n increasing numbers, Hispanic immigrants are putting down roots in the Roanoke Valley. They're pouring concrete, opening hair salons and filling classrooms. Some employers, meanwhile, are attributing their success to this new labor pool. In this occasional series, The Roanoke Times explores the local impact of the national debate about immigration.
During a busy Friday night dinner waiter Jesus Malaga serves an armload of food to their Anglo customers. Malaga came to America four years ago from Mexico and, like many Mexican immigrants in Roanoke, first landed a job at El Rodeo.
'Catch and release'
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At an August documentation clinic sponsored by the Honduran Embassy, Nohemi and her husband, Roberto Serrano, wait to receive official Honduran passports, which many immigrants use to open bank accounts.Nohemi and Elizabeth traveled as part of a group, going from one clandestine location to the next, often moving at night and hiding out during the day. They walked part of the way, sleeping in bushes and in culverts and occasionally under a roof — all of it arranged by the coyote and carried out by a series of helper guides.
Everything was revealed to the migrants on a last-minute, need-to-know basis: mode of travel, where they would sleep at night, what they would eat.
They rode buses through Guatemala and parts of Mexico, walked stretches for days at a time and sometimes rode in private cars. “Nohemi would stay awake all night long watching me sleep, protecting me,” recalled Elizabeth, now 21, a green-card holder and a freshman at Virginia Western Community College.
They each carried a single towel, as much cash as they could manage and three changes of clothes, reserving the last to wear after their wet journey into Texas across the Rio Grande. Nohemi had managed to save the equivalent of $50 for the trip.
- Because of insufficient holding facilities, many migrants caught crossing into the United States were released, usually the same day, with a summons to appear at a later date in deportation court. The practice was widely known as “catch and release.”
- Migrants typically ignored the court-issued “notice to appear,” referring to it as a “notice to disappear.”
- On Aug. 23, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced the end of the longstanding immigration practice. The new “catch and detain” policy calls for holding non-Mexican illegal immigrants caught in the United States until they can be deported to their home countries. Apprehended Mexicans are immediately sent home.
- Chertoff said a crackdown this summer bolstered by 6,000 National Guard troops stationed at the Texas-Mexico border deterred thousands from illegally crossing the Mexican border. Border Patrol statistics show a drop of about 20,000 migrants caught crossing the border compared with last year.
Mexico was the worst. Mexican patrolmen, known as federales, tried to ferret out the Central Americans headed to the United States, demanding pesos in exchange for letting them pass. Guides told the migrants to burn their Honduran passports, evidence of their home country, and to speak with a Mexican dialect.
“You had to train your mind,” said Elizabeth, who hid money in her bra and her birth certificate under the sole of her shoe. “You’d have to say 'Andale’ for 'Hurry up’ ” instead of the Honduran word: “Apurate.”
“Andale” was a critical word. One night near Veracruz, word spread that a Mexican gang was feuding with the Honduran coyote. The gang was coming for the migrants to get payback, and the travelers might be robbed, raped or killed.
Nohemi and Elizabeth hid in the back of a camper with 30 other migrants in their group. They sandwiched together like slaves on a ship — trying not to move or breathe — until the truck finally left.
Through it all, Nohemi prayed for strength.
Her prayers were answered five weeks into the trip, when she first spotted America.
As she prepared to cross the Rio Grande, she saw the American flag waving above a golf course in Eagle Pass, Texas.
Elizabeth and Nohemi were to cross the river on an inner tube, sealing their dry clothes in a garbage bag. It was hot — the thermometer would hit 101 by mid-day — and they couldn’t wait to feel the cool, rushing river.
The crossing was brief, five minutes, tops. It might have been enjoyable if not for the constant fear of la Migra — border patrol guards. Were the middle-aged golfers really undercover immigration agents? Nohemi wasn’t sure.
But no one stopped the women until after they boarded a bus bound for Houston. At the time, border patrol agents were sending half of the apprehended migrants back to their home countries. The rest they detained briefly, in a process known as “catch and release,” because of insufficient holding facilities.
Border patrol agents held Nohemi and Elizabeth for three hours before releasing them with a summons for deportation court, or a “notice to appear,” in an Eagle Pass court the following month. Like most migrants, they ignored it.
Back at the bus station, Nohemi and Elizabeth were out of money. A border patrol agent who’d spotted them earlier in the day recognized them and even talked the station agent into letting them re-use their original bus tickets to Houston.
A van arranged by the coyote took them from Houston to Roanoke, where they met Rosa in a Melrose Avenue parking lot. It was the evening of May 14, 2000.
“Mi niña, estás grande!” Rosa said, embracing the child she hadn’t seen in five years.
My child, you’re big!
It had been 44 days since Nohemi left her own children, and it would be years before she’d see them again. But already, she couldn’t wait to say those words.
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