http://www.expressnews.com:80/pantheon/news-bus/crime-crisis/1602bdeb.shtml
Drifter search finds immigrants
By Maro Robbins Express-News Staff Writer
A false alarm in the hunt for fugitive drifter Rafael Resendez-Ramirez led authorities Tuesday to 40 undocumented immigrants hiding in a dank basement and a dilapidated guest house.
Shortly after noon, a woman flagged down a deputy constable. She claimed she had seen a man lurking around a house on the 300 block of Chicago Boulevard who resembled the rail-hopping suspect wanted for questioning in relation to at least seven slayings.
The deputy alerted San Antonio police. An officer dispatched to the house didn't find Resendez-Ramirez, but did discover dozens of men on the property.
"Obviously, it wasn't a party or a quinceañera or anything, so he called the border patrol," said Marcelino Alaniz, a special agent with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service's Anti-Smuggling Unit.
Federal agents found mattresses, blankets and cardboard spread along the dirt-lined basement.
A guest house in the cluttered back yard held similar refuse, as well as what appeared to be several days' worth of empty food cans and dirty dishes, he said.
"Where the people were, it's squalor," Alaniz said.
Neighbors said they watched in surprise as 40 handcuffed men emerged from the property and were escorted away by agents in three white vans.
Officials will try to determine the country of origin for the men, and said most of them probably will be deported.
Santiago Sanchez, who lived across the street, said he had believed only eight men lived in the large house.
Neighbors said the men worked as roofers. And Santiago speculated the morning rain had kept the men home when the police officer arrived.
"They never bothered anybody," he said. "They just went to work and came back."
Alaniz said agents also arrested a man and a woman who claimed to rent the house, suspecting them of harboring, if not smuggling, the immigrants.
However, neither has been charged, and officials declined to release their names.
VCT HOME