THE US: For nine years, Asucena Balma has worried herself sick every time her husband sneaks across the border from the couple's home in Mexico, braving bandits, vigilantes and potentially deadly temperatures to reach his house-cleaning job in New York.
But her fears multiplied after US President George Bush on Monday unveiled plans to send National Guard troops to the border.
"Suppose they shoot him?" fretted Balma (32) in a telephone interview from the central Mexican town of Mixquiahuala. "There has to be some better solution."
Mr Bush's plan has sent shock-waves across Mexico, which supplies more than half the estimated 12 million undocumented workers in the United States. Already, the proposal is worsening relations between the United States and its southern neighbour, a major trade partner and key regional ally.
"Troops are trained to kill, not to deal with civilians," said Eleazar Serrano Angeles, the mayor of Mixquiahuala, where many workers have left for jobs in the United States.
"This is no way to repay the valuable services that Mexicans perform in the United States."
Many Mexico experts doubt that tighter border control will stem illegal migration because even the lowest-paying jobs in the United States pay 10 times an average Mexican salary.
"It will only increase the deaths," predicted Arturo Solis, director of Mexico's Centre for Frontier Studies and Human Rights.
Immigrants will take increasingly risky desert routes to avoid detection, he said.
A record 473 immigrants died from causes such as heat and dehydration as they tried to sneak across the border last year. To reduce the risks, some undocumented workers may return home less often.
Balma's husband has only come home four times in nine years.
Her two daughters know their father mostly through photographs.
"They still recognise their father," she said, "but for how long?"