[URBANTH-L]camioneta transport system and illegal (?) migrants

[Kemper, Robert]

Hello fellow SUNTA members,
 
I have been asked to testify as an expert witness for the defense in a federal case involving the camioneta transport system. In this case, the question involves the government's assertion that the driver of a city-to-city transport van should know that the passengers are "illegal" aliens. The court-appointed attorney for the defendant (the driver) is seeking help to establish whether the camioneta transport system is a "front" for transporting illegal aliens and nothing more -- as the government's expert asserts. 

I can find no published research on the camioneta transport system, although I suspect that some references to this increasingly widespread transport system are to be found in articles and monographs, or in our unpublished data files. 

There are several Hispanic-owned private bus companies as well as smaller-scale Hispanic-owned camioneta companies here in Dallas, especially in the Oak Cliff sector of town. Over the past fifteen years, they have been quite entrepreneurial in expanding their service between Dallas and central Mexican cities as well as eastern cities in North Caroline, Florida, Georgia, etc. For instance, they are included briefly in the PBS program "On the Other Side of the Border" for which I served as consultant in the late 1980s. 

Can anyone help me with more research data about camioneta companies in other cities? I need replies within the next three weeks to be of use in my role as expert witness. 

Many thanks, 

Robert V. Kemper

Professor and Chair 

Department of Anthropology 

Southern Methodist University 

Dallas TX 75275 

phone: 214-768-2864