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  1. #1
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    March to America

    http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/13964104.htm

    Posted on Sun, Feb. 26, 2006

    March to America
    Thousands of desperate migrants flock to Mexican town for the perilous trek north


    LIZ CHANDLER AND DÁNICA COTO
    lchandler@charlotteobserver.comdcoto@charlotteobserver.com

    ALTAR, Mexico - It's early January, the first week of migration season, and people from across Mexico arrive here by the busload, preparing for their journey north.

    The Arizona border lies 60 miles away.

    Beyond that is a desert walk with rugged terrain, rattlesnakes, border patrols and bandits.

    Yet three young men bound for South Carolina are undaunted as they arrive in Altar to plan their illegal crossing into the United States.

    They left their jobs and families in the industrial city of Puebla, about 1,200 miles southeast, where they worked 55 hours a week in a textile mill that they say pays $1 an hour.

    At that rate, Efrín Guzmán says he could never buy a home for his family of four, who now live in a single rented room.

    "We have to cross. You cannot make ... money here," says Guzmán, 23. "Even if they deport us one, two or three times, we'll keep crossing."

    They chose the Carolinas for the reputation: Lots of jobs, good pay, little scrutiny from employers or government.

    But the three men have no idea what they're about to endure.

    They're first-timers. They rest on carpeted, plywood bunks in a boarding house that smells of unwashed bodies.

    In three days, they will leave the "House of Lupita" with a smuggler who will guide 28 migrants into the land of opportunity.

    The Altar corridor is one of the busiest illegal crossing points. As many as 2,000 migrants a day trudge into the desert.

    Border crackdowns in California and Texas have diverted the stream of migrants to this menacing but less-monitored terrain. Nearly 1,000 of them have died in the Arizona desert since 2000 from dehydration, injuries and illness and clashes with authorities, smugglers and thieves.

    The death toll is dwarfed, though, by the hundreds of thousands who make it.

    They first settled near home, in U.S. border states. Now, they are forming new communities where there are jobs.

    North Carolina has one of the nation's fastest growing Hispanic populations, propelled by illegal migrants who come to pick our crops, build our homes and tend our yards. Their rising numbers bring rising tension: An immigrant driving drunk kills a schoolteacher; Hispanic gangs clash in shootouts; and public schools and health departments struggle to accommodate the newest Carolinians.

    The migrants know they're breaking U.S. law. They also know they're in demand because they work hard and don't complain.

    For Guzmán, the lure of $7 or $8 an hour is worth leaving his family, risking his life and living invisibly.

    In his dreams, he reaches Charleston and works as a carpenter or a landscaper. He sends enough money home to buy a house and educate, even spoil, his little girl and boy.

    But Guzmán is a long way from Charleston -- and things won't go as he plans.

    Altar offers supplies, blessing

    Guzmán and his friends have come to Altar to find a guide. The town square teems with middlemen who can drive them to the border and lead them through the desert.Altar (pronounced all-TAR) exists to equip migrants for a desert trek that takes two to four days.

    Roadside stands sell dark clothing, backpacks, canned meat and water. Dozens of vans idle as drivers compete to pack their vehicles for the border run. In a one-hour count, more than 30 vans leave Altar, each carrying about 25 people.

    In January, Altar's population of 15,000 more than doubles as migrants plan a return to America after Christmas with their families. The cooler desert draws first-timers like Guzmán, too.

    Groups of men crisscross the city, carrying gallons of water and backpacks of supplies. At taco stands and restaurants, they eat all they can.

    There are no police in the streets. Mexican authorities make no significant effort to stop the exodus, beyond an occasional roundup of people who abuse migrants or smuggle drugs.

    The country's most visible authority is its migrant protection agency, which hands out survival guides warning of snakes, cactuses and border agents with guns.

    In Mexico, where 40 percent live in poverty, migration is seen as a right -- not a crime, says former Altar Mayor Francisco García.

    "People are searching for a way to live with more dignity," he says. "Immigration is then born of need. (It) is also born of the failure of our own country to meet the needs of the people."

    Even the Catholic church on the square blesses migrants in a special Mass on Tuesdays.

    In front of the church is a Mexican Red Cross trailer. Down the road, at Altar's relief shelter, is a garden that shows migrants which cactuses offer water.

    One monthly log at the shelter showed North Carolina was the migrants' No. 3 destination, behind Texas and California.

    Founded in 1775, Altar thrived as a cattle and crop producer until the mid-1990s when the peso collapsed. So the town began taking in migrants -- and soon it was adding rooms.

    In 1998, Altar had two hotels. Now, there are 14 and nearly 100 boarding houses, says the Rev. Prisciliano Peraza, a Catholic priest who has watched the town change.

    "The day migration stops," he says, "Altar will become a ghost town."

    A price to be paid

    At the House of Lupita, Guzmán and his friends pay 30 pesos a night, about $3.

    The boarding house accommodates 60 in concrete rooms that surround a concrete courtyard with latrines, showers and a communal sink. Next door is a grocery store and a kitchen that churns out tortillas on a conveyor belt.

    Guzmán will spend $700 for a border guide -- a "coyote" (pronounced ko-YO-teh). That's more than Guzmán makes in three months.

    Some coyotes charge $2,000 or more for a ride to Altar, a guided border crossing and transportation to a place in the States.

    Coyotes don't collect their entire fee upfront, so there's incentive to deliver migrants safely.

    U.S. authorities call the business "human smuggling." Coyotes sometimes abuse migrants and smuggle in drugs, say prosecutors and border guards.

