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American Morning
Many Mexicans Risk Lives in Effort to Cross U.S.-Mexican Border and Capture American Dream
Aired September 05, 2001 - 10:51 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: The immigration issue is of particular importance to thousands of Mexicans who come to this country illegally. Many risk their very lives in an effort to cross the U.S.-Mexican border and capture the American dream.
CNN's John Vause has more now on that dangerous crossing.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On a routine weekday morning at the San Ysidro border crossing in California, a teenage girl found hiding behind the rear passenger seat in a secret compartment. She was sealed in, and had been in that the small cramped space for almost an hour. Outside, the temperature more than 90 degrees.
ROB KNOX, INS PROSECUTING OFFICER: You can see the construction of the compartment. They've welded it out, and they fit it with some type of carpeting or padding, the person placed in there. INS officers at this border are not easily surprised. In the last few months , they even caught a man sewn inside a seat. a 12-year-old boy inside a dash board, an 11-year-old in a gas tank, others hidden under the floor, covered by plywood.
ADELE FASANO, INS DISTRICT DIRECTOR: This type of compartment, we refer to as a coffin compartment.
VAUSE (on camera): Why a coffin department?
FASANO: Because of the shape and dimensions of the compartment and the way the individuals laid in. Often the top would be nailed down or enclosed in some way. It's taken up to an hour on some occasions to dismantle the vehicle to get the people out.
VAUSE (voice-over): Adele Fasano is the district director with the INS in San Diego. She say human smugglers charge about 1,500 for a ride across the border in a secret compartment. In this case, a nearly married couple found hiding under the hood next to the car's engine.
VAUSE (on camera): How hot would it get inside here.
FASANO: This is particularly dangerous for heat and burns, because of course the engine gets very hot, and we find many individuals with serious burns. We know that the temperature inside the hood can get as high at 250 degrees.
VAUSE (voice-over): But more common, just hiding in the trunk, three men caught here, another car stop, three women and one man were found. On average, here a car is stopped and caught smuggling immigrant twice every hour. In all these cases, it's the drivers who are charged.
KNOX: The number one reason for prosecution is the endangerment to the person concealed, if it's danger. If they're in danger, if they're hurt, we're going to prosecute them.
VAUSE: But the illegal passengers usually just held for 12 hours and then walked back across the Mexican border.
KNOX: So far this year, at San Ysidro, more than 7,000 have been caught trying to sneak into the U.S. hidden in a vehicle, up almost threefold in just three years.
FASANO: There's a lot of reasons for why the trends change. We are very good at detecting the fraudulent documents. And we have a strong enforcement program in place, and the individuals are finding that they're being detected more readily. So they switch their approach to being in trunks, or in especially built compartments in vehicles, to avoid detection.
VAUSE: But for many, the Desperation to get a relatively well- paying job in the United States is worth the risk, worth the risk for Ricardo, an illegal immigrant living in California. He made the two- day journey over the mountain, but his pregnant wife stayed behind in Tijuana.
She's already tried crossing the border with fake papers, and then in a car trunk. She was caught both times. She will try again, Ricardo says, but next time hidden in special compartment. So far, he says, he spent $5,000 .
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She needs to be here, you know. And we risk our lives in order to get her a better life.
VAUSE: Aren't you worried she might die?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm worried, but you know what, to be living in Mexico it's worse than to risk your life.
VAUSE (on camera): San Ysidro is the biggest border crossing in the world. On an average day, 43,000 cars travel from Mexico through to the United States. On a busy day, that number can hit 60,000. And the coyotes play the numbers. At peek time, overwhelming inspectors sending car after car across the border, and the U.S. court system can't deal with the majority of those arrested.
VAUSE (on camera): How many get prosecuted?
FASANO: We do about 1,000 a year. VAUSE: Out of?
FASANO: Well, we arrest 70,000 people each year. But of course not all those individuals are actually smugglers engaged in moving people across the border. Those are the migrant themselves. But in the mix would be several thousand individuals who are responsible for transporting individuals.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you mind if I peek inside?
VAUSE (voice-over): At times, it seems like a game, the INS versus the smugglers.
KNOX: They hit us at difference times and they figure out what we're doing, and we have to adjust our game to beat their game.
VAUSE: U.S. border inspectors say it's inevitable they will pull dead bodies from secret compartments some day, and they say there is no way to know if someone has successfully crossed the border only to have died just a few miles down the road, a dangerous game that clearly many believe a good job and a new life are worth playing the odds.
John Vause, CNN, San Ysidro, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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