Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - Paving of Highway 285 may help immigrants

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Tuesday, August 29, 2000

Paving of Highway 285 may help immigrants
More eyes will be on the road, but officials fear many may conceal themselves as road workers
By Jeremy Schwartz
Caller-Times
As the first east-west highway after miles of nothing but scrub and brush, State Highway 285 near Riviera is a popular pickup spot for illegal immigrants who have walked around the U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint on U.S. Highway 77.
   Law enforcement and Border Patrol officials say such pickups happen daily along State Highway 285, as groups of as many as 15 or 20 immigrants rendezvous with trucks and vans waiting to take them north.
   On most afternoons, passing motorists can see jugs of water or soda cans placed on the side of the road as markers for pickup spots.
   But a $2 million construction project to repave State Highway 285 from U.S. Highway 77 to the Brooks County line 13 miles to the west could change the way immigrants and smugglers use the road, officials say.
   "There will be more people on that road who could call in and that's not going to be a plus for them," said Hector Rios, assistant-agent-in-charge at the Kingsville Border Patrol station. "They might be more leery to park out there and wait for loads, but it's kind of early to tell."
   The project will begin in two to three weeks and last for about five months, Texas Department of Transportation officials said.
   Kenedy County Sheriff Rafael Cuellar said the construction actually could be a boon for smugglers.
   "It will probably make it easier for them," Cuellar said. "They probably won't get checked as much because of the construction."
   Cuellar said he expects smugglers and immigrants to take advantage of the situation by dressing up as construction workers and using construction work vehicles for their rendezvous.
   About a year ago, Rios said, Border Patrol agents detained a group of immigrants wearing hard hats trying to blend in with construction crews on State Highway 285.
   As many as 16 workers will be working on the project at any one time, said Bill Cowgill, general superintendent of Weslaco-based Foremost Paving Inc., the contractor for the project.
   Cowgill said that it's not uncommon to see immigrants while doing construction jobs around South Texas, but that his company doesn't have a firm policy in dealing with immigrants.
   "We try to call the Border Patrol when we can," Cowgill said.

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