Dashed hopes: Immigrants fleeing to U.S. greeted by stronger border patrol

Rachael Levy

Monday, March 25, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

The young mother had walked hundreds of miles to rest in the airport terminal chair, her son and husband nearby.

It was near midnight and the woman, looking older than her 22 years, hid her exhaustion and fear behind a tightly drawn face. They were close, she reminded herself. So close.

Her husband held the tickets that would take them to Atlanta. A city that promised work, safety and the woman's madre.

Seven years and two countries had separated Vilma DeAlvarez from her mother. But tonight, the airplane would swallow up the last of the miles and deliver Vilma and her family home.

No more running. No more hiding. Soon it would be over. In Vilma's purse were two fake IDs and a false Social Security card she planned to show if stopped.

The slot machines chattered and overhead a female voice announced arrivals and departures.

A pretty woman in blue jeans and an olive-green shirt headed toward the terminal. Her long, blond ponytail swung as her eyes scanned the faces of people she passed.

It was near midnight and the woman already had been walking McCarran International Airport for hours. She would stop at different airline gates -- mostly those coming from Southern California and Arizona -- and look at the passengers leaving the planes and at those waiting to board.

She was searching. For the nervous person. The rumpled person. The dirty person. For someone carrying little or no luggage. Or toting a plastic bag filled with small belongings.

Now and then she would stop and talk, mainly to Hispanic travelers. When she walked into the terminal, her eyes landed on Vilma DeAlvarez and her small family.

Secret passage

In the world of immigrant smuggling, there is a network of arteries crisscrossing the Southwest. They start at the border and fan north, following highways, tangling in airports, beating a fast, steady rhythm that echoes that of the illegal aliens.

The DeAlvarezes may have slipped into this stream at one of two points, Calexico, Calif., or Nogales, Ariz. Many who enter there are from Mexico or Central and South America. In the DeAlvarezes' case, home was El Salvador.

From the border, the illegal immigrant heads to Phoenix or San Diego where he or she buys a bus or plane ticket.

Red-eye flights headed to the East and Midwest have become a popular choice for the coyote, or immigrant smuggler, government agents say. The airplane offers an alternative to driving a packed van of aliens cross country.

The illegal immigrant has become a scapegoat for politicians, who blame the foreigner for many economic and social problems. In response, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno in January launched an effort to plug the network of arteries in the Southwest.

Additional immigration agents were moved to the border to support Operation Gatekeeper in San Diego and Operation Safeguard in Tucson.

Since the end of January, extra immigration agents in Las Vegas have concentrated on the airport and bus station. In less than three months, 1,918 illegal travelers have been arrested -- 838 more than the total detained in 1995.

McCarran -- with its many Midwest and East flights and thousands of vacation-bound travelers -- has become increasingly important to the illegal immigrant and his coyote, government agents say.

So from Phoenix and San Diego, the two arteries veer north and east, converging in Las Vegas where each night the casino mecca's airport, interstate highway and bus station carry tens, sometimes hundreds, of illegal immigrants farther into the United States.

"You'd see people in groups of 10 go zip, zip, zip through the airport because they'd wait until the last minute to board in order to avoid detection," said Supervisory Special Agent Steve Usiak of the Las Vegas immigration office.

In the government's strategy, Las Vegas became a second line of defense. Officials at the Justice Department and Immigration and Naturalization Service knew they could not completely stop the flow of illegal immigrants at the border. So, some law-enforcement officers moved north; among them was the blond agent.

Roughly the same time the federal government mobilized immigration agents in the Southwest, the DeAlvarezes paid a coyote $3,000 and headed north from El Salvador.

Fleeing from enemies

Raphael Armanda DeAlvarez said they left because their lives had been threatened. In the predominately Catholic El Salvador, the 27-year-old evangelical preacher's neighbors refused to tolerate his religious differences.

"Avia estos dos muchachos que eran drogadictos ... There were two boys who were druggies and they assaulted my wife and my child while I was at work," Raphael said through a Spanish-speaking interpreter.

The pastor described a day when his family was forced to climb on top of its roof to flee the boys and their father. But they were discovered and the men threatened to throw a grenade into their home, Raphael said.

"We want to be people of opportunity and teach about God," he said.

Vilma gave another reason: They left for Atlanta because her mother there was sick and had never seen her grandson.

The family sold all belongings it couldn't carry, and for two months followed the coyote on foot and in bus and car. The three walked over a snow-covered mountain range.

"We endured three days without food and it was extra, extra cold," Vilma said through an interpreter. "My son started shaking and going into convulsions."

"The cold," Raphael said, "was unbearable. My son would ask us for food, for a tortilla, and we didn't have it."

