Ricardo Chavira Chicano

I am not a Mexican immigrant, nor were my parents. Yet, we have been treated in a barbaric fashion on display by ICE agents. It is impossible for me not to relate to Latino migrants who have taken to the streets in Los Angeles.  What follows is an excerpt from my book.

In the fall of 1980, the San Diego office of the Border Patrol warned that undocumented immigrants had taken to throwing rocks at agents. Not only were agents at risk, but so were the Border Patrol’s helicopters. The stone-throwing mobs had recently downed a low-flying chopper by directing rocks at the rear rotor, reported Border Patrol officials.

The editors and many of us reporters smelled fake news. How could throwing rocks upward with enough force to bring down a helicopter? Fellow Mexican Union-Tribune reporter Jesús Rangel and I decided to find out.

At that time, the territorial dividing line between Mexico and the United States was quite porous. There was no fence just east and west of the port of entry. However, that did not mean people could stroll into the United States, as is commonly believed. Border Patrol agents would set up a defensive human line about five hundred yards north of the border. This created a broad no-man’s-land between the actual border and the Border Patrol defensive line. This in-between land served as a staging area for undocumented agents and smugglers. Plenty of Border Patrol agents were deployed, and buried sensors were set to detect footsteps here and there. Agents patrolled the defensive line aboard SUVs, ATVs, and even on horseback. Typically, dozens of immigrants were apprehended, while others eluded capture by finding holes in the Border Patrol line, usually with the help of smugglers.

Jesús and I dressed in jeans, sweatshirts, and tennis shoes.

We walked to a staging area approximately 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. After 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 fuck 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, whom 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 hiding aliens. 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.

As we walked away, we saw a line of Mexican army trucks and soldiers taking the immigrants who had been apprehended to be escorted back to Tijuana.

Two days later, our story detailing the Mexican police incursion was published. It created a predictable stir and stern denials from the Baja California cops and the Border Patrol. A year later, after he had resigned from his post, the commander of the Baja California State Police asked to have lunch with me. During our amicable meeting, he apologized for having called me a liar. He said the operation was off the books and had to be denied. It was plainly illegal to have Mexican police operate on US soil with the help of their American counterparts.

A few months later, I had another unpleasant border encounter. This one involved my then-six-month-old son, Ricardo Jr. It happened on the day Ronald Reagan was elected to his first term as president. I was assigned to work that night, and my parents came down for the day. My parents and I decided to have lunch in Tijuana, just a couple of miles from where I lived. I had brought Ricardo Jr. along.

In those years, a passport was not required to visit a city bordering Mexico. Returning, we drove up to the San Ysidro port of entry. We declared our citizenship to the Immigration and Nationalization agent, who was satisfied we were citizens. But he was not sure about Ricardo.

“Whose baby is that?” he asked. “Mine. He’s my son Ricardo Jr,” I replied.

 Ricardo Jr. is and was a few shades lighter than I and had blue eyes. I understood why the officer suspected he was not my son.

“Well, can I see his birth certificate?” he asked. “No,” I replied, “I saw no need to bring it with me.”

“Yer gonna have to go over to that small building and talk to the agents there,” he said, pointing. “They’ll check it on the computer. .And, you can park over by the chain-link fence.”

As I walked toward the building, a tall US Customs agent strode rapidly toward me and yelled, “Hey, you can’t park there!” He was within two feet of me as I began to explain what his colleague had told me. I felt tension and anger rising because of the agent’s belligerence. What happened next sent me into a rage.

“I told you not to park there!” a now red-faced agent screamed. He used his index finger to poke me in the chest, punctuating every word forcefully.

“Get your fucking hands off me!” I shouted.

Instantly, agents came rushing to us. My parents got out of the car, and my mother held Ricardo.

A short agent, whom I took to be a supervisor, heatedly told me I was being disorderly. His southern accent, rightly or wrongly, told me I was dealing with a rabid racist. I shot back that the man who poked me in the chest was the one who needed to be brought into line.

“You need to understand we’re federal officers, and you need to respect us,” he demanded with a deep drawl.

“I understand you are federal officers and public servants,” I countered. “But as a taxpayer, I pay your salary.”

“You don’t pay my salary, Pancho.”

I felt gripped by a mighty fury. “Yes, I do, Elmer,” I answered.

My father, now himself angered, ripped into the officer. “You redneck motherfucker! Don’t start that Pancho shit with us.”

By this point, the agents were on the verge of assaulting us. The guy who leveled the Pancho insult had clenched his hands into fists, ready to fight at the first sign of movement. I fully expected the agents to attack. We would go down in a hail of punches, but I didn’t care. In fact, deep down, I wanted to strike these racists.

The short agent then announced, “That’s it. You’re going to    leave the baby here and go get his birth certificate.”

“Go fuck yourself,” I said heatedly.

“Then you’re all going to jail!” he threatened.

“Yeah, yeah, just go ahead and arrest us. Believe me, you’ll regret it.”

Just then, a middle-aged Latino officer stepped up and asked if we had a photo of the baby. “If you do, then the baby must be yours.”

My mother, consumed by nervousness, presented a photo, and we were free to go just like that.

The Pancho guy, however, had one parting shot: “Hurry up and get out of here before we change our minds.”

I had to shoot back, “Fuck you. Go ahead and change your minds!”

I’ve never been more enraged than I was during that confrontation. It was a needless, racist assault on a family who had done nothing wrong. I felt angry the rest of the day.

A few days later, I told a federal public defender about the incident. He said we were fortunate the agents had not beaten us and then charged us with assault.

In the next couple of years, I would have other unpleasant experiences with US border officials.