Border War Diaries

border
war
diary
KEVIN KNOBLOCK
introduction
W
hat do you want to do next’? asked David Bossie. Dave and I were waiting for our
takeout order from a Thai restaurant on 8th Street near Pennsylvannia Avenue. Dave
was my Executive Producer on Broken Promises: The United Nations at 60, which I was
rushing to complete before the United Nations began their 61st session in September.
‘Illegal immigration and its impact,’ I replied. Dave nodded and asked what it would cost.
I scribbled down some figures on a cocktail napkin and slid it across the table. ‘Sounds
good’, Dave said.
It wasn’t quite that easy, but that’s how Border War started.
The issue of illegal immigration and its impact was much more urgent for those of us
who live in southern border states, and the debate was really heating up on all sides
of the issue, primarily because of the Minuteman Project. I was also hearing about
more and more migrants dying in the desert after being abandoned by their guides, or
‘coyotes’. I wanted to learn why more than 4000 people a day, primarily from Mexico
and Central America, would risk their lives to cross the border without the proper
documents.
I knew this was a complex, hot button issue that would soon rear its head nationally.
I did not foresee a Congressional battle over competing bills, and huge rallies in the
streets, however.
I wanted to explore the issue through those on the front lines of immigration policy,
border enforcement or lack thereof and national security. All points of view would be
presented, from open borders advocates to secure the borders politicians and from
immigrants who have entered the country illegally.
I began to draw up a ‘cast’ of real life characters. I contacted Teri March, whose
husband, Deputy Dave March, had been killed by Armando ‘Chato’ Garcia, an illegal
immigrant from Mexico. Teri and Dave’s parents had been trying for nearly four years to
persuade US politicians to pressure Mexico to extradite Garcia. Mexico, however, needed
assurances that Garcia would not receive life in prison or the death penalty.
Lupe Moreno had been in the news as the head of Latino Americans for Immigration
Reform. Lupe’s father ran the second busiest ‘safehouse’ for illegal immigrants in
California in the 1960’s. She had seen human smuggling close up, and had seen how it
had ruined her family.
I wanted to present the open border platform through an articulate spokesperson – one
with a unique story. Enrique Morones, the first dual citizen of Mexico and the United
States, quickly signed on. His group, Border Angels, provides food and water to migrants
crossing the desert into the United States. Though he discourages them from crossing
illegally in monthly talks he gives in Mexico, once they do he wants provide a safety net.
Like Teri and Lupe, Enrique appears frequently in national media. From Enrique’s point of
view, “we never crossed the border, the border crossed us.”
With these three on board, Dave Bossie gave the official green-light for financing.
Though he had met with resistance from his supporters over the relevancy of the topic
(as I pre-produced, Hurricane Katrina had put illegal immigration on the back burner
as a national topic), he went ahead and opened his checkbook. In that way Dave’s like
an old studio mogul. If he sees there is passion, he’s in. If I had gone to a ‘traditional’
funding source, I’d still be waiting.
I also wanted to present the challenges facing the US Border Patrol, and a politician who
was working on immigration reform legislation. Dave’s D.C. contacts made both happen.
Dave suggested Congressman J.D. Hayworth, author of the Enforcement First immigration Reform Act.
And after months of negotiation,
and Dave’s friendship with
Secretary Michael Chertoff of
the Department of Homeland
Security, we received permission
to follow Agent Jose Luis Maheda,
who heads the Disrupt Team of
undercover agents at the Nogales
Station, Tucson Sector. Maheda’s
parents emigrated legally from
Mexico, and his team patrols
the busiest sector on the border,
with over 4000 border crossings a day. Both Hayworth and Maheda were perfect for the
project. And Homeland gave us unprecedented access to the daily challenges its Border
Patrol Agents face.
I wanted to present these five first person narratives without voice-over commentary.
These five people tell their stories in their own words. And during the course of filming
each of their stories took dramatic turns no one could have predicted.
Through their eyes and intersecting real life stories, and through additional first person
narratives from border ranchers and recently deported undocumented immigrants, we
examine one of the most explosive domestic issues of our time.
Border War Diary contains some of my shooting notes. The Illustrated Screenplay is my
final script for the film, the end result of many months of editing. I decided to first cut
each character’s story as a whole – to be sure we had a dramatic beginning, middle and
end. Each individual story was edited at least a dozen times, and then we intercut them
with the other characters. We needed multiple versions of the intercut before we were
satisfied.
Because we shot in High Definition
video, we have in effect 4
megapixel ‘production’ stills of the
entire movie.
I have also included some research
related materials.
What, for example, does Enrique
Morones mean when he says ‘we
didn’t cross the border, the border
crossed us?’ Did the US invade
Mexico in 1846 as Enrique says,
or was it really the other way
around? Did we underpay or fairly
compensate Mexico after the war ended for the vast lands of the American Southwest?
