http://www.star-telegram.com:80/news/doc/1047/1:NE71/1:NE71121899.html
Updated: Saturday, Dec. 18, 1999 at 23:01 CST
Many undocumented immigrants wary of making journey home for Christmas
By Diane Smith
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
Going home for the holidays is a risky proposition for Berto.
The undocumented immigrant plans to celebrate Christmas with relatives in Mexico, then return illegally to the United States. He knows that one misstep could jeopardize the life he is building with the $2,000 a month he earns as a waiter in the Metroplex. But Berto says he is not too concerned. He plans to flash his Texas driver's license at the border if questioned.
"I've always crossed illegally, without papers. It's never been a battle," Berto said.
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The 30-year-old is among thousands of immigrants -- documented and undocumented -- making holiday treks back to Mexico or Central American countries. International bridges at the U.S.- Mexico border typically become congested with cars, trucks, buses and vans packed with people, clothes, bicycles and furniture.
"We have a lot of volume this time of the year at the Mexican border," said Manuel Sloss, area port director for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service at the Gateway International Bridge at Brownsville. "There's a lot of undocumented that are going back home. They are coming from all over the country."
For these travelers, Christmas isn't Christmas without posadas, rosaries and depictions of the birth of Jesus. They have a yearning for ethnic foods such as homemade tamales and Mexican bocadillos (appetizers), despite the possibility of being caught by immigration officials or being robbed.
"The family unity drives us," said Berto, who has lived in the United States for eight years and each Christmas usually travels to the border city of Reynosa, Mexico, with his wife and son.
"We go to church. We take presents for the children," he said.
For years, U.S. border communities have witnessed the flight of paisanos and transmigrantes -- Mexican citizens living in the United States who return home to visit relatives and Central Americans traveling farther south.
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The travelers are predominantly from Mexico, although people from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua also make the journey.
Their trips herald the Christmas season, which in Mexico and other Latin American countries stretches through December to Jan. 6 -- Three Kings Day, or Epiphany. Many immigrants travel by bus or van to Mexican cities such as Celaya, Guanajuato and Matehuala. Others take direct flights to return home in time to celebrate La Navidad (Christmas).
In Fort Worth-Dallas, the exodus south often begins at bus stations and at mom-and-pop van services, where a steady buildup leads to big business the week before Christmas.
"Every day people go. Usually people leave on Fridays and on weekends," said Erasmo Sosa, manager of an El Conejo bus station on Hemphill Street in Fort Worth.
Friday was one of El Conejo's busiest days. About 300 people bought tickets south, Sosa said. Earlier in the week, travelers lined up in the bus station parking lot with suitcases and gifts. The lines were long Friday, as six buses prepared to leave from the station.
U.S. immigration officials said they are gearing up for the exodus. To ease congestion in Brownsville, much of the processing will occur across Los Indios International Bridge about 20 miles northwest. Spanish and English signs directing vans, buses, trucks and cars to Los Indios dot U.S. 77 near Raymondville, Sloss said. Guest stations staffed by Mexican officials will help travelers along the way.
Immigration authorities said they plan to step up enforcement in January to keep people with fake documents from returning to the United States. Inspectors said they will check documents thoroughly, look for people behaving suspiciously and ask routine questions. If something appears amiss, travelers could end up in a more intense interview with authorities. Away from the bridges, U.S. Border Patrol agents will stand guard as part of Operation Rio Grande.
"We brace ourselves when they are going through and we brace ourselves when they are coming back," Sloss said.
"I'm pretty sure some slip by, but we catch a lot of them at all the ports of entry. The whole border gets impacted with the return of the immigrants," he said.
Returning to the United States could require resourcefulness. Undocumented immigrants often devise elaborate plans with the help of friends and relatives to cross at border points that are not heavily guarded.
"I crossed it many times. I know how difficult it is. I know what you suffer without water or food," 56-year-old Mateo Ovalle said.
Ovalle, a legal immigrant living in Dallas, said he always returns to Matehuala in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosí to celebrate Christmas.
