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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | May 2006 
Migrants to Push North Despite Troop Deployment
 Tim Gaynor - Reuters
| | Mexican nationals are led to U.S. Border Patrol vehicles after they were caught attempting an undocumented entry into the U.S. from Mexico in Laredo, Texas. Plans to send National Guard troops to seal the Mexican border against illegal immigrants will lead to more deaths and still fail to stop the flow of job seekers, Mexican politicians and experts warned on Tuesday. (Rick Wilking/Reuters) |
U.S. plans to send National Guard troops to seal the Mexican border against illegal immigrants will lead to more deaths and still fail to stop the flow of job seekers, Mexican politicians and experts warned on Tuesday.
President George W. Bush said Monday night he would send up to 6,000 National Guard troops to secure the porous Mexico border, where almost 1.2 million immigrants were nabbed crossing into the United States last year but hundreds of thousands made it.
The main candidates in Mexico's July presidential election swiftly criticized the move. Conservative front runner Felipe Calderon said policies that only look at security always fail.
"They increase the social and human costs for the migrants and only benefit the criminal groups that make money with the hopes and suffering of those looking for a new opportunity for themselves and their families," Calderon said.
His leftist rival, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, said deploying the National Guard "will generate more friction and of course more human rights violations." He said that only creating more jobs in Mexico can ease the U.S. immigration crisis.
Illegal migrants gathering to cross the 2,000-mile (3,200-km) said Bush's proposal increases the risks they face, but does nothing to stop them trying.
"People who are going to cross, are going to cross. They always find a way," said Abel Magana, 28, a laborer from El Salvador who stood in a group of 50 illegal immigrants outside a hostel in this sweltering city across the border from Laredo, Texas. "But it is worrying because there could be more accidents."
A record 464 people died in border crossings last year, most of dehydration or drowning. When security is tightened, migrants are forced to more remote desert areas and rougher river crossings to reach America.
Bush said he would dispatch the Guard troops to border states from California to Texas, where they would aid border police with duties including surveillance and intelligence work, while stopping short of making arrests.
In response, migrants say they will trek west to cross the baking deserts of Arizona, or would swim the broad tidal washes where the Rio Grande spills into the Gulf of Mexico.
"It is not going to stop wetbacks, because the United States is where the money is," said Honduran street trader Roger Nahun, 26, using the term long used to describe migrants who swim the Rio Grande. He spoke as he prepared to enter the river himself.
A BOOST TO HUMAN TRAFFICKING GANGS
Bush announced his clampdown as a divided U.S. Congress prepares to debate a proposed path to citizenship for many of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants, and a rival proposal to build a wall to keep more from crossing.
Many in Mexico see the deployment of troops as a militarization of border policing, despite denials by Bush, who said the Guard troops would step down in about a year as the Border Patrol is strengthened.
Some warned the Bush policy would help dozens of ruthless criminal human trafficking groups operating along the border.
"Sending troops is only going to strengthen crime on the border, as it creates a market for the human smugglers," said Rebeca Rodriguez of the Center for Frontier Studies and Promotion of Human Rights in Reynosa, south of McAllen, Texas.
Rodriguez said smugglers in the area had already boosted their fees by 300-400 percent to $600 to haul migrants north over the Rio Grande and into Texas, and would now make even more money with immigrants needing more help to get past U.S. troops.
"We could see them go as high as $1,500, as they are now just going to raise their prices," she added.
Still, some said Bush made a strong case for immigration reform and a guest worker program even as he placated conservative Republicans with his promise of tighter security.
"The essence of his speech is that you have to respect the dignity of all immigrants. That is a message I receive as a good sign," said Juan Jose Gutierrez of the International May 1st Coalition group that helped organized mass marches and a work boycott of immigrants in cities across the United States.
(Additional reporting by Adriana Garcia in Washington) |
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