And what’s the real story behind the claims of the Reconquista crowd - those who want
to reclaim those lost lands – lands known as ‘Aztlan’.
What are the real costs of illegal immigration on healthcare and on our overcrowded
schools? How are American businesses, human smugglers, and the policies of both the
United States and Mexico working to maintain a steady supply of cheap labor?
I have been working in television and film for over 20 years - writing, producing and
directing hundreds of hours of content. I have interviewed nearly a thousand famous
faces from movies, music, television and politics. What follows is my account of one of
the most exhilarating and creative projects of my career.
April 11, 2005
Mazatlan, Mexico
My family and I visit Mexico at least once a year. During our first trip to Mazatlan I interrupt the sightseeing to find an internet cafe near Mazatlan’s astounding
Immaculate Conception Cathedral. I am thinking about a film on immigration and
why so many people risk their lives to enter into the US illegally. What pushes or
pulls people to the north? I see around me an impoverished nation, but a beautiful one inApril
so many
ways.
11, 2005
But first IMazatlan,
must begin
pre-production on a documentary film on the United NaMexico
tions. I call Dave Bossie in DC. We work out some details and plan a conference
call with actor
Ronand
Silver,
on-camera
host.
My family
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I interrupt the sightseeing to find an internet cafe near Mazatlan’s astounding ImWe are fast-tracking
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maculate Conception
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it necessaryright?
to risk their lives to enter into the US illegally. I see
around me an impoverished nation, but a beautiful one in so many ways.
But first I must begin pre-production on a documentary film on the United Nations.
I call Dave Bossie in DC. We work out some details and plan a conference call with
actor Ron Silver, our on-camera host.
We are fast-tracking the UN film to coincide with the UN’s 60th anniversary. That’s
only 6 months away. No problem, right?
July 11, 2005
Jerusalem, Israel
Here to interview former Soviet dissident and Israeli politician Natan
Sharansky for the UN film. My wife’s relatives took me on my scout
day to the security fence that partly runs through Jerusalem.
The fence has many gaps and looks quite porous - but the number of
suicide bomb attacks has declined by over 90 percent since construction of the fence began in July 2003.
I walk along the fence on a highway east of town and at one of the
gaps step through and onto the West Bank and shoot a little footage
on my scout camera.
There is no one there to stop me, and Israelis and Palestinians go
about their business.
I will later remember the Israeli Security Fence when talk of extending the US border fence erupts after the Sensenbrenner Bill passes the
House. Some claim a fence won’t work on the US border with Mexico.
Are they crazy? They say there will always be people finding a way into
the country illegally. That’s true, but fences do work, just like a locked
front door on your home. Perfect? No. But an extended border fence
will greatly reduce the number of illegal immigrants, and reduce border deaths as well.
I wonder what Bush and Fox talked about
after that press conference when they relaxed at the Crawford Ranch. I wonder if
they talked about the Mexican government
issued maps and pamphlets instructing
would-be illegals on how to evade the US
Border Patrol, how to deal with their coyotes, and to avoid detection once they’ve
crossed.
July 30, 2005
El Capitan State Beach, north of
Santa Barbara, California
As I write the script for the UN film,
now called “Broken Promises: the
United Nations at 60”, the immigration debate is catching fire. The
spark came in March when President
Bush called The Minuteman Project
- a civilian effort to monitor illegal
immigrants on our souther border
- ‘vigilantes’.
“I’m against vigilantes in the United
States of America,” President Bush
said at a joint press conference with
Mexico President Vicente Fox. “I’m
for enforcing the law in a rational
way.”
By rational I take it to mean allowing a 23 percent increase in undocumented aliens living in the United
States over the last four years. According to the Pew Hispanic Center,
an increase from 8.3 million to 10.3
million. Some say the figures are
much, much higher.
August 31, 2005
Montauk, New York
Taking a week break before final push to
finish Broken Promises. Hurricane Katrina
is felt all the way up here - 50 mile per
hour winds today.
Thinking about a structure for the border
film project. Don’t want to have my voice
overs in it at all. Want to stay back. Let
the characters tell their stories.
November 28, 2005
Phoenix, Arizona
Meet with J.D. Hayworth in Scottsdale, our first face to face meeting after several phone
calls. He gives a speech on immigration reform to the local Chamber of Commerce. J.D.
was a speech major and a broadcaster and is a real pro. The crowd loves him. Later,
J.D. meets with President Bush at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson. Bush announces the end of the ‘catch and release’ policy of illegal immigrants. Catch and release
has been the US policy for 28 years. We’ll see.
6 am Tuesday morning. A beautiful sunrise. We’re driving with J.D. to the border town
of Douglas. I put my cameraman Matthew Taylor in J.D.’s car. J.D.’s aide Todd Sommers
drives. Soundman Paul Baldwin wires J.D., jumps in my car and we’re off.
