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 Editorials | Issues | October 2006 
Three Short Steps to Prosperity for Mexican Workers Crossing US Border
 Paula Bustamante - AFP
| | A view of the Mexican-US border fence near Douglas, Arizona. Financial incentives for workers to cross the border illegally are consedirable as one worker can expect to bring home around 1,000 dollars a month for working the fields of fruit and vegetable growers as opposed to the minimum monthly wage of 134 dollars per month in Mexico. (AFP/Hector Mata) |
US authorities are preparing to build a 700-mile fence aimed at keeping out illegal immigrants, but for Mexican farm worker Euclives, entry to the promised land is as easy as 1-2-3.
The 35-year-old father-of-four has just become one of an estimated 500,000 people who enter the US illegally from Mexico every year as he talks to an AFP reporter in this dusty, barren stretch of border country.
"It's just one, two, three and I'm over," says Euclives, who asked only to be identified by his first name, and who has entered the US illegally for work several times in the past.
"Sometimes when I cross the border I am scared, but I know that I have nothing to lose. If I am caught, they won't shoot me, they'll only deport me," adds Euclives, breathing heavily.
Euclives has entered the US near the Arizona town of Douglas - slogan: "Come for a Day. Stay for a lifetime" - crossing from his hometown on the Mexican side in Agua Prieta.
The financial incentives for Euclives and illegal immigrants like him are huge. While the minimum monthly wage in Mexico is around 134 dollars per month, in some parts of the country it falls to as little as 50 dollars a month.
By contrast in the US, illegal workers who successfully cross the border undetected can expect to bring home around 1,000 dollars a month for working the fields of fruit and vegetable growers.
Yet despite the relative ease with which Euclives has crossed the border, entry to the US is getting harder as border controls have tightened in recent years, he tells AFP.
"Now everywhere you see armed patrols and military more regularly," Euclives says. "It's becoming more difficult. That's why more people try to stay in the United States when they get there."
Isabela, who works in a supermarket in Douglas, says the best way to cross the border is alone. "If the border patrols see a group of people they will stop them, but if they see one person alone they do nothing," she says.
Adrian Gonzalez is another Mexican worker seeking to make a living by crossing the border.
But unlike Euclives, Gonzalez chooses a different route, entering on a tourist visa to work for Just Coffee, a co-operative of Mexican coffee growers who seek to sell their organic coffee in the US with the support of the Presbyterian Church.
Pastor Mark Adams, of the bi-national ministry for the Presbyterian church in Douglas and Agua Prieta, says initiatives like Just Coffee can provide an alternative for families wanting to stay in Mexico.
"We've seen here on the border that 20,000 dollars invested in the hopes of the community does more than spending billions of dollars on building fences," Adams told AFP.
"With Just Coffee alone I know of 35 families who don't have a need to migrate - the children are going back to their communities because there is economic opportunity."
Tommy Bassett, who used to manage a computer factory for a multi-national firm in Agua Prieta until it was closed and relocated to China 10 years ago, believes that initiatives like Just Coffee offer hope for impoverished workers.
Bassett is scathing of US plans to erect a wall along large stretches of the border. "This wall is a great stupidity," he says. "If they construct a wall of three meters, there will always be a staircase of three-and-a-half meters."
"The only thing that is achieved with troops on the border and the wall is that immigrants face more risks." |
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