By María Eugenia Guerra
Publisher

It was news to me that our ranch in San Ygnacio and the abutting culvert under Hwy. 3169 were the site of an alien smuggling ring. Big news, since I hadn't seen the scorch marks of any visiting spacecraft, concentric circles in the nopal flats, or little green men.
I have, however, run into little men in green polyester, my favorite federales, the peach fuzz-faced jovenes of the United States Border Patrol, those brash, not-so-dashing, privacy-invasive armed agents who in their grossly misdirected and unsupervised mission across the borderlands believe they really are stemming the tide of illegal immigrants while shouldering the charge of the War on Drugs. [NEWS FLASH: We are not going to win the War on Drugs until Americans remove themselves from the user end of the business equation of buying and selling drugs.]
I began to piece together this aliens-on-my-ranch story listening to the three men in green who on Christmas Eve inside the service gate of our ranch talked to each other and completely ignored my presence. I was extended the courtesy they would offer a gate post. Here I was in the company of two recent arrivals to South Texas from Crackerlandia and a Mexican American, all three engrossed in the details of a recent foray into my ranch, none of them acknowledging that I might have something to say, or that I was entitled to say anything.
One of the Sierra-Memos (hillbillies) and the mexicano agent had just finished tearing down my caliche road, raising dust and noise, spitting rock, and well exceeding the posted 20 mph speed limit that we ask the oil service trucks to obey -- tearing down my road and tearing up a vehicle which was furnished, I'd like to note, gratis my tax dollars and yours.
The pale, small guy who held the gate open for the other two had posted himself at the gate while the other two drove over our ranch. The gatekeeper who drove his own government-issued SUV striper left the vehicle running for the entire time he held open the gate that keeps our horses off the highway. As his vehicle emitted noxious fumes and particulate matter into the air from the burning of the fuel you and I bought him, I tallied what his presence might be costing. If he earns somewhere in the vicinity of $40K a year, he cost you and me about $100 for the gate job if you don't include benefits and retirement or the cost of operating his vehicle. The yahoos inside the ranch, one of whom finally apologized for exceeding the speed limit when I asked if a life-or-death event was occurring on our property, likely cost about the same each.
Christmas Eve.
Cracker One was telling Cracker Two that he'd spotted tracks and had seen where the grass was bent down.
I was fairly certain they were tracking my hunters or that he'd spotted the place where I had walked with friends a couple of days earlier when we dug up Drago Root and other plants from the monte. I told them I didn't appreciate their interruption of our Christmas Eve quietude or our hunting operation, which is a key source of revenue for the ranch.
A couple of weeks ago an agent in a white SUV entered the ranch through my gate, the one to my house, the one I can see from my kitchen window. He didn't drive. He tore across the dam and up a hill so quickly that all I saw of him when the dogs made a ruckus was dust and his tailgate.
I caught him on the flip-flop and he seemed mystified that I had anything to say to him. I told him I valued my privacy enormously and asked why he'd used my entrance to the ranch rather than the service gate. They all like you to ask a question like this so they can cite chapter and verse about being able to go anywhere they damn well please in a 25-mile corridor along the border. He waved a set of keys at me and said access was not a problem for his agency. I told him I knew the law and asked why my ranch when we are four miles from the border and landlocked by other ranches that travelers would have to traverse to get to mine.
I don't believe the BP agents in this sector go onto the adjoining ranches, which would make sense if you were tracking large groups of travelers from the river, and I pointed this out. The agent said, "You've got that really nice caliche road that goes all the way to the back." I wanted to tell him I knew of a ranch down the road that had a really nice paved road and another with a really nice landing strip.
The agent was polite, un mexicano, a good apple. Our encounter had all the potential for a heated debate on why I believe his agency vastly misspends taxpayer dollars. Lucky for him, I was on deadline.
The encounter made me wonder what really do they teach these young fellows besides a minimum of Spanish and no cultural guidelines? What do they really know about the culture, values, and the way of life of the inhabitants of the ranchlands and cities of the border, before they are turned loose on the ranchlands with taxpayer purchased weapons and expensive vehicles so they can tear up the roads and senderos of the taxpayers who fund them?
Giving the Christmas Eve agents the benefit of the doubt, I walked to the culvert to look for prints and evidence of the traveling of immigrants -- the tell-tale abandoned milk jugs used for water, discarded sardine cans, a bit of refuse or clothing. I looked for the signs of traffic, a beaten path, distended perimeter fence wires, staples pulled from cedar posts. Nada, except for fresh mountain lion scat, which put a little spry in my step.
I would bet money that all the late night traffic on Ranch Road 3169, which ends up in Aguilares, isn't just drilling rig traffic. I would bet that some of it is more likely recently arrived product from Mexico or South America, received at the riverbanks near San Ygnacio, and being moved with more frequency than human beings recently arrived.
Christmas Eve. What were the exigent circumstances that necessitated their visible, voluble, and palpable presence on my ranch on what felt more like a training exercise or a lark than a mission to save lives, stem the flow of drugs, or turn the tide of illegal immigrants? Have I failed to read between the lines of the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, the part that bestows upon me the self-evident and inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the part that I believe says that my solitude, privacy, and enterprise has value on Christmas Eve or any other eve? How comforting is the thought as you shut off the lights , turn the deadbolt, and ease into slumber that armed strangers have keys to your ranch, the place that is your home?
Pobrecita, so misguided, you might feel inclined to say to me, so unaware of all the good things the USBP does in our community. It's true -- I've carried a grudge since 1966 for not being named USBP Student of the Month. If I owned a tire or muffler store or an alignment shop or a transmission repair shop, I would probably really appreciate their presence. I'd probably buy their coffee or let them hunt on my ranch.
In the meantime, however, the USBP should get its own ranch to train these culturally obtuse, obtrusive, ill-mannered youngsters on how to close gates; how to keep cigarette butts and food wrappers and beverage bottles in their cars and off the ranchland floor; and how to talk to the landowners. They could pay me an insultant's fee to act the part of the irate rancher. I've had some practice.