J.D. spends much of the 5 hour drive on the phone with his Washington D.C. staff. We
shoot J.D. as he reads a newspaper editorial critical of his immigration reform efforts
- and of the reform ideas of Rep. John Hostettler and Rep. Duncan Hunter. We later get
some car to car shots. These will work nicely.
Soundman Paul, a veteran of CBS News, 60 Minutes and 48 Hours, reminds me of many
of the guys I worked with at ABC and Paramount. He’s seen a lot - traveled to all the
hot spots, and has just returned from covering Hurricane Katrina. Says he was with Dan
Rather last week in Houston and Rather couldn’t get CBS to run any of his stories on the
Katrina refugees. After Rather’s October Surprise on ‘W’, I don’t wonder why.
As we head south Paul points out the airplane ‘graveyard’ - far off the highway just north
of Tucson. It’s a surreal sight - over 4000 planes parked in the middle of the Sonora
desert. He says he did a story out there about how a man named Essam Al-Ridi bought
a T-39 twin engine Sabreliner ex-Air Force training jet for Osama bin Laden at this Tucson boneyard. Al-Ridi paid about $200,000 for the plane, which was purchased to transport missiles between Pakistan and the Sudan.
This will be the first of many references I hear relating Arizona and Tucson al-Qaida
cells to the border, or more precisely immigration ‘overstays’, aka expired visas.
9/11 hijacker Hani Saleh Hanjour, the pilot of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon,
lived in Tucson and went to flight training school in Scottsdale.
Also: Wa’el Hamza Jelaidan co-founded al-Qaida with bin Laden in the late ‘80s. Records show he was president of the Islamic Center of Tucson in 1984. He left Tucson in
1986 and was believed to have gone to Afghanistan to help repel the Soviet Union’s invasion. And former Tucson resident Wadih El-Hage is now serving life in prison for conspiracy in the 1998 Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, embassy bombings.
There is another movie here. The Tucson al-Qaida Connection.
We arrive in Douglas. I was picturing a dusty windblown street like the one in “The Last
Picture Show”. This is pretty close, but without the Texas wind. We stop at the historic
Gadsden Hotel, where we will be staying, and are greeted with a mixture of enthusiam
and dread by some locals, including the man I will call the Reluctant Rancher. Everyone
is expecting us.
Later I walk into the car rental office and the clerk says ‘You must be Kevin’.
Word gets out fast the film crew with J.D. doing a film on illegal immigration has arrived.
We have lunch at a Mexican restaurant across from the Gadsden with J.D.’s ‘folks’. The
Reluctant Rancher, who previously had agreed to speak on-camera about the thousands
of illegal immigrants who cross his ranch each week, says he is now concerned about his
safety and declines the interview. He still offers to guide us to some ‘layup spots’, but requests to remain off-camera. At lunch, he talks about OTMs - Homeland Security jargon
for ‘other-than-Mexicans’, and the possibility of terrorists using our porous borders to
smuggle dirty bombs into the U.S. There is a real sense of fear in his voice. He says he’s
found prayer shawls and Korans on his property.
After lunch we all drive out to Roger Barnett’s ranch. Roger is big down here. Owns
22,0000 acres and multiple businesses. Says he’s being sued by MALDEF (Mexican
American Legal Defense and Education Fund) for 32 million dollars because he stopped
some illegal immigrants who were crossing his ranch. Wears a gun. I interview Roger on
camera and the image that sticks comes from his story of a group of illegal immigrants
who killed and barbecued a newborn calf at his neighbor’s ranch.
Roger takes us out to some ‘layup spots’ - where illegal immigrants who have just
crossed hunker down and wait for car transport north. They leave clothes, backpacks,
water bottles behind. Roger’s ranch has multiple layup spots - all littered with trash.
At sunset the Reluctant Rancher who won’t go on-camera takes us out to a remote
stretch of border fence a few miles west of Douglas. J.D. walks along the single strand
of barbed wire marking the border to
Mexico and comments on the lack of
security. Our Relucant Rancher says
there are groups hiding just a couple
of hundred yards from our position
- waiting for nightfall to cross. I don’t
see anyone.
A Border Patrol truck drives up and
J.D. tries to engage the young Agent,
cameras rolling, about what goes on at
this spot. The young guy squirms a bit
but politely says he can’t answer that.
Smart move.
The next morning we shoot some b-roll around town. I get a call from a local who
puts me in touch with longtime Douglas resident Olga Robles. Olga turns out to be a
great interview - an Arizona native and the granddaughter of Mexicans and daughter
of Native Americans. One of many lucky breaks during the shoot.
Later I will find out about the drug tunnels beneath Douglas. I think this must be illegal immigration ground zero. But in my shooting chronology Nogales is yet to come.