{"id":164692,"date":"2016-07-01T08:28:44","date_gmt":"2016-07-01T14:28:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=164692"},"modified":"2017-01-10T06:48:40","modified_gmt":"2017-01-10T13:48:40","slug":"a-border-rancher-explains-the-art-of-survival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2016\/07\/a-border-rancher-explains-the-art-of-survival\/","title":{"rendered":"A border rancher explains the art of survival"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_164697\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-164697\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Ruperto-Brighter_jpg_800x1000_q100-771x515.jpg\" alt=\"Ruperto Escobar\" width=\"771\" height=\"515\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Ruperto-Brighter_jpg_800x1000_q100-771x515.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Ruperto-Brighter_jpg_800x1000_q100-336x224.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Ruperto-Brighter_jpg_800x1000_q100-768x513.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Ruperto-Brighter_jpg_800x1000_q100.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Todd Wiseman \/ The Texas Tribune<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ruperto Escobar on his South Texas ranch along the Rio Grande, the international boundary between the United States and Mexico, in April 2016. For generations, smugglers have used his family&#8217;s ranch to move people and product across the border, and Escobar doesn&#8217;t see that changing anytime soon.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>ESCOBARES, Texas \u2014 There are two good hours of sunlight left when Ruperto Escobar points his Ford Super Duty pickup toward the Rio Grande and begins driving down his bumpy ranch road.\u00a0It\u2019s bumpy on purpose, from strategic neglect, because Escobar doesn\u2019t want to make things easier for the smugglers. It\u2019s already easy enough.<\/p>\n<p>On the way down he explains his ancient ties to this land, extending a sun-beaten hand toward his late grandmother\u2019s stucco house off to the right, then to his cousin\u2019s on the left. Escobar\u2019s forebears\u00a0founded the town that\u2019s named after them, and he can trace his ancestors back to a 1767 Spanish land grant. Basically everything on this side of Escobar Elementary is theirs.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article originally appeared in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2016\/06\/28\/border-rancher-and-art-survival\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Texas Tribune<\/a>,\u00a0a nonpartisan, nonprofit media organization that informs Texans and engages with them about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues. It\u2019s part of the news organization\u2019s \u201cBorder on Insecurity\u201d series.\u00a0The Texas Tribune is taking a yearlong look at the issues of border security and immigration, reporting on the reality and rhetoric around these topics. <a href=\"http:\/\/apps.texastribune.org\/bordering-on-insecurity\/\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up to get<\/a> story alerts.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>As the maroon truck moves past fields of hay and alfalfa, Escobar notices the crops could use a little attention, but the truck doesn\u2019t slow down.<\/p>\n<p>It dips and rises a few times until, suddenly, a swift and muddy-looking river, fat with spring rain, comes into view.<\/p>\n<p>A smile appears beneath the white cowboy hat. Escobar\u2019s twinkling eyes stare at the watery divide between the United States and Mexico.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWow, we\u2019ve got some water on the Rio Grande now,\u201d he says before the truck comes to a stop near his irrigation pump. \u201cThat\u2019s good.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Rio Grande remains the ranch\u2019s lifeblood, without which his crops would wilt and wither away. It also happens to be a crossing point for drug traffickers, human smugglers and other assorted contraband pushers seeking uninspected passage between Mexico and the United States.<\/p>\n<p>For generations, the Escobars have made their uneasy peace with it. Tequila went north during Prohibition. Today, it\u2019s mainly cocaine, pot and cheap labor. Tomorrow, it may be something else.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s mostly the disturbances at night, early hours in the morning, that\u2019s when they do their stuff, waking you up because you hear these sounds or the dogs are constantly barking,\u201d he says. \u201cWherever there is a border, there are problems.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Escobar is standing only a few feet from the water as he says this, at the rear of his parked truck. He motions to the spot where the National Guard set up camp two years ago to help deal with a surge of immigrant crossings. Then he points down to the fresh tracks left almost daily by the U.S. Border Patrol or, increasingly, the Texas Department of Public Safety \u2014 flush with cash now from a state Legislature that promises to secure the border because Washington won\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>Here, at this precise moment on this April day, Escobar believes all the ramped-up security has paid off. Lately, he says, things seem to have calmed down on the borderland piece of his 600-acre ranch.