http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ ... TE=DEFAULT

May 20, 1:36 PM EDT

Dusty Mexican border towns boom and bust

By JULIE WATSON
Associated Press Writer


SASABE, Mexico (AP) -- The future of this bone-dry cow town with no paved roads in the middle of nowhere once seemed bleak. But its status as a dusty desert outpost surrounded by nothing has proven Sasabe's salvation.

Sasabe was one of a string of crumbling Mexican frontier towns destined to oblivion until, in 1994, the United States cracked down on illegal immigration at the major crossing points in Texas and California.

As a result, hundreds of thousands of migrants detoured toward Sasabe and the hard-to-patrol, mesquite-covered desert across the Arizona border. And even more people flooded through the hamlets after the Sept. 11 attacks, when Washington further boosted border security.

Ghost towns were transformed into boomtowns.

Now, these remote hamlets might be getting another boost, with the announcement by President Bush that he would send 6,000 National Guard troops to supplement the regular border patrol.

An entire economy has sprung up to support the one-way tourists. Domestic flights to Hermosillo, the biggest city near the Arizona border, jumped from 20 a week in 1994 to nearly 500 today, according to airport officials.

As more migrants passed through, these tiny towns with few basic services for their own residents installed modern conveniences for the migrants.

They've opened Western Union offices so migrants' families can wire money to cover the fees of smugglers who help them cross into the United States. Flophouses renting beds for as little as $7 a night have sprung up along dusty streets.


Border Village Bulldozed

Latest News from Mexico
Dusty Mexican border towns boom and bust
Migrants forgo smugglers to enter U.S.

Mexico condemns U.S border fence plan

Mexicans say nothing will halt migrants

Mexicans denounce Senate border plan

They are prospering from an essentially criminal enterprise. "The hotels, bus companies, travel agencies - are all working on the fringe of the law," said Jorge Santibanez, director of the Tijuana-based Colegio de la Frontera Norte, a policy study institute.

Smugglers, known as coyotes, scope out the towns. They want enough infrastructure to handle the migrants - but not enough to be noticed by U.S. authorities, said Mario Martinez, spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol in Washington.

"The smugglers go to where it is most advantageous for them to enter the United States," he said.

Sasabe has been that place.

The community of just a few ranch families has grown to about 2,000 and sees an estimated 240,000 people pass through from December to March each year when migration flows are highest, according to Grupo Beta, the Mexican government's migrant-aid force.

Border experts estimate 70 percent of Sasabe's residents earn their living from migration.

Grocery stores including El Super Coyote - "The Super Smuggler" - do a brisk business selling gallon jugs of water, cans of tuna and other essentials for the crossing. Migrants must hike for three days through the Arizona desert to reach the nearest U.S. interstate highway.

Not all, however, have been happy with the town's newfound fame, which also has attracted gangs and thieves who rob migrants.

"Four or five years ago, this was a small, peaceful town of people only from here," said Maria Valencia, who has lived in Sasabe for all of her 44 years. "Now there are a lot of outsiders."

Many of the newcomers are migrants who remained after being robbed; others are smugglers who've set up shop.

But even as they watch their town grow, residents know from keeping an eye on other border towns that boom can quickly turn into bust, as policies set in Washington cause migratory flows to shift like the wind.

In the past year, the Border Patrol has beefed up its presence because of the popularity of the area for illegal crossers, and more migrants have been trying their luck in other hardscrabble communities that dot the frontier, across from remote California canyons or searing New Mexico desert.

Residents of Naco, east of Sasabe, know the boom-and-bust cycle firsthand.

In 2001, about 30,000 migrants - nearly four times the town's population of 8,000 - arrived every month in Naco, which officials once touted as the gateway to the United States. Nearly 50 hotels and flophouses were full almost nightly, and a fleet of vans shuttled people to the best crossing spots.

But a year later, the Border Patrol targeted the desert on the other side, and many Naco businesses went belly-up. More than half of its hotels closed, and workers at one of the busiest, La Princesa, said they went from filling more than 50 beds a night to renting barely one.

In Sasabe, residents fear a similar fate.

About 2,400 Border Patrol agents now comb the desert south of Tucson, many concentrating on Arizona's sparsely populated Tohono O'odham Indian reservation, which abuts Sasabe's desert.

"The town was growing until about two months ago, when they made such a mess on the other side of the border that there's no way to cross here," said Reymundo Gamez, 69, who owns a small hotel. "The gringos are running off our clientele."