99)(UTA, 1992) In an abstract from a book to be published by Harcourt Brace & Company is a very interesting account of the typical journey of most of the illegal immigrants that cross through the border of Matamoros/Brownsville. Most of the immigrants cross the river with assistance from a patero. His job is to recruit people who want to go to the U.S. in search of better fortune. The immigrants don’t have to pay anything in advance. Instead, they pay when they arrive in Houston. They cross the river naked, then take a car to Sarita, Texas. In Sarita, they get off the car before the immigration checkpoint and walk for 4 or 5 hours until they have well passed the checkpoint. From there the pateros pick them up and take them to Houston to deliver to their families or friends. A trip normally costs around $800. (Harper’s, 1998) The militarization of the border is keeping many illegal aliens from entering the U.S., but many of them get killed in the process. CNN News reports that authorities recovered the bodies of two people who drowned in the Rio Grande just yards from U.S. border agents in a dramatic scene captured on Mexican television. Rescue crews found the bodies of 26-year-old Walter Maria Sandoval, of San Lucas, Michoacan, and another victim who has not been identified yet. A Mexican TV (Televisa) crew was filming in Matamoros on Thursday, June 8, when three men plunged into the Rio Grande and tried to swim back to Mexico after a Border Patrol squad apparently blocked their entry into the United States. Two of the men quickly began flailing and sinking, as the river's current swept them away. The third man made it ashore on the Mexican side and ran off, Televisa reported. U.S. border patrol agents and Mexican authorities both saw the men drown, but none knew how to swim, the Mexico City newspaper Reforma reported. Scores of Mexicans have drowned in recent years in the Rio Grande, a point of entry for thousands of illega...
