Frontera NorteSur April-May  2003

El Paso Bishop Armando X. Ochoa and Las Cruces Bishop Ricardo Ramírez celebrated a Mass in memory of Juan Patricio Peraza Quijada, age 19, who was shot and killed by the Border Patrol in El Paso, Texas on February 22, 2003. In attendance among the crowd of approximately 200 people were Peraza's parents, Cesar Peraza and Irene Quijada. 

Peraza, who had been staying at an El Paso shelter, Annunciation House, was taking out the trash when he was approached by Border Patrol agents. He allegedly fled, threw a ladder at the agents and held out a piece of pipe. Peraza was shot twice and died of his wounds. The Border Patrol contends that the shooting was an act of self defense but the incident is under investigation. Currently, the FBI, the El Paso Police Department and the Border Patrol shooting review team are looking at Peraza's death. 

Peraza's parents told the El Paso Times that their son's life-long dream was to go to the US and work like other men in his family. They also remembered the nineteen-year old's generosity saying that he doted on his younger siblings and used his first-ever paycheck to buy them a Nintendo game set. 

The family was told of Peraza's death two weeks ago and was asked to identify him through a photo of his corpse faxed to them by a Mexican consulate. 

Before coming to the US, Peraza divided his time between his father's house in Mexicali and his mother's home in Puerto Peñasco. 

Peraza's funeral in Puerto Peñasco was attended by hundreds of people, according to Mexican newspapers from around the country that covered his death. 

Binational Women's Day Rally

Other border deaths--including the approximately 93 Ciudad Juárez serial-killing victims--were remembered on March 8, International Women's Day, at joint rallies in El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. Approximately 200-300 people assembled in both El Paso and Ciudad Juárez to protest violence against women on both sides of the border and to celebrate the achievements and advancements of women around the world. Later, the El Paso event attendees walked to Cd. Juárez to have a combined rally with another round of speakers. 

The El Paso rally, organized by the Coalition Against Violence Towards Women and Families, addressed the need to stop violence in the region and to ensure wage parity between women and men. 

Texas State Senator Eliot Shapleigh, an El Paso Democrat, addressed the crowd in both English and Spanish saying that the event was a reminder to those in power about the specific needs of women in the region. He also condemned violence against women in the El Paso-Cd. Juárez community. 

Both the El Paso and Cd. Juárez events were attended by people from New Mexico and a group of students from Wisconsin's Beloit College that were in the region learning about issues that affect the area. 

Fox Criticizes Investigation of Cd. Juárez Murders

Also on International Women's Day, Mexican President Vicente Fox heavily criticized Chihuahua state and local police officials for not solving the Cd. Juárez serial-killings. 

Speaking at a March 8 event in Mexico City, Fox said the rape murders are unpardonable and are acts of barbarism. He called on state and local authorities to severely punish the perpetrators. 

A spokesperson for Chihuahua Governor Patricio Martínez said that the governor was not planning to reply to Fox's comments. 

Source: El Paso Times, March 9 and 10, 2003. Articles by Louie Gilot and Darren Meritz. 

Roger Maier, El Paso spokesperson for the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, told the El Paso Times that there are no plans to close the US-Mexico border in case of war between the US and Iraq. A rumor to the contrary has been circulating in recent days. More specifically, even if the US moved to the highest level of terror alert, which is red, the entire border would not be closed, according to Maier. 

"It would take an exceptional event, specific to one location to close the border at that location," Maier told the El Paso Times. "But the closing of the entire border is not even on the drawing board."

Maier is with the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection which was created on March 1, 2003 when the border inspection functions of the U.S. Customs Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, and the U.S. Border Patrol, were transferred to the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection.

On September 11, 2001, in the immediate aftermath of the attacks on the US, it was also rumored that the entire US-Mexico border had been closed for security reasons. A number of border radio and television stations reported this even though it was false. 

Ciudad Juárez Families Worry about Their Sons, Husbands and Brothers in US-Iraq War

At least three members of the US military stationed in or near Iraq--Oscar Adolfo Gómez Almanza, Enrique Rosalío Carreón Tavares and Benjamín Carrasco González--were born in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, or grew up there, according to an article in the Cd. Juárez newspaper El Diario. 

The Gómez Family

Oscar Gómez was born in Cd. Juárez in 1974 but went to California at age twelve where he later became a US citizen. Now married with three children, Gómez is greatly missed by his family.

Since he last spoke with his family in Cd. Juárez, Gómez has not learned that his grandmother died two days after he headed into combat or that his three-year old son, Andrés, broke his arm while jumping on the bed. His older daughter, Claudia, age six, cries all night for her absent father and has insomnia. His younger daughter, Valeria, eight-months old, still suffers from respiratory problems she contracted over the winter. 

Isabel, Gómez's wife, said she last spoke with her husband a few days before the US launched its attack on the US. "He only told me not to worry, that he was well, although things were getting ugly . . . " she said. An anti-missile defense operator, Gómez told his wife that he is far from hand-to-hand combat but Isabel is not fully confident in her husband's safety, "This morning I dreamed that they had kidnapped him, I felt very bad, and sometimes I lose hope and I want to run away but I have to survive this."

To help their son deal with the situation, Isabel explained to Andrés that his father had to go to work a long way off, in a different country, but that he would return when his work is done. Three-year old Andrés responded to this by saying that his mother should take his father a car so that he can drive home. 

The Carreón Tavares Family

Filomena Tavares cries when she thinks about her son, Enrique Carreón Tavares, the youngest of eleven. Born in Cd. Juárez like the rest of his siblings, Filomena Tavares took her family to the US to find a better life for them. Although she has not spoken to her son since December, she has received news of him through one of her daughters that lives in Los Angeles where Enrique lived before joining the US armed forces. 

Weeping as she spoke, Filomena Tavares told El Diario that Enrique should fulfill his commitments to the military as both a man and a soldier. However, she fears that it was her own admiration of government uniforms that led Enrique to join the military. She also told him once that she would like it if he joined the Army. 

"I don't think I'm going to see him again . . . Why? Because of how things are going . . . he's very passionate, he said . . . he would be one of the first into combat," Tavares stated. 

Despite her bad feelings about her son's future, Tavares says she wants him to return "even if he's missing an arm or a leg, as long as he's alive."

The Carrasco González Family

Although Benjamín Carrasco González was born in El Paso, he grew up in Cd. Juárez, in the Kilómetro 5 neighborhood, according to his brother Javier Carrasco González. Benjamín, age 26, is on the USS Rushmore and left a few weeks before the attack on Iraq began. Left behind in San Diego are Benjamín's wife and two children, Javier Carrasco noted. 

About his family's reaction to Benjamín's involvement in the war, Javier stated, "We're pretty calm now because he's on a ship, he won't go ashore, they're on the sea. It's harder for them to be attacked, they're in less danger than those that are in direct combat, although of course there are still risks."

Javier said that he misses his brother's advice and that it seems like he has been gone a long time already. If he could communicate with his brother, Javier would tell him "we are with you and your shipmates, be cautious . . . and return home safely of course."

Source: El Diario, March 26, 2003. Article by Martín Orquiz.