CANDELARIA BRIDGE

[SHANEA]

U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION SENDS CANDELARIA BRIDGE REMOVAL ORDER TO WRONG LANDOWNER

U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION SENDS CANDELARIA BRIDGE REMOVAL ORDER TO WRONG LANDOWNER
Sunday, May 25, 2008, 04:23 PM
Posted by Administrator
In a strange turn of events Chief Patrol Agent John J. Smietana, Jr. of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection on May 20th. Fed Exed the following letter demanding Fred Nelan of the Coal Mine Ranch tear down or block the Candelaria footbridge in 60 days. While Fred is an owner of the Coal Mine Ranch, he owns no property on or near the river at Candelaria or has anything what so ever to do with the bridge.

The letter reads as follows:

300 Madrid Street
Marfa, TX 79843

U.S. Customs and Border Protection

May 20, 2008

Presidio Properties
760 Rinconada Lane
El Paso, Texas 79922

To Whom It May Concern

The purpose of this letter is to request that you facilitate the U.S. Border Patrol’s enforcement duties by removing the bridge on your property near Candelaria, Texas that spans a channel of the Rio Grande or securing it so that no one can cross illegally from Mexico into the United States. Title 8, United States Code, Section 1357(a) authorizes Agents to enter upon private lands located within 25 miles of the border without a warrant to pursue the investigation of illegal activities. Your property is within that 25-mile area and due to the close proximity of your land to the border, it is likely that unlawful entries into the United States occur on your property. Because we must prevent the illegal entry of terrorists, aliens and/or drug traffickers into the United States, I am asking that your assistance to either remove the bridge or at the very least, secure it so that no one can cross over from Mexico into the United States.

Based on patrolling activities of Agents in the area, it is known that numerous people cross illegally into the United States in the area of Candelaria, Texas. Therefore, within the next sixty days, please initiate measures immediately to secure, seal or completely remove the bridge from your property to ensure that you are not aiding and abetting these individuals illegal entry into the United States. See18 U.S.C. 2 (“Principals”); see also 8 U.S.C. 1321 (“Prevention of Unauthorized Landing of Aliens”), 1324 (“Bringing In and Harboring Certain Aliens”), and (“Aiding or Assisting Certain Aliens Aliens to Enter the United States”).

We appreciate your assistance and will continue to avoid interference with any rights you have with respect to your property. Our goal is to work with all persons who live along the border in a peaceful and cooperative manner. As discussed above, however, we cannot allow your bridge near Candelaria, Texas to provide as a means for people to illegally enter the United States.

If you have any questions, please contact Loraine Reynolds, Patrol Agent in Charge, U.S. Border Patrol, Marfa Station, Marfa Sector, at P.O. Box I (300 Madrid St.), Marfa, Texas, 79843 or via telephone at (432-729-4250. We look forward to your compliance and support of our law enforcement mission.

Sincerely,
(signed)

John J. Smietana, Jr.
Chief Patrol Agent

cc: Asset Forfeiture Office
A. U.S.A. James J. Miller, Jr.


The above only leaves Fred and a lot of us wondering what in the world is going on. How is this achieving the Border Patrol's stated goal to, "work with all persons who live along the border in a peaceful and cooperative manner"? Gj

[dave2]

This reminds me of the story about the land owner who got a notice from the government that there was an illegal dam on his property and that he had to contact contractors to remove the dam.  His reply was that the dam contractors were beavers who took no notice of his dam request to remover their dam and that the dam control agents from the government would have to handle the dam situation on their own dam time.

[SHANEA]

   
Border Patrol Sticks Another Brick in the Wall

CANDELARIA BRIDGE ISSUE RESPONSE FROM MARTIN LUJAN-CHEIF OF STAFF FOR TEXAS REPRESENTATIVE PETE GALLEGO

[SHANEA]

Texas Monthly:  Access Denied

If you have never been on the road going NW out of Presidio to Ruidosa and Candelaria, it is worth the drive.  It provides the access route to Pinto Canyon and Marfa via. the backroads.  Drive slow, there is a lot to see and there is an interesting old cemetary out that way that we stopped at.  Chances are you will see and maybe even stopped by DHS/CBP as they have at the least road sensors out that way.

since no one can afford a cell phone and, anyway, reception is pretty much a joke.

