HEADING SOUTH? READ THIS

Nineteen Days In A U.S. Border Prison Wasn't In The Plans.

The prison yard denizens resembled a casting call for HBO's gritty TV
drama, Oz.

Tattoo-covered toughs pumping iron in the corner; Mexican gang-bangers
from East LA circling around like sharks inside the razor wire-ringed
field under the watchful eye of Khaki-uniformed guards. A 6'5" balding
Russian guy named "Gordo" hustling phone cards and chocolate.
Sometimes fights erupted.

Steve Eyre just stood with his back against a chain-link fence smoking
a Marlboro. It still seemed surreal to him - like a scene from the
movie Midnight Express. But this wasn't a movie set.

"My first time out in the yard I didn't move I was so scared. I was
just thinking to myself 'I'm going to survive. I'm going to mind my
own business.' It's Oz all the way, except worse - you've got more
people and they don't speak English." As the ash grew on his Marlboro,
Eyre had a hard time reconciling the fact that just a day earlier he
had been shopping and drinking $2 Corona's with his family in Los
Algodones, Mexico.

Now the North Van father was dressed in a blue detainee uniform,
orange socks and slip-on sneakers and locked inside the Immigration
and Naturalization Service (INS) El Centro Detention Facility in El
Centro, California.

Built in the 1970s, the barracks-style detention center was originally
constructed to hold illegal immigrant workers for a few days. But, as
U.S. federal prison populations swelled, it became a warehouse for
illegal immigrants from places such as Cuba, Laos and Vietnam. Some
were being held for more serious crimes, including murder. The
facility, has in the past, been the site of riots, protests and other
violence.

This was the last place Eyre expected to find himself when his family
left North Van for a three-week vacation that started Dec. 25 and had
already included a stop in San Francisco for a boxing-day football
game between the 49ers and the Bills. The family went on a nighttime
tour of Alcatraz Prison the next day. Next, the family packed their
maroon-coloured Chevy Tahoe SUV and traveled to Arizona, where
temperatures hovered in the '70s.

Once in Yuma, Arizona, a family from Edmonton staying at the same
hotel told them about a quaint Mexican town just across the border.

On Dec. 30, after a fun-filled day in Los Algodones, Eyre, his wife
Hollee Krassey and their two 14-year-old kids returned to their
air-conditioned hotel room in Yuma. The next morning the family
returned to Los Algodones for some last-minute shopping. Less than an
hour later, they presented their passports over at a small
U.S.-Mexican border called the Andrade Port of Entry. Eyre handed his
to the blue-uniformed border patrol agent, just as he'd done on his
past 100 or so trips to the United States. The agent scanned the
passport, looked at his computer screen, and paused. The agent had
discovered that Eyre, 47, had been convicted of a pot possession
charge in 1976, when he was just 18.

"Wait a second, not so fast," the agent said.

The Canadian family was led into a holding tank, where they sat
alongside a Philippine family from Vancouver and a young Mexican man
in shackles. Hours passed. The grim-faced border agent, whose
supervisor wasn't on duty because it was a holiday, said they were
attempting to contact Canadian officials about Eyre's drug possession
charges.

Three hours later, Hollee, an employee with The Progress' sister
publication North Shore Real Estate Weekly, returned to their room at
the Best Value Hotel in Yuma to be with one of their children who'd
stayed behind when they left for their quick trip across the border.

She was told to call back in an hour to find out when she could pick
up her husband.

"When I called they said they're not releasing him. They're processing
him to a detention facility," she recalled. "I lost it emotionally. I
didn't understand what was going on."

She was told her husband would have a deportation hearing the
following week. "We naively thought that by Tuesday something would
happen."

Eyre, meanwhile, was in the process of being transported, still
wearing a tank top and flip-flops, to an INS detention facility.
There, he received a prison-issue uniform. "I was thinking 'This is
crazy,'" Eyre recalled Monday.

He spent his first night inside the overcrowded facility in a cement
holding cell with a dozen or so mainly Mexican detainees. "I was
scared to death," he recalled.

Next, he found himself being led into a football-field sized cellblock
where he would dwell with 70 other detainees, mostly from Mexico and
South America.

"I knew eventually I'd get out. I just kept telling myself 'I'm
innocent.'

Two days is a real long time, you never really got to sleep; you had
to keep one eye open."

