Thread: TX: U.S. jobs lures migrants who vowed to stay in Mexico

Promise of U.S. jobs lures migrants who vowed to stay in Mexico

Many seeking a future in Mexico find economy there unsupportive

12:17 AM CST on Wednesday, February 13, 2008

By ALFREDO CORCHADO / The Dallas Morning News
acorchado@dallasnews.com

PROVIDENCIA DE SOSNABAR, Mexico – Yolanda Arzola's childhood home is a two-bedroom shack of adobe brick, overlooking a dry arroyo and lifeless cornfield.

Unless you're from here, the place may not look like much, said Ms. Arzola, who returned with her U.S.-born children last month for the first time in six years. She had hoped the move back would be permanent. She had grown tired of the harsh treatment abroad against illegal immigrants like herself.

"The minute you arrive, the emotion is so overwhelming that anything seems possible," Ms. Arzola said as her sister washed clothes in a stream, scrubbing shirts with a stone. "But then reality wakes you, and you ask yourself and your country, 'Mexico, where is the future here?' "

This week, Ms. Arzola will say goodbye to her 97-year-old grandmother, sisters and brother and head back to Texas, then Florida. Her children, having grown restless, had already returned with relatives.

Across the countryside of Guanajuato and neighboring states, the last serenades echo for many of Mexico's returned migrants. Mexicans who returned home, it appears, may not be staying there in the numbers some experts had predicted.

And that underscores some of the challenges facing President Felipe Calderón, now on his first U.S. visit since taking office in December 2006. The five-day tour features several meetings with migrants, and aides say his stump speech is likely to offer a state-of-the-union message on the challenges of his administration, such as creating jobs for them back home.

"What Mexicans want to hear is that Mexico's economy can accommodate them, that they can come home to good-paying jobs," said Mario RamÃ*rez, a native of Mexico and restaurant owner in Dallas. "And that's not going to happen because the economic engine in Mexico needs a double heart bypass. The only economic engine working is called the United States."

In Mexico, "the regional economy remains stuck in time and in salary," said Luis Miguel Rionda, one of Mexico's top immigration experts at the University of Guanajuato. With the minimum wage at about $4.50 a day, "it's not very attractive to work in Mexico."

In spite of the wishes of many Mexicans to return to Mexico to live and work, "the old migration springboards continue to work," he added.

So with the holidays gone and money running out, Mexico's migrants are leaving again.


'They're off again'

More than 1.2 million Mexicans were expected to return home for the holidays, according to Mexican government estimates. The number now returning to the U.S. is not known, but interviews with several migrants and with state officials in Michoacán, Querétaro and particularly Guanajuato – the largest source of workers for North Texas – make clear that the push north has begun again.

"Once the romance ends, they're off again because they're used to a new way of life that's difficult to give up again," said Primitivo RodrÃ*guez, coordinator for the Coalition of Political Rights of Mexicans Abroad, which keeps track of immigrant movements. "Poverty forces you to swallow your pride."


Tearful goodbyes are again playing out among torn families.

"Dios te cuÃ*de, mi hija," whispered Josefina Rayas to Ms. Arzola, 32, as grandmother and granddaughter embraced, tears running down their cheeks. "May God protect you, my daughter." Other siblings, including brother German, lowered their heads in silence.

In nearby Dolores Hidalgo, another town rich with immigrant ties to Dallas, Emmanuel Alatorre, director of the office for migrant affairs, said that once January was over, "shiny new trucks headed north, the music and parties ended. The tradition of going north won't end overnight, especially when the jobs and pay they've grown used to are not here."

Not everyone is sad about these departures. To the east, in the town of Doctor Mora, Guanajuato, Mayor Rubén Dario Piña MartÃ*nez is planning a trip to Texas and Arizona in the coming months to meet with expatriates and ask them to continue sending money home.

"Your hometown's projects depend much on your generosity," he said.

He has several road and sewer projects under way, and the remittances are "extremely important in getting things done around here."


Plan B

In the nearby town of Lomas de Buenavista, friends play a game of coin toss. The men all grew up together and found jobs at the same carpentry company in Tucson, Ariz. They returned home in December, vowing to stay, they said, even if it meant trading $19-an-hour jobs for jobs that might pay as little as $10 a day.

But they have a Plan B. If by summer they grow restless, they'll head north again to either New Mexico or Texas.

"Everyone else here, except us, was going to Texas, Dallas, Fort Worth, Waco," said MoÃ*ses Miranda, 26. "That's where I'll go, too. Besides, it's closer to home [than Tucson], there are plenty of jobs and you don't have to cross the Sonoran desert."

Arizona's Sonoran desert, a traditional migrant route, has claimed hundreds of lives over the years, including at least a half-dozen from this community.

Meanwhile, foes of illegal immigration call on Mr. Calderón "to keep his people home," said Jean Towell, president and co-founder of the Dallas-based Center for Immigration Reform. "The best scenario, which so many seem to want to give Mexico a pass on, would be for the country of Mexico to admit to their failure to take care of their own citizens and take responsibility that is theirs."

But the U.S. economy, particularly in North Texas, remains a powerful lure.

Roberto RubÃ*, his friends and cousins – six in all – also returned to Providencia in December and intended to stay. Then they were bombarded with calls from relatives in McKinney urging them to return. There were too many roofs to build, too many yards to landscape and tables to clean back in North Texas. Three weeks ago, they decided to return. But they were caught and deported by the U.S. Border Patrol.

The men returned to Providencia, sat down and over a game of cards and plotted their next attempt to push north, this time, perhaps, through Eagle Pass, Texas, or El Paso, they said.

"We have nothing to come home to," Mr. RubÃ* explained. "What are we going to do here ... especially when we know the jobs await us there?"

Watching them mingle near her grandmother's home is Ms. Arzola, who has worked in North Texas, Houston and Florida. She empathizes with her neighbors.

"There's something about the water in the United States," she said. "Once you taste it, you're hooked for life. You miss it. You crave it. You're hooked."

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In nearby Dolores Hidalgo, another town rich with immigrant ties to Dallas, Emmanuel Alatorre, director of the office for migrant affairs, said that once January was over, "shiny new trucks headed north, the music and parties ended. The tradition of going north won't end overnight, especially when the jobs and pay they've grown used to are not here."

These shiny new trucks headed north shouldn't be so hard to spot, should they? What would it cost to dump boulders on the main backroads they enter into the US? As long as they can earn so much more in the US they will keep coming. Forever. I would go to another, pleasant country if I could earn ten times as much