Thread: Mexicans desperate to cross into the U.S.

http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2006 ... 006/214326

Mexicans desperate to cross into the U.S.
August 17, 2006 12:50 am

Story by MELISSA NIX
Photographs by MIKE MORONES
THE FREE LANCE-STAR

NOGALES SONORA, MEXICO--It's Sunday, and four young men are slumped in a bus station's blue vinyl chairs, their faces burnished by late afternoon light. They finger their backpacks and listen to the depot's announced departures.

They are from Chiapas, a southeastern Mexican state that borders Guatemala.

Just 14 hours before, the four men had been traversing the Arizona wilderness. They were caught near Tucson by the U.S. Border Patrol and sent back to their homeland.


"The [young men] walked an entire day and five hours before la Migra--U.S. Border Patrol--caught them," explained Teresa Leal, 57, a community activist visiting the station.

She belongs to a group called No Mas Muertes--which means No More Deaths--and had a button with that name pinned to her dress. The group provides water and food to crossers entering through Arizona.

According to Humane Borders, another nonprofit with a similar mission, nearly 1,000 men, women and children have died trying to cross the Arizona desert since 1999. Border Patrol statistics are similar.

The four young men from Chiapas, once caught, were bused to the Nogales, Ariz., Border Patrol station for processing and then pushed back into Mexico through its sister city, Nogales Sonora.

They say they will try to cross again. And they're not alone.

Thousands of Mexicans, many of them southern, feel compelled to cross the border every day.

Many border activists blame the forces of globalization--and the North American Free Trade Act in particular--for the exodus. They say the legislation has not delivered the high-paying industrial jobs promised and tariffs that once protected Mexican jobs have lifted.

The bus station in Nogales Sonora, the Central Camoniera, spills across an entire city block. It is one stop along a journey many crossers make to reach the United States.

It could be in any American-Mexican border town.

"They'll be here for days," said Leal, who's also former director of the town's office of social services. By "they," Leal was referring to the crossers waiting in the station for the right moment to breach the Nogales border or to catch a bus for another place to try.

Polleros frequent the place, looking for customers to deliver to coyotes, smugglers who slip or guide people across the border illegally.

"Polleros are here looking for people," Leal said. "People are here looking for polleros."

The four young men from Chiapas, who wouldn't give their last names, said through a translator that they were planning to make it across on their own. They were headed to another border town to make another attempt.

Ovidio, at 19, has teenager's acne. Alfredo, 21, wore black leather shoes. Charo, 22, has a kind face. Noe, the oldest at 24, was reserved.

"The situation over there is very critical. There's no work in Chiapas, and if there is, it's for very little pay," said one of the men.

The need is too great, said another.

On their next attempt, they hope to make it to Phoenix, where they have friends, or maybe onto Florida, where more friends are, to work as carpenters or in hotels.

"We'll do whatever," said one.

"Anywhere there's work," answered another.

They were keenly aware of the symbiotic relationship between the United States economy and illegal labor.

"We know they can't advance the country without us," Ovidio said. "The day workers in the United States don't work as hard as Mexicans. Mexicans work up to 12 hours a day."

Were they aware of the danger and obstacles they were about to face? The Border Patrol, the heat, the treacherous desert?

"Yes, we've been told, but we'll still try and do it," said one.

Did they know about the recent influx of National Guardsmen?

"To tell you the truth, we're very disappointed," Noe said. "That's another barrier that will not help us in our crossing."

Their bus was departing, so they picked up their packs. Leal pinned her button on one of the men.

She walked over to the station's shrine to the Virgin Mary where people looking for lost crossers place pictures of their loved ones and contact information. Leal began to cry for the young men.

"Maybe I'm not so worried about their physical chances," she said. "It's that they're destined to be returned and returned because of the failure of immigration reform."

Earlier that afternoon, Leal had been at work at the American museum across the border in Nogales, Ariz.

Friends and fellow activists had come in and out of the creamy yellow building on the corner of Grand Avenue, Nogales' main drag. Tourists visit the museum--which includes pictures of the town's history--but it also serves as a de facto hub for community activists.

