http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/ ... index.html

NOGALES, Mexico (AP) -- At a shelter overflowing with migrants airing their blistered feet, Francisco Ramirez nursed muscles sore from trudging through the Arizona desert -- a trip that failed when his wife didn't have the strength to continue.

He said the couple would rest for a couple of days, then try again, a plan echoed by dozens of others reclining on rickety bunk beds and overflowing onto carpets tossed on the floor after risking robbery, rape and exposure to the harsh desert in failed attempts to cross.

The shelter's manager, Francisco Loureiro, said he hasn't seen such a spike in migration since 1986, when the United States approved legislation allowing 2.6 million undocumented migrants to get U.S. citizenship.

This time, the draw is a bill in U.S. Congress that could legalize some of the 11 million undocumented migrants in the United States and tighten border security. Migrants are rushing to the Arizona border in an attempt to enter in time to qualify for a possible guest-worker program -- and before the journey becomes even more perilous.

"Every time there is talk in the north of legalizing migrants, people get their hopes up, but they don't realize how hard it will be to cross," Loureiro said.

Detentions by the Border Patrol in south-central Arizona, the busiest migrant-smuggling area, are up by more than 26 percent this fiscal year -- 105,803 since October 1, compared to 78,024 for the same period last year. Along the entire U.S.-Mexico border, arrests are up by 9 percent.

Maria Valencia, a spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said more detentions don't necessarily mean more people crossing. She said an increased number of Border Patrol agents means a greater proportion of crossers are getting picked up.

"We've sent more technology and agents there, and I think that's had an impact," she said.

But Loureiro, who has managed the shelter for 24 years, pointed to the immigration bill. In March, 2,000 migrants stayed at the shelter -- 500 more than in March 2005.

Many migrants say they are being encouraged by relatives in the United States who are betting on the approval of the bill.

One of them is Ramirez, a 30-year-old man who earned about $80 a week at a rebar factory in the central state of Michoacan.

He spent an entire night walking through the desert with his wife, 29-year-old Edith Mondragon. When her legs cramped up, their smuggler abandoned them and the couple turned themselves in to U.S. authorities. They were deported, but said they would try again as soon as they were strong enough.

"We want to try our luck up there," Mondragon said. "We can't go back to Michoacan because there is no future there."

Ramirez said the draw was not only the prospect of work in Minnesota, where two of his brothers milk cows on a ranch but also the idea that he might be able to do it legally. (Watch what would happen if illegal labor left -- 2:42)

"My brothers said there is plenty of work there, and that it looks like they will start giving (work) permits," he said.

While Congress is sharply divided on immigration reform, most lawmakers appear to want to fortify the border -- an idea that has prompted many migrants to try to reach the United States before the crossing becomes even more dangerous.

Since the U.S. tightened border security at main crossing points in Texas and California in the 1990s, hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants have been funneled to the hard-to-patrol, mesquite-covered Arizona desert, risking rape, robbery, murder and now facing armed U.S. civilians.

About 2,000 people a day pass through the nearby hamlet of Sasabe, which consists of a few dozen homes and a Western Union office, according to Grupo Beta, a Mexican government-sponsored group that tries to discourage migrants from crossing and helps people stranded in the desert.

Money in the mayonnaise jars
On a recent afternoon, at least 40 vans overflowing with migrants arrived in the desert near Sasabe in less than an hour. The migrants and their smugglers waited for nightfall before embarking on a journey that would involve up to a week of walking in baking heat during the day and biting cold at night.

Grupo Beta agent Miguel Martinez mans a checkpoint 20 miles (30 kilometers) south of Sasabe, where he warns migrants of the dangers of crossing through the desert and of the presence of volunteer border-watch groups in Arizona.

"Right now there are migrant hunters who are armed, and you should be careful," Martinez told a group traveling in a rickety van that was missing some windows.

The migrants' trek is also often violently interrupted by border bandits armed with knives or guns who order their victims to strip naked, rob them and sometimes rape them.

Raul Gonzalez, 44, walked for five days before turning himself in when the blisters on his feet started bleeding and his left leg became swollen. Like most migrants interviewed for this story, Gonzalez said he was robbed at gunpoint just after crossing into the United States.

"The guides and the robbers are all the same," Gonzalez said. "The guide told us to put our money in the mayonnaise jars to hide it, but the robbers took that, too."

The first time Gonzalez sneaked into the United States, he did it through Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, California. He worked illegally at a printing shop in Chicago for 15 years but got homesick before he could settle his papers.

Despite the robbery and his failed trek, Gonzalez said he would try again once his feet heal. His bricklayer's salary of about $60 in the western state of Jalisco simply isn't enough to provide for his four children.

"It's hard to cross," he said. "But it's harder to see your children have little to eat."