| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico 
Mexico Group Helps Illegal Migrants to US
 Agence France-Presse
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August 03, 2010
| | For South American immigrants trying to cross the border illegally into the United States, the journey can be perilous. So the Mexican government has deployed a search-and-rescue group, called the Beta group. These men in orange scour the desert providing relief and advice on how to turn back. | |
Nogales - A letter written by a migrant before he died in the desert is one tool used by a Mexican group which tries to persuade its compatriots to think twice about crossing the border into Arizona.
"My name is Arturo Gomez. The people trafficker tricked us. He said he knew a lot but it wasn't true. There were 14 of us, we can't all endure this. Goodbye," read the crumpled letter found eight years ago near 14 bodies in the scorching desert between Arizona, in the United States, and the Mexican state of Sonora.
The Beta Group also informs migrants of their rights and rescues wounded and lost people on the vast 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) US-Mexico border.
Mexico is the only country in the world to have government-backed groups to assist migrants, according to Enrique Enriquez, coordinator for the Beta Group in the border city of Nogales, one of 16 zones covered along northern and southern borders.
The government set up the group 10 years ago, when migrants were increasingly moving toward the Sonora-Arizona crossing point into the United States after swathes of California and Texas were blocked by a border wall.
Almost half a million people, mainly from Mexico and Central America, try to cross into the United States each year.
In 2009, 182 Mexicans died trying to cross the border between Arizona and Sonora alone, an increase on the 169 deaths the previous year, according to official figures.
Enriquez warned a group of migrants in the area that if they could not be dissuaded from crossing the border they should put their hands on their heads if they came across US Border Patrol agents who may shoot at them.
"Don't split up because, afterwards, everyone runs when the 'migra' (Border Patrol) comes," Enriquez said, explaining it can takes months for family members to reunite if they are deported.
Along with the risks of traveling for days without provisions in the harsh climate or attacks from drug traffickers, a new Arizona immigration law also awaits migrants who cross illegally into the United States.
The law went into effect last week, stripped of powers for police to spot check the legal status of suspects but spreading fear through immigrant communities.
A deployment of 1,200 National Guard troops to the US side of the border also starts this month to help the Mexican government's crackdown on smuggling and drug trafficking.
Enriquez regularly scours the desert, following clothes and belongings dumped by migrants en route and seeking migrants in trouble.
The group recovers dozens of dehydrated or wounded people each week, and also looks for and removes corpses.
Around 50 migrants pass through its offices per day in the summer, compared with up to 400 a day when the weather is cooler.
They help them return home and show them Gomez's letter, in which he named the people trafficker who led him to his fate in a bid to warn others.
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