On January 24, 2026, two Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents Jesus Ochoa and Raymundo Gutierrez from South Texas allegedly shot and killed American citizen Alex Pretti during a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Apparently, Pretti was sprayed, pushed to the ground and disarmed before being shot 10 times.
One might ask, what were two border Tejanos doing way up north and away from their border posts? The most-likely answer is that they were swept up in the Department of Homeland Security’s frenzied effort to increase the body-count for a set quota of immigrants to be detained, processed and deported by ICE.
Over the years, I have been to the southern border many times and have seen the gradual CBP change in ethnicity to include more Latinos. At the time, I did not think too much of the change as I assumed that the higher educational attainment of the Southern Texas community which is overwhelmingly majority Tejano can explain it.
However, I have been surprised at times by what I believe to be a Tejano instinct for following a socio-political stream who unconsciously assumes second-class citizenship. It appears that the unstated rules that governed for a century following the American conquest of the Southwest still hold in Texas.
My father was born in 1910, a pivotal year in the lives of the Mexican people as well as those living in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas and other parts of the southern border. Events that came after that year such as the Mexican Revolution, America’s entry into World War I, Prohibition, the Great Depression and especially World War II and its aftereffects, significantly changed the border culture and vision on both sides.
The people of the Rio Grande Valley, the poorest region in the country, opted for the migrant stream as a solution to their economic survival. My family included took with them to the harvest fields of the West and Midwest notions of a racial and ethnic pecking order that put Whites at the top, Tejanos in the somewhat segregated middle and Blacks who, at the time, were fully segregated from the rest.
Border Tejanos went a step further and divided themselves away from their immigrant relations from across the river and called them “Mojados,” a term that makes some feel superior to what has come to be known as wetbacks. They also doubled their effort to be subservient to what they thought to be their English-speaking benefactors by sacrificing even their lives to that notion as heroes in war and ardent political supporters in peace.
When Ochoa and Gutierrez are said to have put multiple bullets into Alex Pretti, they appeared to be acting in the name of that subservience, the one that says, “you follow the orders of those that you feel are a step above.” The concept somehow demonstrates that the type is not only willing to die for country in foreign wars but also kill Americans at home.
There is an irony to what seems to be a lack of independent thinking as well as legal and moral awareness in a time when the Texas landscape has changed so much that Tejanos have become the demographic majority and should be in charge. Yet they follow a leadership that continues to encourage the notion of second-class citizenship.
In this country freedom and independent thinking carries with it responsibilities to care for each other. Tejanos need to grow to the standards of that creed.
The views expressed by David Conde are not necessarily the views of LaVozColorado. Comments and responses may be directed to News@lavozcolorado.com.