"I couldn't walk, I was frozen," Vilma remembered. "I thought my child and I would die and I asked for a miracle from God and he gave us strength."

Eventually, they slipped past U.S. immigration agents stationed at the border, and turned east to Atlanta via Las Vegas.

Captured

Quickly, quietly, the blonde agent approached the DeAlvarezes, identified herself and questioned the family.

Uste es ciudadano? Donde nacio? Are you a U.S. citizen? Where were you born?

The agent handcuffed Raphael. Vilma stood at his side, their tired and cranky son holding her hand.

The majority of airport arrests are made without hassle, while those at the Las Vegas bus station sometimes erupt in foot chases, and at least once resulted in an agent getting jumped by a few illegal aliens, authorities said.

"It's very professional," one Las Vegas immigration agent said. "We realize who they are and they realize who we are and we respect each other."

Agents have confiscated from illegal immigrants methamphetamine, marijuana, heroin, false IDs, Social Security cards and immigration papers. Vilma's phony IDs will be added to the growing pile.

"It's a job that has to be done, but sometimes it's hard to feel good about it," a second agent said. "Sometimes these people really touch my heart, they make so little."

The arrests have gone undetected by some Las Vegas immigration advocates and attorneys, largely because the detained immigrants do not challenge their deportation.

The majority voluntarily sign papers waiving their right to appear before a judge, authorities said. In less than 24 hours, the illegal immigrants board a bus and head south. At the U.S. border, the bus doors open and they walk back into Mexico.

If aliens choose to challenge their arrests or seek amnesty, they are transported to larger immigration detention centers out of state where they post bond or wait in jail to see a judge.

The Las Vegas arrests have been noticed by Mexico's consul-general in Nevada. Ray Vega said Mexican nationals living in Las Vegas have complained of being questioned repeatedly to the point of harassment as they walk through McCarran.

Vega has forwarded the complaints to immigration officials whom, he said, have become more sensitive to Hispanic travelers' civil liberties.

An estimated 95 percent of those arrested at McCarran are from Mexico, said Las Vegas Officer in Charge Christine Davis, adding that agents also have arrested people from England, India, the Philippines, South Africa and Ethiopia.

Plea for compassion

It was 2 a.m. when the DeAlvarezes and other arrestees were transported by bus to the Immigration and Naturalization Service office in southeast Las Vegas.

Agents patted down each person and told them to take off their shoes, which have been used to damage the floors and cell walls. Without question, Vilma and Raphael added their shoes to the pile and slipped on hard plastic sandals.

The couple stood with at least 20 other immigrants, blinking under the glare of harsh fluorescent lighting. Many of those arrested have been living in the U.S. for months, even years. They had returned to their families for the holidays and were captured upon their re-entry, authorities said.

Three agents quickly divided the men from the women, herding the tired and defeated group into different cells. Vilma, carrying Kevin, was separated from Raphael.

From the women's cell doorway, a few could be seen sitting on the floor, heads resting against the wall. Others talked in subdued Spanish. The doors shut and their sentences were cut off.

Then a muffled women's voice slipped under the door and asked in English, "Can I get some toilet paper?"

The cell doors are thick. The unknown woman raised her voice and repeated the question.

But the agents were too busy to respond as they cleared the table, grabbed paper, pens and coffee or soda. Within minutes, the agents were ready to interview the detainees.

One by one the immigrants were asked to sit down and give their history. Vilma was among the first.

She cradled her son in her arms, drawing comfort from his warm little body, motionless in sleep. She gave her name, age, who she traveled with and why she had crossed into America illegally.

Tears trickled down her cheeks and chin, softening her stony features. Her body stiffened and her arms wrapped tightly around her son.

Then the story of her family's persecution and dangerous passage through the mountains spilled out.

"Rogue perdon del Se~nor... I asked forgiveness from God because I know what I'm doing is not right," Vilma said.

She rocked herself and her sleeping son. Words of her family's ordeal caught in her throat and she buried her head in her son's blanket.

She and her family had been so close, only to get caught now.

"I know I've broken the law, but it's necessary that I'm here. I'm in so much pain. If there is any compassion at all available ..."

Bureaucratic rules created the compassion Vilma sought.

While the illegal immigrant from Mexico often is returned to the border within 24 hours of arrest, those from Central and South America are detained because of costs associated with their return, a federal official said.

Las Vegas agents transported the El Salvadoran family to a larger detention center in Florence, Ariz.

A week after the family's arrest, Vilma had posted bail and was in Atlanta introducing her son to his abuela. And Raphael, who is still in jail, planned to join them, authorities said.

In the end, the DeAlvarezes had gotten close enough -- if only temporarily. The government has filed papers to deport them.

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