31 Men Found In Motel Room

[111486]

Undocumented immigrants tell police they have been held there for 30 days

By ANNE MARIE KILDAY

Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle

Responding to a tip, police found 31 undocumented immigrants packed into a motel room in far southwest Houston on Friday night.

The immigrants

[MidtownCoog]

All listening to the station formerly known as 101 KLOL ;-)

[jmancuso]

^ haha

[Astro]

All listening to the station formerly known as 101 KLOL ;-)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Oooh man, that was bad...

[debmartin]

probably too idealistic, but what if every potential illeagal immigrant would take their $5000 and invest it in their own country? eventually might there come a time when their country would be worth living in? it sounds good in theory but of course real life is much more complicated. incidentally, does anyone recall what the president of mexico had to say about this on his last visit here?

debmartin

[Ashikaga]

Undocumented immigrants tell police they have been held there for 30 days

By ANNE MARIE KILDAY

Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle

Responding to a tip, police found 31 undocumented immigrants packed into a motel room in far southwest Houston on Friday night.

The immigrants — all men — told police they had been in the room at the Economy Inn and Suites for 30 days, never venturing outside out of a fear they or family members in their home countries would be hurt, Houston police officers said.

While officers talked to reporters about the scene inside the mostly bare room in the 12500 block of South Main, 13 of the immigrants broke out a bathroom window and fled through an alley behind the motel.

About 9:30 p.m., a bus from the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrived and the remaining 18 immigrants were led on board in handcuffed pairs.

A bureau spokeswoman said the men would be fingerprinted and photographed before undergoing questioning.

"Obviously, at this juncture, it is too early to determine much more," spokeswoman Luisa Aquino-Deason said. "We will make a report to the U.S. Attorney's office. We are going to make sure that their needs are met. At the same time, let's not lose sight of the fact that they could be in violation of U.S. immigration laws."

It was the third incident in the past three weeks in which police were tipped to sizable groups of undocumented immigrants being kept virtual prisoners in cramped quarters.

In one of the incidents, 24 men, women and children were held in a boarded-up trailer for as long as 20 days waiting for the remainder of their smuggling fees to be paid.

The immigrants found Friday night told police that they ranged in age from 18 to 49 and came from a variety of Central and South American countries, including Mexico, El Salvador and Ecuador.

Patrolman R.A. Walker was the first on the scene, responding to a tip in which a caller told police dispatchers that the immigrants were being held in the room at gunpoint. Police tried to call the tipster back Friday, but no one answered the telephone.

No weapon was found and the immigrants told police that no one with a gun had been at the motel Friday.

"I knocked on the door and it opened immediately," Walker said. "I was shocked. They were all huddled together in that room. I just told everybody to stay put and waited for backup."

The men told police that someone brought food once a day. The remains of bologna, cheese, tortillas and a couple of bottles of salad dressing could be seen in the motel room, which housed a small microwave and a television, but little else.

Most of the furniture had been removed from the room and there was only one small bathroom for the men to share.

"This shocks me to see people get treated like this," Walker said. "To see 31 people in a room, using one bathroom, I felt really bad about this."

Patrolman D.E. Dexter talked to some of the men, who told him they said they had paid between $1,800 and $5,000 to coyotes to smuggle them to Houston. The price varied depending on how far away each man lived from the U.S. border, he said.

Dexter said the men had been promised work in the United States but had been afraid to venture outside the room.

Speaking Spanish to one of the men from Ecuador, Dexter relayed the man's concern: "He just wants his family to know that he is OK."

Two weeks ago, Harris County sheriff's deputies, responding to two incidents, found 24 undocumented, most-ly Honduran, immigrants being held in a trailer in the 11900 block of Mesa until they could pay off smugglers.

Deputies said the immigrants, including 19 men, two women, one girl and two boys, subsisted on hot dogs, tortillas, beans and a little water. The immigrants had been held there between three and 20 days, awaiting payment of their smuggling fees.

The immigrants told deputies they had paid half of a fee to the smugglers in Honduras and were to be released after family or friends paid the remainder.

In a separate incident Oct. 24, two dozen illegal immigrants — most from El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico — were found in a garage in the 19000 block of Brisbane Meadows.

In that incident, two people, both undocumented Mexican nationals, were arrested.

The late Rodney Dangerfield said: "My high school graduating class voted me 'Most Likely To Be Found In A Motel Room...Alone!'

[mrfootball]

Scary thing is...this happens all over this town....all over this state...all over the Southern border of this country...every day of every week.

[Houstonian in Iraq]

Scary thing is...this happens all over this town....all over this state...all over the Southern border of this country...every day of every week.

You'll be surprised how many other places this occurs in. Not just the South, New York, Chicago areas even Kentucky and other Mid western States.......for decades now.

[DJ V Lawrence]

Scary thing is...this happens all over this town....all over this state...all over the Southern border of this country...every day of every week.

If any of the 30 men chose to move to America legally, how long would it take, and what would they have to have done? (legal question). There's gotta be a reason why they thought the smuggler idea was the best way. Strange story...