By Matthew Casey

Today’s top story, written by Brian Duggan and JJ Hensley of the Arizona Republic, covers yesterday’s crash of a Chevrolet Suburban along Arizona 79 while carrying 19 suspected illegal immigrants. Nine were killed and ten injured when the SUV ran off the road and rolled, ultimately coming to a rest upside down. The Republic reports that all nineteen were adults. Espero que los que murieron estan descansando en paz.

“Through July 31, 125 immigrants have died this year in the Tucson Sector, a number that is down from the 170 who died in the same period last year,” write Duggan and Hensley.

Bueno pues, the Tucson sector of the border with Mexico counts 45 less immigrant deaths than the same time one year ago, and many point to this decrease as an indication that the federal government’s new “law enforcement first” approach to immigration is working to decrease the number of people illegally entering the country. Despite this, yesterday’s events show that people are still dieing while trying to get to a place many have never even seen.

I encourage anyone who considers them self an expert on immigration to pay a visit to the border in Arizona and New Mexico. It is my opinion that you will find it difficult to not feel some empathy for those who risk everything to come to our country, legal or not.

This being said, for those of you without the time or the resources to make the trip, let’s follow the migrant trail from Mexico to cities here in the United States, and try to comprehend what immigrants go through. The information I present has been obtained over years of traveling in Mexico and through many frank conversations with immigrants in restaurant kitchens and smoky apartments here in the United States.

For many immigrants who choose to illegally enter the United States, their adventure is the first time they have left the city or town where they were born. I remember riding the Grupo Estrella Blanco for 36 hours from Mexico City to Hermosillo, Sonora with a large group of young men after the 2006 Mexican Presidential Elections. Despite my heartbreak over the loss of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, (PRD) I noticed our bus companions were all dressed in blue-jeans with sturdy sneakers or boots. They all carried large packs, and with the bus’s final destination being Tijuana, Baja California, there was absolutely no doubt what they planned to do when they got there.

At some of the roadside taquerias, (Never eat meat on the road in Mexico. Bottom line: You have no idea what it really is.) I spoke with a few of the stone faced kids. Their attitudes were all pretty much the same, they had heard the National Guard was deployed on the border and were nervous about the trek. But despite these facts and the other mortal dangers of crossing, more than one flatly told me “It’s not impossible.” [To get across]

After an exhausting, multi-day trip to the border it becomes “crunch-time” for immigrants. Most have a limited number of resources, so finding a “coyote” or human smuggler and getting across quickly becomes crucial.  The longer they languish on the border, the more they become targets for local criminals who can easily pick them out as outsiders. One of the reasons that border towns such as Tijuana, Nogales and Juarez have boomed in population over the last ten years is many potential immigrants run out of money, or fail several times to successfully cross the border. They end up stranded and penniless, living out of an aluminum shack on the side of a hill.

Many immigrants use the services of coyotes who have successfully crossed other family members. But for those who are the first in their family to make the trip, a reliable coyote is difficult to find. Known for their ruthlessness and disrespect for human life, choosing the wrong smuggler can be a death sentence.

A friend of mine once explained to me that she changed coyotes at the last minute in Agua Prieta, Sonora because she feared sexual assault when the coyote told her bluntly that he would not be able to cross with her brother who she had traveled with from Cuernavaca, Morelos.

After the coyote is chosen, it becomes a game of “hurry up and wait.” Immigrants are packed into safe-houses where they wait for an unspecified time when the smugglers appear and say it is time to go. In the meantime, they talk price and lay out how the coyote will be paid.

When the time finally comes to “brincar la linea,” immigrants face up to three human obstacles they must pass. First come the Border Patrol, next the National Guard, (Prior to the end of Operation Jump Start.) and finally, whatever citizen vigilante groups that patrol the area they are passing though.

If they are lucky enough to get past these human barriers, immigrants must then traverse a merciless desert wilderness. Recently arriving immigrants claimed to have walked as much as three days and three nights to reach their pick-up point. During the trek, the unlucky ones become sick from dehydration, fall and break bones, or are bitten by rattlesnakes.  Because the “polleros” can not risk losing their entire flock due to the misfortune of one “pollo,” those who can no longer continue are left behind to die.

About twenty miles outside major cities such as Tucson, Arizona, immigrants wait for a final pick-up that will drive them to a safe-house where the coyotes impatiently await payment before delivering their “pollos” to waiting family or friends. But just like the rest of their trip, there is no guarantee that the final pick-up will come. Another woman who I recently spoke with told me that she hid with her husband for three days on the side of a mountain, before her ride back to civilization finally showed up.

In the safe-house, coyotes are paid and plans are laid out to get immigrants to their final destinations. The general rule of thumb is that the farther you are going into the United States, the more you pay. And pay you had better because the coyotes have no qualms about putting a bullet in your skull and burying you in a shallow grave in the desert if that Western Union transfer does not show up.

So now we have finally reached the point where nine immigrants’ adventure ended tragically yesterday.  Duggan and Hensley report the crash took place outside of Florence, Arizona, so the group of nineteen was probably headed for Phoenix and another safe house that would further filter them through the smuggler’s network that stretches throughout our great nation. Though I already know better, I wonder if the families of those who died and had already paid in full will receive a refund from the smuggling organization.

Bottom line folks: it does not matter how many immigrants we deport, or how many fences we build, these people are more than willing to endure mortal consequences for a shot at the American dream. So unless we are willing to equal that death threat as a consequence for breaking our immigration laws, a “law enforcement first” approach to immigration policy is arbitrary.

 

**According to a Google news search, the latest news article on the SUV crash near Florence, Arizona was written by  Associated Press writer, Arthur H Rotstein, and was published by Casa Grande Valley Newspapers on August 14, 2008.**

Rotstein reports,

“ Pima County Medical Examiner Dr. Bruce Parks says only one victim has been identified so far, a Mexican man. Several others have possible names, but none have been confirmed yet, he said

‘Currently, we’re looking at people from at least two countries, El Salvador and Mexico,’ Parks said on Tuesday.”