    "A smuggler is going to lie to you. A smuggler is going to leave you behind to die if you fall behind," says U.S. Border Patrol agent Sean King.

    The business, they say, has become more competitive and violent as it's grown more lucrative.

    The appearance in Altar of the sleek Ford Lobo -- which means "wolf" -- is evidence of the payoff, says Father Peraza. The truck sells for $22,000 in Mexico, virtually unattainable for the average worker making about $2 an hour.

    Yet Altar sees plenty of them.

    "Altar," says the priest, "has become a cradle of wolves."

    Danger in the desert

    After three days in Altar, Guzmán and his friends set out. In a van, they ride two hours north on a dusty road.With them is a woman, 27, and her children, ages 3 and 6. They're friends of Guzmán's family. She's hoping to work as a maid in Tucson.

    She's not sure where Tucson is but her guide tells her it's one day's walk. It's not.

    In an interview four days later, here's how they recount their crossing:

    They arrive at the border on Jan. 13 in the tiny Mexican village of Sásabe. As night falls, their guide gathers 28 migrants, and they walk into Arizona.

    Dressed in heavy jackets, Guzmán and his friends carry the two children in blankets. Soon, they fall behind.

    Several men in black, wearing ski masks, approach them, says Guzmán. Two point guns. They demand money and jewelry -- then check the migrants' pockets.

    The little girl, Diana Paola, 6, feels like crying, she remembers. But she holds back.

    The robbers get away with $1,000 and take half of the food and water.

    The migrants press on and reunite with their group.

    For two nights they walk the desert. During the day, they sleep under trees and in burrows in the sand.

    On their second morning, they hear a helicopter. It's the U.S. Border Patrol.

    The migrants freeze.

    Guzmán wants to run but remembers a warning he heard days earlier in Altar.

    "Don't run,'' said a Mexican official whose job is to send back the bodies of people who die in the desert.

    If agents are provoked, he said: "They aim to kill."

    Agents herd Guzmán's group into trucks and send them 50 miles east to a detention center in Nogales, Ariz. The men go to one cell, women and children to another.

    Agents fingerprint and photograph each adult. They scan computer files for warrants and criminal records. If they find something serious, agents hold offenders and file charges. If not, they load buses and escort them back to Mexico.

    With 2,400 agents, the Tucson border station covers 261 miles -- from New Mexico west to Yuma.

    The border in the towns of Naco, Nogales and Douglas is blocked by walls that migrants cut through, climb over and tunnel under.

    The rest is marked by a cattle fence -- or no fence at all.

    One way or another

    On Jan. 17, one week after Guzmán and his friends first arrived in Altar, they're back at the House of Lupita.

    They're veterans now.

    They crossed and got kicked back to Mexico, then borrowed money to return to Altar.

    Guzmán's woman friend and her kids are in a back room, sitting on the boarding house floor.

    She looks frightened. She won't try again. She wants to go home.

    Guzmán and his friends discuss their next move. Their coyote, eager to collect his full fee, will guide them again.

    That afternoon, they head for the migrant Mass. Guzmán crosses himself and kisses his thumb as he enters the church.

    A bishop from Las Vegas hands out Holy Communion wafers as an assistant distributes soap, toothpaste and Band-Aids.

    That night, Guzmán plays cards in dim light at Lupita's.

    He still dreams of making money in Charleston.

    By sunrise, he has decided to cross again.

    He wets his face and hair with a garden hose.

    "Tomorrow," he says. "Maybe tomorrow."

    Liz Chandler: (704) 358-5063

    $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ $$$$$$$$$$$

    The email address of this so-called reporter/columnist is at the top of this article. Please feel free to let her know your feelings.
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

  2. #2
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    At that rate, Efrín Guzmán says he could never buy a home for his family of four, who now live in a single rented room.
    And at the rate Guzmán and others are crossing our borders, neither will they or hardly anybody already here be able to buy a home here before very long.
    For Guzmán, the lure of $7 or $8 an hour is worth leaving his family, risking his life and living invisibly.
    I imagine that the lure of perpetual amnesties by U.S. politicians along with welfare, free housing, free food, free medical, and free education for the family provided by U.S. taxpayers (after Guzmán has them brought in too) are factors as well.
    "People are searching for a way to live with more dignity," he says. "Immigration is then born of need. (It) is also born of the failure of our own country to meet the needs of the people."
    Maybe that underlying attitude of blaming their situation on something else and expecting some other place (like the U.S.) to provide for their needs is at the heart of not having their needs met. Of course, the Mexican government and elite of Mexico are failures (or crafty) for not addressing the problems and the U.S. government is a failure for allowing the failed (or crafty) Mexican government to export the result of its failure here where it will eventually result in our failure. While I can have a certain amount of sympathy for their plight, that sympathy can't extend to the point that we are inundated with the same problems they are trying to get away from.
    The robbers get away with $1,000 and take half of the food and water.
    I've never understood how these poor refugees always have so much money that can be used to buy a method of breaking U.S. laws.
    A bishop from Las Vegas hands out Holy Communion wafers as an assistant distributes soap, toothpaste and Band-Aids.
    Another example of faith based charity funding by U.S. taxpayers, I suppose. Even if not, I don't see why certain organizations receive tax exempt status to promote the breaking of U.S. laws while organizations promoting the enforcement of those U.S. laws don't. Why should being on one side of a political issue be called charitable/religious, but being on the other side actually be called political.

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