Soon, however, he began to realize he was at the mercy of the INS and
wondered how long his stay would last. Each day started at 5 a.m. with
lights on. The TV in the corner of the barracks was turned on at 6.
The detainees, who ranged from immigrant Mexican farmers to hard-core
gangsters, were usually herded into a mess hall for breakfast at 7:30
a.m., which usually included ham or beans and coffee and juice. (He
quickly learned to detect the taste of certain foods that the inmates
claimed had been drugged to make them sleepy.) After breakfast,
detainees were led back to the cellblock to wait for their 60-minute
session in the yard. He killed time playing chess and dominos, trying
to get paperwork organized for his hearing, and thinking about his
family. He never let his guard down.

"I always kept my back against the wall. I wasn't comfortable with
sleeping," said Eyre, who managed to avoid any violent confrontations
inside the facility. Still, it was being herded out into the "yarda"
for one hour that made him the most nervous. There he felt most
susceptible to violence.

Eyre had worked on oil fields and drank in some pretty rough biker
bars in his life, but they seemed like Sesame Street compared to the
yard.

"You have to protect your little space," he said. He'd been challenged
a few times but held his ground, knowing the lions would spot a limp.

Eyre's Robert DeNiro-inspired stone-cold look managed to give him some
room in the prison yard. "I'm glad they seemed a little scared of me
because I hadn't had a fight since Grade 7," Eyre admitted.

After the yard, they went back to the cell and waited for a lunch,
which typically consisted of beans, salsa, chicken and usually fruit
and a salad.

The French salad dressing was one of the small comforts he clung to -
in the same manner the character from Escape From Alcatraz found
solace in having a pet mouse. "It sounds strange, little things like
that, but you understand what these little things can do."

As Eyre struggled to survive on the inside, his wife was busy trying
to contact an immigration lawyer and the Canadian Department of
Foreign Affairs. She managed to contact the Canadian Consulate and was
told that her husband's prior conviction meant that he needed a waiver
to travel in the United States - something they were totally unaware
of.

Travelers to the U.S. who have a criminal record - regardless of the
offence or how long ago it occurred - may be refused entry, she
learned. Pardons issued by the Canadian government are not recognized
in the U.S., and travelers with criminal records are supposed to
contact the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to find out about
admissibility. Those ineligible to travel into the country may apply
for a waiver.

As she continued the frustrating ordeal, the couple flew their
children home and Steve's sister flew down to help to try to get him
out of prison. Hollee also received some support from the office of
North Vancouver Liberal MP Don Bell.

Getting Eyre out of the prison, however, would be an even bigger
challenge than anyone expected. "We didn't know the process," Hollee
explained, meaning that weeks passed as they attempted to get the
appropriate paperwork in place for an immigration hearing.

She did manage to get in touch with the North Van RCMP to get a letter
stating that Eyre had no outstanding warrants for his arrest and that
he had been arrested in 1975 for possession of marijuana and went to
court a year later, paying a $300 fine.

Finally, when Eyre appeared before a immigration judge on Jan. 18 - 19
days after he was first detained - he was informed that it would take
another deportation hearing, about three weeks away, to have him
released in the U.S.

There was, however, an option. He could be dropped at the U.S.-Mexican
border and walk into Mexico. The only problem: When detainees were
returned to Mexico by bus they were usually met by the police - and
there was no telling what would happen to Eyre. The judge and Eyre's
lawyer agreed that he would board the bus and be dropped off near the
border to enter Mexico on his own. Hollee would pick him up. It was a
dangerous plan, but it was really the only option.

"I was really scared," recalled Hollee, who waited with the engine
running in a hardscrabble part of Mexicali as she looked for any sign
of her husband.

Eyre, meanwhile, had to navigate through a series of mazy
garbage-strewn tunnels and staircases, wondering if he was about to be
picked up by the Mexican police. Fortunately, another detainee from
the bus helped him through the tunnel system. "It was a dark, scary
place. I would have never found my way out without this guy." Eyre
emerged from the darkness and saw the idling Chevy. It seemed unreal.

There was no Hollywood movie-ending hugs or kisses. Just relief. They
got a room at the Crown Plaza Resort Hotel around midnight. Steve
showered and then ordered a steak, potato and salad. Hollee pulled out
the bottle of champagne she had been saving for the New Year's
celebration, which also happened to be their fifth wedding
anniversary. Two days later, he boarded a plane bound for Canada via
Mexico City while his wife drove the Chevy back to B.C.

It wasn't until his plane touched down at YVR that Eyre finally felt
as though the harrowing vacation experience was finally over.

Eyre said he wanted to tell his story as a cautionary tale to all
other travelers - especially those U.S.-bound.