Undocumented immigrants in 1980 were throwing rocks at Border Patrol choppers and downing them. At least that’s what the San Diego office declared. I was a reporter for the San Diego Union at the time. Fellow reporters and I smelled fake news. How was it possible, we wondered, for anyone to throw rocks upward with enough force to take out a chopper’s rear rotor? Jesus Rangel, also a reporter, and I were assigned to check out the story. We ventured to the border at night. Unsurprisingly, nobody we spoke with had heard of the alleged drownings.
Here is an excerpt from my that reveal what happened next:
Jesús and I dressed in jeans, sweatshirts and tennis shoes.
We walked to a smuggling staging area, some one hundred yards north of the border, near the Río Tijuana canal. About seventy
would-be immigrants milled about. I asked several if they
knew anything about the alleged chopper downing. All
replied they’d heard nothing of the incident. Afer an hour or
so, we saw a group of border crossers quickly walk north,
deep into the United States. Suddenly, they wheeled back
looking shaken. Jesús asked one of the men why they had reversed course.
“Who the f–k are you?” a thuggish-looking man shouted. He pointed a long-barreled pistol at us.
“We’re reporters,” I replied.
“Reporters my ass!” he growled.
“Really, we are,” I said, my mind whirling, trying to calculate if escape was feasible. It wasn’t. The man, who I took to
be a robber who preyed on immigrants, was simply too close
to us. There was no escaping the big pistol.
Angrily, he ordered us to clasp our hands behind our heads and walk toward Mexico. My knees shook as I thought the pistol-wielding fellow intended to kill us out there in the
dark scrubland.
As we walked, I saw other men with pistols rounding up
immigrants. I recognized one as a Baja California State police
officer named Sergio. He had been part of the Baja California
governor’s security detail, and we had exchanged pleasantries.
“Sergio!” I called out to him, and he immediately recognized me.
He asked the gunman to stop, and he walked over.
“They’re okay. I’ll take over,” Sergio said to the gunman.
“What are you guys doing out here?” he asked.
“We’re reporting,” I answered. “The question really is what are you guys doing here?”
Left unstated was the fact that Mexican cops were rounding up immigrants in US territory.
“It’s a coordinated operation with the Gringos,” said Sergio. “We’ve been out here making arrests for a few nights.”
I looked north and saw that Border Patrol agents were
shining bright lights into the brush in an apparent effort to
detect immigrants hiding. Sergio said we had to leave. Before doing
so, I asked again if the arrests were conducted with the
knowledge and backing of the Border patrol. He assured me
they were.
You can get my book here: https://www.amazon.com/We-Were-Always-Here-Americans/dp/1558859136
Ricardo Chavira Chicano 