From Silver City Sun-News

Richardson to press for razing of Las Chepas
By By Louie Gilot and Walter Rubel/For the Sun-News
Aug 23, 2005, 12:01 am

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson will use a meeting with his Chihuahuan
counterpart this week to press for the demolition of Las Chepas, the
semi-abandoned Mexican hamlet used as a staging area for hundreds of
undocumented immigrants who cross daily into the United States west of
Columbus.

Richardson is scheduled to meet Friday in Las Cruces with Jose Reyes
Baeza, the governor of the Mexican state of Chihuahua. This would be
their first meeting since the New Mexico governor declared a state of
emergency earlier this month because of unchecked immigration on the
state's border.

Richardson said getting Mexican authorities to agree on Las Chepas
would be "an important step forward, not critical, but an important
step forward for the Mexican government, showing their commitment to
work with us," on other projects.

The request is controversial in Mexico.

Jose Guzman runs a small grocery story in Las Chepas, stocking items
like instant noodles, Spam, canned frijoles and bottled water. He
often sees would-be border crossers assembling in his town.

"If Richardson bulldozes our village, we will just go across the line
and live with the Johnsons," he said, referring to the large W.R.
Johnson & Sons farm directly across the border in Southern New Mexico.

He said many Las Chepas residents have legal papers to work in the
United States and have worked for the Johnson family before.

Javier Muñoz, who sells watermelons in downtown Palomas, across the
border from Columbus, said bringing in the bulldozers would not make a
difference.

"The people don't cross because of Las Chepas. They cross because they
are offered jobs in the United States," he said.

Mexican officials could not be reached for comment and have not
responded to Richardson's request, made Aug. 11, a day before the
state of emergency announcement.

Border Patrol officials said Las Chepas the widely-used nickname for
the town called Josefa Ortiz de Dominguez was established in the
1940s when many Mexican men worked in Columbus fields under the
bracero program and came home to Mexico at night. About 400 people
lived in Las Chepas in its heyday.

In 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act made it illegal to
hire undocumented immigrants and the town began emptying out.

Smugglers zeroed in on Las Chepas because of its location, right
across the border from largely unpatrolled fields and accessible by a
single, easily monitored dirt road. The Border Patrol has a camera
trained on the town.

Nowadays, yellow school buses and pickup trucks full of hopeful
migrants travel the 15 miles from Palomas to Las Chepas all day long.

Farmer James Johnson in Columbus said the human and drug trafficking
contributed to the depopulation of the town.

Residents "did not want their children playing outside when there are
500 transients hanging around waiting for nightfall," he said.

The 60 to 100 residents who remain in Las Chepas make a living selling
food to the migrants, officials said.

Another staging area, a ranching community called Los Lamentos,
further south and west of Las Chepas, has not received similar attention.