Tucson-native Rose Marie Augustine, 70, dropped off a load of secondhand clothing that afternoon.

Dora Hernandez Rosas, the matriarch of a squatters' settlement in Nogales Sonora, sorted through the items.

Augustine, who is of Mexican, American Indian and European descent, has mixed feelings about the guard's presence.

"You know, they're sending a lot of troops down here to guard the border, but people in Virginia are so removed from the history of the Southwest. [They] have no idea how we are connected to the people of Mexico," she said.

Domestic policy needs "to recognize the Mexican people, too. They were here before this border," Augustine said. She compared the border to the Berlin Wall. "I have family on the other side, cousins on the other side."

But Augustine said she also blames Mexico.

"The Mexican president has a lot to do with this. If he took better care of his people, they wouldn't be coming over here," she said. "As long as people are oppressed, are starving, they will continue to come."

Hernandez Rosas, 62, placed her selections in large garbage bags. She stopped to tie her long, coarse hair back with a pink string.

She is part of a demographic that doesn't necessarily cross the border, but ekes out a living around it. She's a mobile vendor and is licensed to sell on either side.

She's also an organizer. Members of her tribe, the Mazahua, also work as vendors, selling trinkets and cheap goods from the sidewalks of Nogales Sonora. They were constantly harassed by city authorities until Hernandez Rosas organized them three years ago.

She said she and her husband came north 40 years ago to escape desperate poverty. People are still coming from the south, decades later, for the same reasons, she said.

"They leave out of desperation. There's not enough food to eat in the interior of Mexico. The children are hungry," Hernandez Rosas said.

For a while, she worked the migrant circuit, picking the American farm fields along the southwestern strip up to San Diego. Many in her tribe continue to work the circuit, while others--the elderly and young mothers--vend in border towns. When she began to have children, she settled in Nogales Sonora.

She made tortillas and paper flowers so that her 14 children could go to school. "I worked like crazy," she said.

Ten children survived; four died.

Done sorting, Leal and Hernandez Rosas loaded the bags of clothing into a reporter's car for the five-minute drive to Nogales Sonora.

An estimated 300,000 people live in the town, most of them in poverty. Squatter settlements and tiny government-issued townhouses climb the town's rolling hills. By southern Mexico standards, however, the town is affluent.

As the car wove through the streets of Nogales Sonora, Leal pointed out the diversity of the community--Mixteco, Mazahua, Tarahumara. Tribes from all over Mexico are present in this Norteno border town.


Many American Indians, mostly women with babies, simply sat on the streets. They held out trays of gum, wooden dolls, sometimes just cups, asking for change.

A few minutes later, the driver made a wrong turn.

Three lines of cars inched toward the customs station. Mazahua men, women and children wove through the traffic, hawking compact discs, religious icons and tiny guitars. Others washed windshields. They all wore red coats to show they are organized and have permits.

Hernandez Rosas' grandson was selling CDs to those in idling cars. He has light green eyes and a kind smile.

"We are humble working people, and we need to eat and maintain our families," said Ramon Murrieta, 34. "We give, too, just like God. We give to others [less fortunate]."

Murrieta stopped the lines of traffic and negotiated a way out for the car.

Leal and Hernandez Rosas dropped the bags of clothing off at the latter's home in the Los Sensinos neighborhood.

Her youngest daughter smiled brightly at the visitors. The two live in a two-room concrete squat with no running water. Flies covered the patio out front. Dirty dishes floated in a bucket of brown liquid. Hernandez Rosas gave Leal a big hug as she made her way back to the car.

Later that evening, in another shanty across town, Luz Castro, 76, patted the photograph of her dead son. A poster of the Last Supper was tacked above her head.

Twelve years ago, 24-year-old Dario Miranda Valenzuela was shot on the Nogales border by U.S. Border Patrol agent Michael Elmer, according to news reports from the time.

The area Valenzuela crossed was known for drug running, but the young man had nothing on him--no gun, no drugs.

His family said he was trying to get to Tucson for work.