"I don't spend a Christmas outside my country," he said. "Even when I was illegal, I found a way to get home to Mexico with my family. For Hispanics, those days are very important."
After missing Christmas in Mexico for three years, Carmen, an undocumented immigrant living in Irving, saved $1,500 in 1998 to buy gifts and to make a van trip to the state of Coahuila.
She took precautions to return to her Irving apartment. She said she used her tourist visa to re-enter the United States and told immigration officials at the border that she was going shopping with a relative who is a U.S. resident.
"I didn't return," she said.
To get past a Border Patrol checkpoint farther north, Carmen waited until there were no guards present. A relative with a cellular telephone called Carmen's driver to tell her when it was safe to pass.
"Sometimes when you're lucky, they [Border Patrol agents] are not there," said Carmen, who is married and has two children.
She said she isn't taking chances this month.
"This year I am not going because we heard there might be an amnesty," she said. "I don't want to take a risk. I don't want to be without money."
For some, crossing between Mexico and the United States is simple. They walk or drive across an international bridge one day and later slip back into the United States unnoticed.
Lalo, a 21-year-old undocumented worker from Mexico City who has lived in Fort Worth for seven months, was planning a trip home early this month.
"I want to visit my family. I'm thinking of coming back [to North Texas] and earning more money," he said.
The thought of being detained by Border Patrol agents doesn't faze Lalo, who shrugs off the risk.
Some workers spend hundreds of dollars to hire smugglers known as coyotes, who sometimes hide their clients in vans or trailers as they are transported north. But U.S. immigration officials said that coyotes sometimes place immigrants in life-threatening situations and that they often take their clients' money and abandon them en route.
"We are concerned for the immigrants in the sense that they are leaving, but they are coming back. In coming back, there are dangers," said Tomas Zuniga, spokesman for the INS Central Region.
Some immigrants said they are concerned about falling prey to thieves or to corrupt Mexican government employees who know they are carrying large amounts of money or gifts.
"They know this is the time people want to go back to their loved ones, especially now with the new millennium," said Laura Ovalle, Mateo Ovalle's daughter and a legal immigrant living in Dallas.
Immigrants who carry wrapped gifts risk having them unwrapped, inspected and, in some cases, taken away, Laura Ovalle said. "We wait to cross Kilometro 26 [a checkpoint past Nuevo Laredo, Mexico] and then we start wrapping the presents," she said.
Luis Ortiz-Monasterio, Mexico's consul general in Dallas, said problems sometimes arise at the border. He said he urges travelers to make formal complaints when Mexican government employees do something questionable. Travelers should refrain from offering money, he said.
"In general, both sides are guilty of irregularities," he said, emphasizing the need for travelers to obey the laws of both countries.
Still, many are compelled to make the journey, as much for their needs as for the needs of less-fortunate relatives or friends back home.
"Families here just worry about their families over there," said Nataly Hernandez, a 15-year-old Mexican- American who lives in Fort Worth and is now in Mexico for a traditional quinceañera -- a sweet 15 birthday celebration in Latin America.
The spirit of giving is alive in Mexico, immigrants said.
"Whoever comes, you feed. If you have extra clothes, you give away what you have," Mateo Ovalle said. "Even though it's expensive, people will make the sacrifice. They'll stop eating some things to save money for Christmas."
Bertha said her Catholic traditions are too deep to ignore. Last week, the 24-year-old Mexico native who lives in Irving took a van to Coahuila to participate in religious ceremonies commemorating the birth of Jesus. She plans to portray the madrina, or godmother, of baby Jesus.
"I'm going to return for this," she said. "I would feel bad if I didn't return."
On Christmas Eve, Bertha said, she will care for a figure of an infant Jesus clothed in a diaper. She will pass out bags of sweets to friends and neighbors who come to recite the rosary and to view her mother's Nativity scene.
Then she will try to return to this country, despite a tourist visa that expires in early January.
"Only God knows if I'll make it back," she said.
Diane Smith,(817)685-3801
