Thread: Mexican Illegals head for Arizona despite crackdown

Mexico migrants head for Arizona despite crackdown

Despite the looming crackdown migrants remain undeterred, authorities on both sides of the border say.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

(Reuters) - Kidnapped by bandits, and caught and repatriated three times
by the U.S. Border Patrol, Mexican migrant Roberto Santos says Arizona's tough new immigration law is the least of his worries.

"I don't care if they tell me they're going to give me life in jail. I'm still going to keep on trying," Santos, 30, said as he sat on a bench outside a migrant welfare project in this bustling city just south of the border from Arizona.

"There's no other option, Mexico's dead -- I just don't want to be here anymore. I don't have a life here anymore," added Santos, who spent more than a decade in Los Angeles, before being recently deported.

Last month, Arizona passed a tough new law to drive 460,000 illegal immigrants out of the desert state, which straddles one of the principal corridors for human and drug smugglers heading up from Mexico.

But despite the looming crackdown -- which will require state and local police to check the immigration status of anyone they reasonably suspect is in the country illegally when it comes into effect in late July -- migrants remain undeterred, authorities on both sides of the border say.

The U.S. Border Patrol's Tucson sector said they had arrested 148,000 people in southern Arizona between October and April, around 8,000 more than in the same period last year.

In Mexico, migrant welfare agency Grupo Beta says staff have continued to attend to some 150 to 200 migrants a day, either headed north from some of Mexico's poorest states in search of work stateside, or sent packing over the border by U.S. authorities who have stepped up deportations.

"People are leaving, others are being repatriated, so I don't see any change," said Enrique Enriquez, the director of Grupo Beta's center, which stands a few blocks south of the rusted border fence in Nogales.

The controversial new law is supported by almost two thirds of Arizona voters, and a majority of American adults.

'NO FOOD IN THE HOUSE'

Opponents charge the measure is unconstitutional and a mandate for racial profiling, and have launched legal challenges and an economic boycott to try to derail it.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon is expected to protest it when he meets with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington on Wednesday for a state dinner.

In an interview last week he slammed the state measure as "frankly discriminatory, terribly backward." His government issued a warning to Mexicans living in or traveling to Arizona, and asked its consulates there to offer Mexicans legal protection.

Among those particularly motivated to cross north despite the state crackdown are illegal immigrants who used to live in the United States and were swept up in deportations, which reached a record 387,790 last year, according to U.S. Department of Homeland Security figures.

Standing among a group of two dozen migrants in the Mexican border city, Miguel Lopez said he would risk arrest and deportation as many times as was needed to rejoin his wife and two young children in North Carolina.

"We'll just have to see who gets tired first," said Lopez, 31, with a shrug.

"I have to keep trying, because my family is over there. I have nothing in Mexico," he added.

Despite the promise of greater vigilance under the law, some first-time migrants added that they were driven by poverty to seek a better life in the United States, and would push on through Arizona regardless.

"We heard about Arizona's new law on the news, but we need work," said Gerardo Perez, 30, a farmer who said he earned 80 pesos a day -- about $6 -- in his home state of Chiapas in southern Mexico.

"We have to try, there's no food in the house."


http://www.am920woky.com/cc-common/news ... le=7133868

Most of the folks still crossing the Arizona border are probably transients on their way to another state. I'm sure the law, once in effect, will deter many from attempting to settle in Arizona.

You can not believe a word of these stories. Mexico isn't "dead". It has a 4.85% unemployment rate compared to our 9.9% unemployment rate. It's a bustling country. The guy with the "wife and 2 children in North Carolina" needs to tell them to move to Mexico with him where I'm sure they belong.

I could strangle our government. I could throw tomatoes at these public officials who don't have the sense God gave a Goose. They all need to be thrown out on their ears, denied their pensions, denied their health care insurance, denied everything, shunned, then sued, bankrupted, then prosecuted and jailed.

From the article Dixie posted about Mexico's low unemployment rate:

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/Economi ... Symbol=MXN

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-196189.html

Reuters is so full of it.

The Amnesty supporters are terrified because the illegals are going to bolt from AZ and when that happens it will be clear to all that cracking down on illegal immigration is the thing to do.

W

"We heard about Arizona's new law on the news, but we need work," said Gerardo Perez, 30, a farmer who said he earned 80 pesos a day -- about $6 -- in his home state of Chiapas in southern Mexico.

"We have to try, there's no food in the house."

Then move to another part in mexico that has jobs! We don't want you here!

Standing among a group of two dozen migrants in the Mexican border city, Miguel Lopez said he would risk arrest and deportation as many times as was needed to rejoin his wife and two young children in North Carolina.

"We'll just have to see who gets tired first," said Lopez, 31, with a shrug.

"I have to keep trying, because my family is over there. I have nothing in Mexico," he added.

This is why the family should be deported with the illegal alien. The family benefited from the illegal work of Lopez, the wife was here illegally as well. Don't care where the children were born, they all need to leave together so he will have reason to work hard in Mexico.

It is despicable that Calderon comes here criticizing us when he allows his citizens to go hungry in their country. I wonder if no social services safety net is in place because then people won't seek work and they can't be trusted to be truthfull.

The United States CAN'T be the worlds dumping ground for any and all that decide that they don't like it in their own country. If Mexico and the U.S. were separated by 1,000 miles of water you can bet that we wouldn't have nearly the problem that we do. People would decide to stay and solve the problems in their own country.

GaPatriot wrote:

This is why the family should be deported with the illegal alien. The family benefited from the illegal work of Lopez, the wife was here illegally as well. Don't care where the children were born, they all need to leave together so he will have reason to work hard in Mexico.

You're right, ICE should make it a point to deport the whole family, not just the single illegal that got caught up in a law enforcement action. This could be accomplished through a thorough interrogation and investigation. The interrogation, if done properly, should lead to the other family members. If the interrogation fails to reveal anything specific but provides reason to suspect the illegal has family here, then ICE should expand their investigation.

IMO, ICE should have a procedure in place that is effective in removing whole family unites (illegals), not just a single family member. Federal law enforcement is failing to make substantial headway against the invasion because they are practicing selective law enforcement.

Originally Posted by MW

GaPatriot wrote:

This is why the family should be deported with the illegal alien. The family benefited from the illegal work of Lopez, the wife was here illegally as well. Don't care where the children were born, they all need to leave together so he will have reason to work hard in Mexico.

You're right, ICE should make it a point to deport the whole family, not just the single illegal that got caught up in a law enforcement action. This could be accomplished through a thorough interrogation and investigation. The interrogation, if done properly, should lead to the other family members. If the interrogation fails to reveal anything specific but provides reason to suspect the illegal has family here, then ICE should expand their investigation.

IMO, ICE should have a procedure in place that is effective in removing whole family unites (illegals), not just a single family member. Federal law enforcement is failing to make substantial headway against the invasion because they are practicing selective law enforcement.

Very well said MW and you're exactly right! In fact, it could and should be called operation unite!! Remove the incentive for these invaders to return and they will not return. They will be forced to demand change in their own country, as opposed to demanding change in our country!