Low Coffee Prices Force Smuggling

By GIOVANNA DELL'ORTO ..c The Associated Press

PHOENIX (AP) - One of 12 survivors of a border crossing that ended in the deaths of 14 illegal immigrants who wandered five days in the scorching Arizona desert was charged with smuggling the group from Mexico.

Court documents say Jesus Lopez-Ramos, 20, and another man, who was not named, helped the immigrants cross the border and abandoned them after three days.

The papers claim Lopez-Ramos and the other man took $90 from the group and promised to return with water. Lopez-Ramos didn't return and was found within 5 miles of Interstate 8, the group's destination.

The charges against Lopez-Ramos, of Sonoita in the Mexican state of Sonora, include bringing in illegal aliens, conspiracy to bring in illegal aliens and harboring illegal aliens, court documents show.

If convicted, he could receive up to life in prison or the death penalty, an Immigration and Naturalization Service news release said.

INS spokesman Ron Rogers the group that included Lopez-Ramos was rescued from the southern Arizona desert east of Yuma. They were the survivors from a larger group of 26 that attempted to cross 70 miles of desert in temperatures reaching 115 degrees.

Neither court documents nor INS officials could explained what happened to the other man who went for water but did not return.

By the time the group was found by search parties, the sunburned survivors were suffering from severe dehydration and related kidney damage. Doctors who treated them at the Yuma Regional Medical Center said they were within hours of dying had they not been rescued.

Some of the survivors said the guides carried extra water but refused to share it, said Javier Perez, the Catholic priest who visited them at the hospital.

Three survivors of the border crossing were released into U.S. Border Patrol custody Monday, eight over the weekend and a last survivor on Tuesday.

The Border Patrol was holding the survivors, ranging in age from 17 to 35, at the Yuma County Adult Detention Facility as material witnesses.

James Metcalf, the Yuma-based attorney representing all the survivors except Lopez-Ramos, said they will be transferred to a federal detention center in

Florence on Wednesday.

Metcalf said he plans to ask for their release in the United States on parole or their return to Mexico as soon as possible because of the hardships they endured.

Border Patrol officials said they must check the immigrants for any past deportations or criminal activity before they will be turned over to Mexican authorities and sent home. The presiding judge also has to determine if he wants them to testify at Lopez-Ramos' trial, Metcalf said.

Eduardo Rea, a deputy consul at the Mexican Consulate in Calexico, Calif., declined to comment on the arrests when contacted by The Associated Press, saying the consulate was only dealing with the return of the 14 dead to Mexico which was planned for Wednesday.

The immigrants, who were from the Mexican states of Veracruz and Guerrero, crossed the border into southern Arizona in the Cabeza Prieta National

Wildlife Refuge.

Family members in the poor, highland villages of Veracruz said the immigrants were seeking a better life after plummeting coffee prices left them no other choice but to illegally enter the United States to look for work.

Crackdowns at more popular and safe crossing points along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico in the Southwest have pushed immigrants to attempt crossing in dangerously remote areas.

Since 1998, 991 people died crossing the border, most from heat exposure or drowning, according to the Border Patrol. More than 5,000 others were rescued by agents.

The tragedy has prompted renewed pledges from U.S. and Mexican authorities to work together to find economic and political solutions that would reduce illegal immigration, to find and prosecute smugglers,and to spread the word that crossing the border can be deadly.