, or ride mules or horses across the river to purchase food and gas in the US Since the nearest full-service towns in Mexico are hours’ worth of travel away, the people in these hamlets were largely dependent on access to Rio Grande Village in BBNP and Lajitas for obtaining many basic supplies.

Perhaps equally as important, Americans were able to cross the river to enjoy the culture of a foreign country – and have a good time while spending money on food, beer, accommodations, and handmade crafts, which helped the residents subsist. Too, locals on the American side could regularly bring loads of donated goods, like clothing, food, school supplies, and gasoline to their friends and acquaintances in need in Mexico.

“They’re poorer than they used to be,” explains Zach Hubbard, long-time river guide and American citizen who for many years has lived for 6-7 months at a time in Boquillas. “They are adept at living off the land, gathering food from the desert: nopalitos [from prickly pear cacti], fishing.… Now families are split up. Guys are working elsewhere for 15 days a month, in Músquiz… for $4.50 a day, sharing a place with 4 other people and paying $100 a month rent for not a nice place. They come back for 4 or 5 days a month…. There are 12 and 13-year-old girls getting married off now; their parents are hoping they’ll marry into a better situation.”

For the first time in a year and half, Hubbard recently found and contacted some of the Falcón family, his good friends from Boquillas. The family is divided: some are in Múzquiz, and some are working in slaughterhouses in Kansas.

The May 11 meeting covered a lot of ground. In addition to grilling employees of Big Bend National Park about their enforcement of Title 19 and hearing from immigration lawyer Patricia Kerns (see facing page of this issue for Kern’s “Civil Rights Primer”), several attendees spoke about changes for the worse they’ve witnessed in those Mexican border towns.

River guide Cynta de Narvaez spoke out: there used to be 200 people living in Santa Elena; 4-5 months after the border crackdown, about 33 people remained – and most of those made de Narvaez feel threatened enough that she stopped visiting altogether. The border closure has “only exacerbated the situation [Border Patrol enforcers] claimed they were preventing,” she stated. “This is fallout from the border being destroyed. Our friends aren’t living there anymore….”

Though facilitating a public forum to discuss the current state of things was certainly one of her goals, meeting organizer Danielle Gallo had more in mind than lamenting the fallout. “I had a sense that things being done about the border were being done separately – and therefore less effectively.”

Like many locals, Gallo wants the border here re-opened, ease of travel for all parties involved. She wants improved economy and quality of life for Mexicans and Americans.

With good reason. Last summer, working as a firefighter in Big Bend National Park, Gallo worked with and became friends with many of the firefighters from the “Diablos,” a firefighting crew from Boquillas, San Vicente, and Santa Elena. Diablo Ezidro Sandoval suggested she come to Boquillas and teach English.

Which she did, starting in November 2003. Though she knew very little Spanish when she started, she is now “more or less fluent…. Submersion is a good way to learn.”
After several months on and off of living in Boquillas and teaching, her plans have changed. “It became clear there was a lot more I could do on this side…. [People in Boquillas] have no economy, no food, no medical services.”

Plus, she was met with misinformation and/or hostility and harassment from various employees of the three agencies involved in enforcing non-movement across the border. Last fall, a representative from US Immigration and Naturalization Services (aka INS, or “Customs”) told her she was free to cross the river between BBNP and Boquillas so long as she reported to an INS agent as soon as possible upon returning to the U.S.

Then a US Border Patrol agent told her “If we catch you, we detain you, give you to Customs…” In response, Gallo offered to call BP in advance of her return to U.S. soil; “You can meet me [at the river], examine me for contraband….” The BP agent agreed that would work.

Then one day, agents from the National Park Service met her at the river while she was on the Mexican side, and by yelling across, conveyed that she couldn’t be doing this, that she had to cross in Presidio – a trip that would require many many hours of driving from Boquillas, if she could even find a driver and gasoline.