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI haven\u2019t seen any traffic here in the last two years or so,\u201d he says. \u201cThe highway patrol and border patrol are out here constantly.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Armed confrontation<\/h3>\n<p>Escobar has a head full of stories about the unpredictable and sometimes startling nature of border living. Fully naked women have made the short swim from Mexico to his ranch. Boats of every kind have ferried people north through here. In the southbound traffic, he\u2019s seen everything from television sets to tractor parts.<\/p>\n<p>Escobar has quit counting how many times traffickers have rushed through\u00a0his ranch toward Mexico with the law in hot pursuit. The last time, they bailed out of a Suburban fully loaded with marijuana. It landed in the Rio Grande and sat there for a day, with only the roof protruding from the water, before authorities could pull it out with giant cranes. His gate was run over by the traffickers, and then re-run over by the cops.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI stopped fixing gates. I stopped putting them up,\u201d he says. \u201cThey ram into them.\u201d He\u2019s also told his county commissioners to quit fixing his road, to just leave it in a state of disrepair.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI climb real slow,\u201d he says, grinning mischievously. \u201cBut the smugglers, when they come through here, they come in doing 50 miles an hour and they\u2019ll bust their axles, they\u2019ll bust their wheels.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s one of the only ways Escobar can fight back. He\u2019s pretty realistic about that. He doesn\u2019t like the smugglers and the dopers. He wishes they didn\u2019t use his property like it was their personal harbor. He wishes he didn\u2019t have to feel so violated, so ripped off every time he pays his taxes. But what are his options?<\/p>\n<p>He tells the story of an armed confrontation on his ranch \u2014 one of two he can remember. This one happened about two or three years ago, not long before the National Guard came and temporarily restored order. One night, his workers came to him and reported trouble down by the pump. They were trying to shut it off by 10 p.m. to meet state water-use regulations.<\/p>\n<p>Two armed men told them to \u201cforget it\u201d \u2014 to leave and not come back that evening.<\/p>\n<p>Escobar flashes a knowing look. He says one of the armed men told his workers, \u201cget out of here, this is ours tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What were they to do? What about the pump? Escobar says he told his workers to just let it go until the diesel ran out. The next day his fields were covered in water, but everyone was still alive, and whatever operation the armed men had conducted was over and done with.<\/p>\n<p>This is the dilemma Escobar fervently wants his interviewers to contemplate.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat do you do? Do I run to the police and tell them, \u2018Hey, go catch them, they\u2019re there?&#8217;\u201d Escobar asks. \u201cThey\u2019re going to know who did it. They\u2019re going to know who fingered them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Casting your lot with the bad guys doesn\u2019t make much sense, either. Were he to agree to work with them \u2014 and he\u2019s been asked plenty of times \u2014 the police would figure it out eventually. He\u2019s got that speech down pat.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019ll get caught one of these days and then that\u2019s it,\u201d Escobar tells them. \u201cI don\u2019t want you to be telling the cops that I used to be in cahoots with you on this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He figures the system is working. No one in his family has ever been harmed despite years of living next to a patch of Mexico where mafia shootouts happen nightly\u00a0and thousands have vanished without a trace.<\/p>\n<p>He knows the code. It\u2019s the code his ancestors used, and the one future Escobars will no doubt employ: \u201cYou just have to swallow your pride, sort of, and say, well you know what, just don\u2019t bother us. Just leave us alone and we\u2019ll leave you alone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Escobar admits it \u201cmay not sound too brave,\u201d but who is going to come rescue him if he tattles?<\/p>\n<p>Growing pensive, the rancher stops to let the words sink in. He swats at the incessant gnats that also find the river a big draw.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat do you do?\u201d he asks again. \u201cYeah we curse them, but that\u2019s about as far &#8230;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He doesn\u2019t get to finish the sentence. He is interrupted by a sudden disturbance on the water: A shout. Movement.<\/p>\n<p>Escobar turns his head and looks upriver.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMira,\u201d he says, lapsing into the language he learned from his parents. \u201cLook.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>&#8216;We are not policemen&#8217;<\/h3>\n<p>There is a large inflatable raft behind Escobar now. It is filled with people and they\u2019ve just made an illegal landing on the U.S. river bank \u2014 <i>his<\/i> river bank, as far as the property rolls are concerned \u2014 perhaps a football field away. Escobar, 72, finds himself walking briskly through the brush with a reporter and photographer from The Texas Tribune. And with every step, the idea that ramped-up \u201cborder security\u201d is denting the flow of illegal traffic here becomes more illusory.