Source: Houston Chronicle, page 1D Contact: Sunday, 10 Aug 1997 Headline as printed: "Blurring the line" By THADDEUS HERRICK Copyright 1997 Houston Chronicle San Antonio Bureau BOQUILLAS DEL CARMEN, Mexico Hundreds of miles to the west in El Paso, Border Patrol agents blanket the TexasMexico boundary. To the east in Brownsville, the government is launching a similar strategy of deterrence, relying on fences, floodlights and more manpower to turn back illegal immigrants. But at this crumbling frontier hamlet across from Big Bend National Park, Mexicans come and go between the two countries without ever seeing a federal agent. The United States is only a 60second boat ride away. For decades, this was legal encouraged even, by the U.S. National Park Service. Indeed, Big Bend was conceived as a sort of international peace park, a place where Mexicans and Americans could come together to behold the steep canyons, vast desert and imposing mountains of their shared border. U.S. authorities considered the crossings at Boquillas and Santa Elena 50 miles up river informal ports of entry. That classification nourished the tourist trade, with 30,000 or so Americans each year boarding aluminum skiffs to spend an afternoon in Mexico, drinking beer, buying trinkets and soaking up the color of the border. The 200 residents of Boquillas, on the other hand, have long crossed to buy essentials at the nearby park store, where they also pick up their mail. After all, the closest Mexican city to this town of adobe homes and cement block buildings is Melchor Muzquiz, a rigorous sixhour bus ride away. But last year, inspired by the war on drugs and the push to curb illegal immigration, Congress mandated that crossings cease at Boquillas and about a dozen other informal ports of entry between Del Rio and Presidio. The new immigration law reinforced a 1986 U.S. Customs rule that requires people entering the country to do so at an official crossing. "You must cross at a designated port of entry," said Gurdit Dhillon, director of customs in El Paso, which is responsible for the Big Bend area. "Anything less is a violation of the law." Still, on this summer afternoon, a day when the charcoal thunderclouds gathering over Mexico's 8,000 foot Sierra del Carmens manage to hold the heat to double digits, the people boatsman David Padilla ferries back and forth are little worried about breaking the law. Penalties range from a $5,000 fine to prison time, but so far no one has been cited. Last year a customs official in Presidio threatened a crackdown, but neither his agency nor the INS has acted. The Park Service, meanwhile, is lobbying to keep the crossings open. "Now we're in the United States," says Padilla as he paddles his skiff from the rocky flats on the Mexican side into midstream. He is smiling because he knows that despite the proclamations of U.S. officials the international boundary still means little here. These are the borderlands, not quite Mexico and certainly not America. Padilla maneuvers his boat across the swiftly moving river to a muddy landing on the U.S. side surrounded by brushy mesquite and dense tamarisk. Residents of Boquillas travel for free. Tourists pay $2 round trip. Almost all of the people in Boquillas make their living off of tourists. At the river's edge on the Mexican side, a dozen or so men stretch out on the rocks listening to conjunto music from a nearby pickup truck. They rent mules ($3) and horses ($5) to tourists who want to make the mile or so trek into town. For a price, they'll even provide a car. "Without the crossing, we'd have no work," said Juan Francisco Valdez, a middleaged Mexican on the river bank. In town which boasts a restaurant, bar, guest house, schoolhouse and two churches locals sell everything from fossils and fool's gold to bean burritos and lukewarm beer. (There is no electricity.) Oldtimer Joaquin Luna sings corridos at a table in the Park Bar, taking turns with Dorita Sanchez, a hardluck expatriate, who strums Willie Nelson tunes. Visitors can stroll from one end of town to the other in 15 minutes. At Falcon's Restaurant the menu consists of burritos, tacos, Carta Blanca, Corona and Coke. At the nearby hot springs, where locals still bathe, the water temperature is always 105 degrees. Earlier this summer the crossing at Boquillas was closed to park tourists for several weeks while authorities investigated a drowning. Mexicans still could get to the park store, but with no American visitors in Boquillas, they had little money to spend on the U.S. side of the river. "We suffered," said Felipe Sanchez, a tour guide. "We had no money for things like milk and gas, so we did without it." If Boquillas suffered when tourist traffic was stopped, it would most likely perish if the crossing were closed altogether. Presidio is the nearest legal U.S. port of entry. But even though it is only about 100 miles away, the roads are so bad you literally can't get there from here. To the east the closest official port is Del Rio, a 14hour bus ride. Few people here seem to think that journey is in their future. But U.S. Customs, championing a 1995 antidrug effort known as Operation Hardline, is not open to interpretations of its law. Authorities already have closed the bridge at La Linda, another informal crossing 20 miles down river, in the wake of a drug bust. "We have a mission to keep narcotics out," said Dhillon. "Unfortunately the majority of people suffer because of a small minority of willful violators." The Immigration and Naturalization Service has been less aggressive, assigning just two Border Patrol agents to the entire park. But "everyone (including U.S. citizens) entering the United States must apply for admittance at a legal port," said Daniel Kane, an INS spokesman in El Paso. "If not, we call that an illegal entry." Fortunately for Boquillas, it has as an ally the National Park Service, which sees the Mexican border villages as geographic treasures with economic and cultural links to Big Bend. It has launched talks with customs in Washington, D.C., in an effort to keep the crossings open. "We had no idea this law was on the books," said Valerie Naylor, a spokeswoman for Big Bend National Park. "Now that we do, we're trying to get some resolution." Though customs officials talk tough when it comes to the law, they say the agency is unlikely to staff the informal crossings anytime soon. Dhillon says the plan currently in the works is to enlist the help of the park rangers in customs duties. Officials at Big Bend, who have more pressing concerns in a park that sees some 300,000 visitors annually, say they are not interested in policing the border. "We don't intend to do their job," said Naylor. Still, park officials are advising visitors heading to Boquillas and nearby Santa Elena that if they go to Mexico, they can't legally return to the park by boat. But there is no sign on the 20mile stretch of road that winds from Big Bend's visitor's center down to the parking lot across the river from Boquillas. There is, however, a sign at the entrance to the lot itself. It says "Bienvenidos a Boquillas." Welcome to Boquillas.