“I would get a ‘yes’ from the upper echelons,” Gallo said. However, upper echelons would not convey the information to lower echelons within the same agency, and representatives from the different agencies would not talk to each other. “Every time I talked to them, I got a different answer. Finally, I gave up.”

“Instead of being pampered, overfed, smothered, and teach English for an hour a day,” Gallo says now her efforts are concentrated on educating US citizens in a position to help – and agitating for change.

Gallo has not given up hope that fluid and friendly movement across the border – and trade and friendship – can happen again. Furthermore, Gallo offered specific courses of action as means to that end. “A lot of people here have businesses, kids – they feel they don’t have the time or room for activism. Everyone can play a part without putting their livelihood in danger, without breaking laws,” she emphasized. “There are avenues open.” The avenues articulated by Gallo are:

• Writing letters to all legislators asking that the law be changed to allow for movement across the border between the Big Bend and Mexico without having to go to Presidio or Del Rio. (See legislator contact info. at the end of this article.)

• Establishing a permanent food bank for Mexican neighbors, stocked with food, clothes, first aid supplies, books, toys, school supplies, kitchen supplies. “Rather than being scattered all over, this way people would have access” so that anyone going to nearby Mexican towns wanting to take supplies over would know where and how to get them.

Currently, the Big Bend Baptist Church next to the Terlingua Post Office has served as a clearinghouse for donated goods. Church member Lee Ball recommends that any individual wishing to donate or deliver items call the church to arrange to donate items or pick up items for delivery (432/371.2243).

The church insists that individuals delivering goods donated at the church do so only through legal ports of entry; the church will provide an invoice of itemized goods to be shown to border authorities.

• Reviving “Good Neighbor Day,” a celebration that used to take place annually along the Rio Grande at Rio Grande Village/Boquillas, and at Lajitas/Paso Lajitas; Mexicans and Americans would feast, trade, and listen to bands play, come and go across the river/border. Gallo and Hubbard, who met when they served as interpreters/guides for an Austin-based film crew making a documentary about Boquillas, think reviving the celebration – even if it means Mexicans and Americans staying on their respective sides throughout the event, to keep it legal – might be worthwhile, to engender good will – and attract media attention.

Gallo organized the meeting despite an undercurrent of resistance, and cynical grumblings. Some long-time residents in the area have voiced concern that while Gallo’s intentions are good, drawing more attention to the issue will only bring, well, more attention – and more BP agents in the area.

Their fears are not unfounded. For instance, just a few days before the meeting, BP agents harassed Hispanic families at a large Cinco de Mayo celebration in Lajitas.
Locals are also concerned that increased attention from authorities might interfere with what little humanitarian aid has been making it through.

Gallo is often overwhelmed by the enormity of the task at hand, but still optimistic. “The meeting went well. Some people have written letters, called customs officials. “We can do it if we don’t give up,” Gallo proclaimed at the meeting. “We can do it if we work together.”

While the enforcement of the border by federal agents came in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Gallo is insistent that focus on constructive, not destructive means. “A war on terrorism?” says Gallo. “Then we should treat [Boquillas] like a war zone, give refugee status….be engaged in humanitarian aid. We should be afraid of terrorists; why be afraid of people we know, who are more a art of this region more than [BP agents] are. They’re the ones we’re afraid of – not the Mexicans.”

Danielle Gallo can be contacted by mail: General Delivery, Marathon, TX 79842.. Email: caveat5@hotmail.com.

U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson can be contacted by mail: 284 Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, DC, 20510. By phone: 202/224.5922. She can be reached via email link through her website: http://hutchison.senate.gov.

U.S. Senator John Cornyn can be contacted by mail: 517 Hart Senate Office Bldg., Washington, DC 20510. By phone: 202/224.2934. He can be reached via email link through his website: http://cornyn.senate.gov.

U.S. Representative Henry Bonilla can be contacted by mail: 2458 Rayburn HOB, Washington, DC, 20515. Phone: 202/225/4511. He can be reached via email link through his website: www.house.gov/bonilla.