Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Fostering a cruel trade

Friday, May 16, 2003 | 6:13 a.m.

Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.

WEEKEND EDITION: May 18, 2003

WHAT DID I EAT FOR BREAKFAST THIS MORNING? It's too late in the day for me to recall along with many other happenings during the past years of my life. Strange as it may seem, many other people my age also have better recall of what happened when they were children than they do of their hurly-burly adult years. This is probably because during learning years everything new made a greater impression on our still uncluttered minds. Of course, we can't discount the effects of physical and mental changes during the often-misnamed "golden years."

Last week a story from Victoria, Texas, jolted my memory back almost 70 years. The first paragraph of the Los Angeles Times newspaper story told readers:

"Eighteen illegal immigrants died after they were crammed into a stifling trailer without food or water and abandoned at a remote truck stop in South Texas, officials said Wednesday. The victims included a 5-year-old boy who died in the arms of his father." Later I learned the boy was 7 years of age.

After reading that report, the little boy wouldn't leave my mind. When I was his age, all of our family participated in the planting, cultivating and harvesting of our crops. During drought years the production was somewhat limited but there wasn't less heat and dust. We knew that at the end of the day there was a dip in a nearby creek and maybe time to catch a trout or two.

Also we knew that after dark a hot meal and a comfortable bed were waiting for us. The crops would also be waiting for us the next morning. If a cyclone threatened us during the night we had confidence our parents would get us up to spend some time in the house cellar or a nearby root cellar.

Those are memories that the little boy in the truck trailer will never be able to share with his children. Even if he had lived longer, they probably wouldn't have been years as secure as our family. He would experience long days in the field with a crowded shack to sleep in at night. The field he worked in one day wouldn't necessarily be the same field or even the same farm he would work in the next day. Certainly the crops wouldn't be owned by his parents nor would the shack he slept in be theirs.

What that Hispanic child had of equal value was the love of a father who died with him in his arms. It must have been a horrible death, but as he snuggled in the arms of his father, he knew everything would be OK.

The dead child's father had no idea of the danger he and his offspring faced as he sought a better life for the family. He had heard of opportunities across the border and was willing to make the long trip and work long hours to provide for his family. That other people would be so cruel to leave them to suffocate and die in a crowded and hot trailer was beyond his comprehension.

Where had the father been promised a job? At a hotel and casino? Harvesting crops? Laboring on a construction job? Sweating in a large laundry? I don't know why he used his last pesos to pay for a brutal death near Victoria, Texas. Maybe he believed that whatever was waiting across the border was better than life in Honduras or Mexico.

I'm tempted to ask the Mexican government why it hasn't done more to secure its border with a nation still feeling the impact of 9-11? Added to this has been the increased flow of dangerous narcotics from Mexico during recent months. The Mexicans would probably answer that there wouldn't be the flow of drugs and illegal immigrants if the U.S. wasn't loaded with drug users and businesses hiring illegal immigrants to work for minimum pay and few, if any, additional benefits.

A spokesman for Mexico President Vicente Fox is quoted saying that the smugglers who left the immigrants to die should suffer the "most severe punishment." If the president really believes this, then the smugglers should be tried, convicted and executed in Texas. I don't know of any simple answer to this complex problem. Mexico can start by doing its share in stopping the flow of illegals and dangerous drugs and narcotics. That government could also help by enforcing regulations requiring foreign corporations operating there to provide decent wages, housing and health benefits for Mexican employees. Our country can start by seeking out and prosecuting businesses that encourage the use and abuse of illegal immigrants. Also, the serious prosecution of drug peddlers should again become as important as our war against terrorists.

In the meantime that little boy dying in the arms of his father is a crime crying for both punishment and prevention.

archive