<\/p>\n<p>The woods are thick in this direction, not like the clearing where the water pump sits. The immigrants seem to have been swallowed up in a thick grove of Carrizo cane, the tall, bamboo-like reeds that thrive in shallow waters. But they can\u2019t be far. They didn\u2019t just disappear.<\/p>\n<p>The rancher stops and listens.<\/p>\n<p>They are on the move now. And as they rustle through the thick brambles and thorny mesquite trees, the crunching sound beneath their feet gives them away.<\/p>\n<p>There are roughly 15 in all. There are heading north, moving through the trees and brush as fast as they safely can. All appear to be adult men. One pulls his black shirt up to hide his face. Others don\u2019t seem to notice, or maybe just don\u2019t care, that they\u2019re being watched. There\u2019s a flash of white \u2014 from a small plastic grocery bag one is carrying. Otherwise they all appear to be traveling with nothing but the clothes on their backs and the ball caps on their heads. They are gone in seconds.<\/p>\n<p>Two of the men stay behind, though. And now both are standing 35 feet away from Escobar in a grassy clearing between the cane-choked riverbank and the woods where the immigrants just disappeared. One of the men in the clearing is dressed in camouflage. The other is wearing a green shirt and cap that match the tropical vegetation. They have on life vests, and both are looking warily, uncertainly, at Escobar and his media friends. The rancher and his guests are looking just as warily back at them.<\/p>\n<p>These are the <i>coyotes<\/i> \u2014 smugglers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t take video,\u201d the one in camouflage says to the owner of the property, not that ownership means anything in a moment like this.<\/p>\n<p>Escobar responds in a conciliatory tone.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are not policemen,\u201d he says in Spanish.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAh, good,\u201d the smugglers answer. \u201cThank you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They visibly relax and take a few steps toward Escobar. They both look to be in their late teens or early 20s.<\/p>\n<p>Escobar speaks again.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey are just <em>reporteros,<\/em>\u201d he says. Reporters. The word seems to give them reason to pause again and the one in camouflage repeats his demand, more politely this time, that the filming cease. And so it does.<\/p>\n<p>With the cameras turned off and lowered, a brief conversation ensues. They want to know why they were being filmed. Escobar explains that he is the subject of an upcoming news feature story. They don\u2019t seem to understand.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m the rancher here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, the one with the pump?\u201d the lead smuggler says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, the one with the pump. They are here to do a story about me,\u201d he responds.<\/p>\n<p>Satisfied, they nod and start again toward the river. But before they disappear into the Carrizo cane, the camouflaged one can&#8217;t resist the temptation to shape the narrative. He turns and says he wants Escobar and his friends to know that they\u2019re moving Mexican workers through here, not drugs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not the same thing. It\u2019s people,\u201d he says. \u201cIf it were drugs, we wouldn\u2019t be talking to you.\u201d Escobar promises to make that clear to the reporters, and the men turn and vanish into the thick reeds.<\/p>\n<h3>A smart plan<\/h3>\n<p>\u201cThe one with the pump\u201d makes his way back to the clearing, to the rear of the truck, where he stood when the raft landed on the river bank. Before the sun goes down, the Border Patrol and two DPS troopers show up, but the immigrants and their coyotes are nowhere to be seen by then. Escobar tells the Border Patrol agent, who says his name is Serge, that he welcomes any and all law enforcement onto his ranch.<\/p>\n<p>The rancher is equally adamant that he won\u2019t be doing any law enforcement himself \u2014 just like he told the smugglers in person less than an hour earlier. It\u2019s the code you follow around here if you want to stay alive.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not going to stand in their way and try to stop them,\u201d he tells the agent.<\/p>\n<p>Serge shakes his head back and forth.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo,\u201d he responds. \u201cSmart plan.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For more than two centuries, the Escobar family has ranched along the Rio Grande. For almost as long, smugglers have moved people and product across their property.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":164697,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[140,3282,3331,2260],"class_list":["post-164692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-border-and-immigration","tag-border-patrol","tag-bordering-on-insecurity","tag-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}