BORDER TOWN CLAIMS PATROL ABUSE

EL CENIZO -- Tensions are escalating between the U.S. Border Patrol and residents of this tiny town that made national headlines last year.

Rocketed uncomfortably into the media spotlight after it adopted Spanish as its official language, El Cenizo, population 1,775, has formed a "truth commission" to investigate allegations of human rights abuses by Border Patrol agents here.

The five-member body is about to get its first formal complaint, from a local resident who says a Border Patrol agent detained him at gunpoint early one morning last week.

"I don't think the Border Patrol has taken the people of El Cenizo very seriously," said José Salvador Tellez, a Laredo lawyer and commission member.

Tellez said he had not seen the complaint and that the 1-month-old commission is still setting up procedures to deal with complaints.

El Cenizo City Councilwoman Flora Barton said the alleged victim is a legal resident who works as newspaper carrier. The man showed up at City Hall on Thursday to say that he'd been detained twice by Border Patrol agents in the wee hours of Sept. 17. The agents didn't ask for his documents, but one held a gun to his head for several minutes.

Laredo Sector Border Patrol Chief John Montoya said Monday the federal government's independent Office of Inspector General is looking into the complaint.

Following the formation of the commission last month, Montoya said he immediately held a meeting with El Cenizo's elected officials and other concerned parties.

"A lot of the complaints were the typical things: The agents are rude, or they're speeding through the neighborhood. I can fix those things immediately," Montoya said.

Montoya said the allegation that an agent showed a weapon, however, is an incident "separate and apart," and it is being investigated.

For the most part, Montoya said El Cenizo residents seem to want better communication with the Border Patrol. He supports that move.

But the area is of legitimate concern to agents, who in the past year have seized 5,756 pounds of marijuana in that region.

While only a small percentage of the sector's total seizures, the street value of the drugs is $4.6 million. About 1,500 undocumented immigrants have been seized in the region in the past year.

"There's not a debate about our authority. We are allowed to patrol any area within the 25-mile border zone. We're not there to assert our rights under the law but to establish a positive relationship," Montoya said.
Councilwoman Barton helped push for the founding of the truth commission.

In July she helped to found a nongovernmental group, Stand United, to address the issues of excessive questioning by the Border Patrol.

"Anywhere you would walk it was stop, stop, stop," said the substitute schoolteacher and nine-year resident of El Cenizo. Immediately after the commission was founded, the federal agency put two bike patrol agents into the community to try to foster better communication.

Until the recent incident, it seemed to be working.

"We could go to the store without a purse, we can just carry a five or 10 dollar bill in our hand," Barton said. But now she says she's apprehensive again.

"I was feeling hopeful ... then something like this happens. It pushes you and says, 'Wake up!'"