Agents’ Frustration Led to Attack, Aliens Say

The Immigration and Naturalization Service is investigating allegations by two Mexican men who say that Border Patrol agents punched and kicked them repeatedly and dragged one man behind a three-wheel dirt bike for 100 yards after running over him and breaking his arm.

Border Patrol spokesman Gene Smithburg initially discounted the allegations as “far-fetched,” but in a subsequent telephone interview Friday, Smithburg declined to discuss the matter because it is under investigation by the INS Office of Professional Responsibility.

An official familiar with the case, who did not want to be identified, said the victims will be brought to the United States next week to view a photo lineup in an attempt to help investigators identify the agents allegedly involved in the beatings.

An attorney hired by the men accused the Border Patrol of falsifying the paper work in the case to protect the agents who allegedly beat Ramon Celaya Enriquez, 22, and Jose Valle Rea, 35, on the night of Aug. 3.

The men were interviewed by The Times on Thursday in the Tijuana office of the Center for Migratory Studies and Information, a Mexican group that studies border issues. The men said they are recovering from their ordeal, but Celaya’s right arm is still in a sling and has not been set because the Tijuana hospital that treated him Aug. 5 did not have plaster of Paris for a cast, he said. Valle’s face showed some fading bruises, on the bridge of his nose and forehead, that he said resulted from the beating.

Celaya said he attended the Mexican Air Force Academy in Guadalajara and is the son of a Mexican Air Force officer who died in a plane crash. Valle said that he worked as a topographical engineer in his native Guanajuato before deciding to try his luck in the United States.

Both men said they agreed to pay a smuggler $300 each to take them to Los Angeles, where they hoped to find factory jobs.

The two men said the incident occurred on the night of Aug. 3, when a Border Patrol helicopter found their group of 15 aliens hiding under a freeway overpass, about two miles north of the border. After the group was detected, the guide yelled at them to scatter, said Celaya. As he walked across the freeway, dodging cars, Celaya said that three agents riding dirt bikes descended on the group.

Upon reaching the other side of the freeway, Celaya said, he attempted to run but froze when the helicopter followed him and continued shining a spotlight on him.

“I just stopped,” Celaya said. “There was no way I could outrun the helicopter. It was directly overhead and I put my arms in the air. Before I knew it, one agent was coming at me with his motorcycle and there was no way he couldn’t have seen me. He ran me over, breaking my arm. And as I lay on the ground, the man turned around and ran over my back.”

The agent then jumped off the cycle and began kicking and punching him with his fists and threatened him with a knife, Celaya said. Despite his broken arm, which was beginning to swell, the agent cuffed Celaya’s hands behind his back and hooked the cuffs to the back of the dirt bike, Celaya said. He said that the agent then dragged him in the dirt for about 100 yards to a spot where other aliens and Valle were being held.

At that point, the agent kicked him in the groin, Celaya said. The agent laughed and continued punching and kicking him, Celaya said.

“I thought he was going to kill me and I pleaded for mercy. He (also) ripped my shirt off and threw my shoes away,” Celaya said. “The agent continued to hit me and said they were doing this to teach all Mexicans a lesson . . . so we would not try to re-enter the United States.”

While this was going on, another bike-riding agent was punching and kicking Valle and hitting him on the head with a night stick, Valle said. Celaya said that others in the group were also beaten, but their injuries were not as severe as his and Valle’s. Both men speak some English and said they were cursed in English and Spanish by agents who called them “Mexican dogs.”

According to Valle, the beatings were witnessed by at least two other agents who did not intervene but chose to laugh and ridicule the aliens.

“The agent who was kicking me and punching me in the face said that he was frustrated with us,” said Valle. “He said over and over that he was angry over having to apprehend Mexican dogs night after night. . . . I asked him why he was beating me if I hadn’t done anything wrong to him.”

Aside from attempting to escape when they were spotted by the helicopter, the men said they did not do or say anything to antagonize the agents. According to the two men, the beatings occurred in the field and ended when the aliens were crammed inside a Border Patrol vehicle and driven to a detention center.

Border Patrol officials declined to discuss specifics in the case.

The men’s attorney, Raymond Buendia, said that, judging from descriptions given by the men of the area where the alleged incident occurred, they were probably apprehended near the junction of Interstate 805 and California 117, two miles north of the border.

Celaya, who acted as a spokesman for the two, said that Valle and he were isolated from other members of the group and placed in separate cells when they arrived at the detention center, whose location they could not identify.

At the center, Valle said, he was pressured to sign a voluntary departure form. Celaya refused to sign. Instead, Celaya said that he attempted to exercise his right to a deportation hearing, to be represented by an attorney and to meet with the Mexican consul--options that appear on the form. His requests were denied, he said.

Although they gave their correct names to Border Patrol agents, both men said that agents refused to write their true names on the forms. When he objected to the interviewing agent that his name was not Celaya Rodriguez, but Celaya Enriquez, the agent still insisted on identifying him as Rodriguez, said Celaya. Valle was identified as Valle Raya instead of Valle Rea. Valle’s voluntary departure form has the signature Jose Valle R.

Celaya was deported despite the fact that he refused to agree to a voluntary departure. His form has an “X” on the signature line and “Illit” written next to it. Smithburg said that the abbreviation stands for illiterate, meaning the agents decided that Celaya could not read or write. However, the agent who filled out the form also marked a box that says that Celaya read the form and understood it.

Roberto Martinez, local director of the American Friends Service Committee--a group that investigates complaints against the Border Patrol--said that records falsification is common in cases involving agents accused of abusing their authority.

“We’ve been documenting beating cases for a long time. . . . Most of the time the Border Patrol says there is no paper work in the case, so it couldn’t have happened. But many times they purposely put a wrong name on the form to hide their wrongdoings,” Martinez said.

Martinez and Buendia allege that beatings by Border Patrol agents are common, but most of the victims are Mexican campesinos --farm workers--who, they say, accept the abuse as the price they have to pay to enter the United States.

“But this case is remarkably different because we have two victims who are educated and know what their rights are in this country, even if they were here illegally,” Buendia said. “But most importantly, they had the forethought to keep the paper work they were given. And this gives us a start. Other cases that I’ve handled have been hampered by a lack of paper work, which makes it difficult to prove allegations of abuse.”

According to Celaya, during his sophomore year at the Mexican Air Force Academy, he was picked to complete his senior year at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo. The academies have a student exchange program.

Celaya said that, before his father’s death forced him to drop out of the Mexican academy, he prepared for his senior year at Colorado Springs by learning English and studying U.S. history, including the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

“When they had me at the detention center, I asked the agents about the U.S. Bill of Rights . . . didn’t they matter to them? It seems to me that the Bill of Rights are basic human rights, but they didn’t seem to care that they were violating these laws,” Celaya said.

When the men were deported--Celaya barefoot and shirtless--Valle agreed to help his injured friend. The two men were sleeping on Tijuana streets until two weeks ago, when they were directed to Jose Luis Perez Canchola, director of the Center for Migratory Studies and Information. Perez assisted them in finding a place to stay. Other Tijuanans gave each man a change of clothing, Celaya said.

Both men said they have visited the United States on tourist visas in the past. They said this is the first time that they attempted to cross into this country illegally. One way or another, they hope to come to the United States again to work. Celaya, who said he is the oldest child in his family, wants to work for a couple of years to help support his widowed mother before finishing his studies at the Mexican Air Force Academy, where he learned to fly.

Valle said that he wants to work in this country just long enough to save enough money to start his own topographical engineering business in Mexico.