Elmer was charged with first-degree murder but later acquitted by a jury. His family paid the Valenzuelas $10,000. He has since disappeared.

"He was going to buy a little house," Castro said of her dead son. He left behind a wife and two children.

"Dario's son keeps looking for Elmer," Castro said. "I had to tell him to stop."



To reach MELISSA NIX: 540/374-5418
Email: mnix@freelancestar.com

Mexicans desperate to cross into the U.S.

You don't suppose MELISSA NIX's last name is really Winkel? Dad named Rip?

So Melissa, after reading your article, we're supposed to be utterly ashamed of ourselves. Then we're supposed to drive to the border and help to hustle sexual predators, drug dealers, and ms-13 gang bangers across the border and into our home towns and our homes? We're supposed to catch their contagious diseases and become their crime victims? This is what you want, Melissa?

Well, let's get this straight, Melissa, are you a John McCain campaign worker, or a Hillary Clinton campaign worker? Or do you work for Kay Bailey Hutchison?

Why aren't you setting the example, Melissa, by inviting MS-13 gang members to date your daughter? Hmmmmm?

Could it be that you're a damn hypocrit?

Melissa, your village just called. They're missing an idiot.

On their next attempt, they hope to make it to Phoenix, where they have friends, or maybe onto Florida, where more friends are, to work as carpenters or in hotels.

It's the same old story, time after time, "I've got friends working...". I honestly believe once we get many of the 12 - 20 million illegals currently residing in the United States deported or force them to self deport through tougher employer sanctions, others would be less likely to come. Many of them are coming because they have friends and family here that are setting them up in jobs, with places to live, etc. Imagine, if you will, how much more difficult it would be for an individual to enter a country where he or she doesn't speak the language and doesn't know anyone. This fact alone will deter many from deciding to come here. Take their connections and jobs away and they'll have no one to help them and no reason to come.

Originally Posted by Brian503a

She made tortillas and paper flowers so that her 14 children could go to school. "I worked like crazy," she said.

Ten children survived; four died.

Good find, Brian, although an upsetting one. Good comments Coto.

Another illegal alien sob story! Boo Hoo!

Did I read the direct quote from the original article correctly? 14 children with 10 surviving?

If these illegals that are so desparate to escape Mexico are so poor, how on earth can they possibly expect to birth and raise that many children? I guess birth control is something they haven't heard of.

I know, they come to the the USA with their illegal brats and/or birth them here and claim USA citizenship on the ones they birth here (anchors) and then get Medicaid for them and their other children as well as free (to them) US taxpayer funded public education, free/reduced lunches, along with all the free medical and other freebies.

I was recently denied Medicaid and this all just makes me so sick and angry, especially since I owe some in taxes but am not getting any benefits.

Domestic policy needs "to recognize the Mexican people, too. They were here before this border," Augustine said. She compared the border to the Berlin Wall. "I have family on the other side, cousins on the other side."

Augustine failed to mention that her family in the United States was illegal too!

Originally Posted by MW

Domestic policy needs "to recognize the Mexican people, too. They were here before this border," Augustine said. She compared the border to the Berlin Wall. "I have family on the other side, cousins on the other side."

Augustine failed to mention that her family in the United States was illegal too!

MW,

Great point! These illegals have all kinds of excuses.

Oh!!! And Augustine, honey, improve the lives for you and your family in your home country first, AND demand that your leaders such as Vicente Foxy make some effort to spread around their wealth they accumlated from you and now don't share. Go on ahead, Honey, and have a civil war in Mexico amongst the population and Mexican leaders. It isnt' the responsibility of the USA citizen taxpayers.

Go on ahead and have civil unrest in your home country because if I have any say, you freeloading illegal aliens won't get away with your freeloading ways on the backs of US taxpayers much longer.

"The Mexican president has a lot to do with this. If he took better care of his people, they wouldn't be coming over here," she said. "As long as people are oppressed, are starving, they will continue to come."

Exactly! And we are told by our politicians that Mexico is our friend? How can we be friends with a country that treats their people like this?