As border security becomes a more prominent issue, footbridges—six in the Big Bend region—have come to be seen as an affront to policy.

  I know where two were, don't know about the others...

After the Border Patrol closed the unofficial crossings at Boquillas and Lajitas in 2002, the lively tourist destinations across the river from the two Texas outposts became ghost towns.

  How does the 2008 political candidates view this?

A ten-minute walk from the town’s main street to the Rio Grande and I could see why someone young and agile could afford a degree of ambivalence. At the riverbank, about five feet upstream from where the bridge had stood, footprints in a deep trench led down to the river and up the other side. Looking around at the thick, twelve-foot-tall salt cedar that provided cover for almost 150 miles upstream and 90 miles downstream, it was clear to me that a conga line could cross through the water anywhere and avoid unwanted attention.

the Marfa sector of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which is responsible for this area, has been able to recruit about two hundred agents. They come from all over the U.S., lured by $35,000 starting salaries that increase to $75,000 after three years.

   

Recently, agents had stopped him and asked if he had crossed. Peсa replied with a laugh, “I tried, but the river was too full of people.”

   

and it wasn’t difficult to see why he’d risk a run-in with the Border Patrol: An offender without proper documentation is fingerprinted and interviewed, then often released at the bridge in Presidio—a mere detour from a San Antonio del Bravo resident’s intended path back home. (According to the Marfa sector public affairs office, the consequences may include jail time.)

If enough people would just cross over to Santa Elena or Boquillias, then something would change.  I admit, I'm a chicken.  The threat of a huge fine and prison is enough to deter me.  Of course, if there were a million BIBEr march, then that would be a different story...

Dismantling the bridge, he said, was a necessary measure to deter a more threatening activity: drug trafficking. And though smugglers can cross the border anywhere, a footbridge could be seen as a welcome mat. A person with a backpack of marijuana can leave San Antonio del Bravo and walk up the treacherous terrain of the Cuesta del Burro Mountains and through the desert to U.S. 90, twenty miles north of Candelaria. When he arrives, two or three days later, he stands to make $500 to $1,500 for his work. 

Most of the time, sans this rainy season, you can easily DRIVE across just down the road from Candelaria after it turns to dirt.  There were obvious tire tracks several years ago from the crossing.   Nothing to it, might not be able to do it in a Miata, but a 2x2 pickup would have zero problem.  I think this was the crossing, near the gauging station, that Drug Lord Pablo Acosta used to use.

Some project that marijuana smuggling will only get worse now that the bridge is gone: Closing unofficial crossings, they say, causes towns to evaporate and drug smugglers to move in after any potential informants have left. But when I spoke with Huffman, he strongly disputed that theory. “We were here for many, many years, and we never got the phone call from those little towns saying, ‘The big drug load is coming through.’ We had to catch it ourselves,” he said. Most Candelaria residents I spoke to agreed with Huffman: They valued their lives too much to call someone they didn’t know and blow the whistle on a potentially violent criminal.

Be sure to check out:  Texas Monthly: The Road to Nowhere:  For a singular West Texas adventure, take a drive through Pinto Canyon to tiny Candelaria.

and check out the interviews @ Interviews

[rgibson]

Do not try to cross following the tracks in and out on the other side as you can see.  Through the years have made several hundred or more various crossings of the rio by fording.

However, the way to come out on the other side is to make a horse shoe type turn while in the river or you will be under water.  Always waited and followed someone who was from San Antonio de Bravo or Candelaria.  They just know how to turn in the rio, just never could get enough nerve by myself.  Once, no one came and had to drive back to the foot bridge and walk into town.

Of course, now, the problem is not crossing but coming back.  Have driven to San Antonio de Bravo from OJ and it is not a very good road.