Deportations of Mexican migrants have risen dramatically following new laws in Arizona, writes LARA MARLOWEin Nogales, Mexico
US HOMELAND Security subcontracts the deportation of its unwanted migrants to a private company called Wackenhut. Round the clock, Wackenhut’s coaches ferry Mexicans from detention centres to this hot border crossing, with its three-metre-high rusted steel fence and concertina barbed wire.
Hundreds of men and a few women and children disembark from the buses, carrying their belongings in plastic bags or rucksacks. Many limp, because their feet are blistered from walking in the desert. According to the Pew Hispanic Centre, deportations have increased dramatically, to up to 390,000 each year now.
Five minutes down the sun-baked highway, the Jesuit Refugee Service's centre provides two meals a day for deported migrants. "I was hungry . . . thirsty . . . a stranger . . . naked . . . sick . . . in prison." Fr Seán Carroll, the Irish-American priest who has brought me here, recalls Christ's words. "We see the suffering Jesus very much in the people here," he explains.
A cheap reproduction of Leonardo's Last Supperwatches over 50 famished men who down plates of beans, rice, bread, ham and cheese in a large shed furnished with picnic tables. Arizona's right-wing anti-immigration crusaders believe these men, with their thin bodies, sunburned faces and grimy clothes, are the biggest threat to the future of their state.
Their stories demonstrate how sensible is the guest-worker clause in the US Senate’s draft immigration Bill. These men have families in Mexico and do not want to live permanently in the US. But they want to travel freely back and forth, without the risk of death or imprisonment.
Luis Galáz Ortega (48), had just been deported for the sixth time. A construction worker from nearby Hermosillo, Ortega had walked for three nights with eight other men. The batteries in their cell phones ran out and the smugglers who were supposed to pick them up on Highway 86 never arrived. They ran out of water, and gave themselves up to the border patrol.
“I’ve seen two dead bodies,” Ortega recounts. “In January, there was a man crouched in a foetal position behind a stone. I think he froze to death. This time, I saw a bloated cadaver, a sick green colour, on an embankment under trees. I think he died from a snake bite.”
Ortega was almost stung by a coiled diamondback himself. "The border patrol threatened me with up to five years in prison if I cross again." The smugglers who take migrants across the border are known as coyotes or polleros. They charge thousands of dollars, and are said to be involved in both drug and human trafficking. "Sometimes they take us all the way. Other times they abandon us en route," says Ortega. He is already collecting a six-day supply of water, food and medicine for his next attempted crossing.
Floriberto Roblero Aguilar (38), from Chiapas in southern Mexico, was deported on June 4th. He travelled with a group of 25 who walked for four days and six nights. He saw the skeletons of five men in the desert on this trip.
Aguilar’s “coyote” kept them waiting four days at the border at Sasabe, the rugged area with no roads, about an hour and a half west of Nogales, where most of the migrants cross at night.
“Our guide has a look-out who goes up on a mountain and watches the border patrol,” Aguilar explains. “We waited until they eased up.” The 25 were in two lorries. The border patrol stopped the one that Aguilar was in; the others escaped.
“They have heat sensors, motion sensors, drones in the sky,” says Ortega. “We know they are watching. When we see the beam of light coming down from the (unmanned) plane, we throw ourselves on the ground so they can’t see our eyes.” Aguilar is a stone mason who specialises in water fountains. He lived twice in Florida, once for a year, the second time for three years. His wife and children stayed in Chiapas. Former clients recently asked him to return.
“I don’t want to live in America. I just want to work there,” says Aguilar. “I earn $20,000 (€17,000) a year in the US, more than 20 times what I earn in Mexico. My little brother in Chiapas has had three operations. He has a tumour on his foot and it keeps growing back. I am crossing so I can pay for his surgery. If we could earn a decent living in Mexico, we’d stay here,” says Ortega.
Millions of Mexican and Central American women work illegally in the US as maids. Sr Maria Engrazia Robles (68) runs a centre for deported women and children here in Nogales. She sees about 800 each year, of whom perhaps 10 per cent are children.
“More than half the cases I’ve seen lately have been women who were working in the US, were arrested and deported, and had to leave their children behind. That’s why they take such risks; they want to be reunited with their children,” she says.
Fr Seán carries a photograph of Josseline Quinteros, a pretty Salvadorean girl who was aged 14 when she crossed the border at Sasabe with her brother in 2008. They were going to join their mother in California. But Josseline fell ill, and persuaded her brother to continue without her. Her body was found months later. Fr Seán believes the Arizonan Anglos (as white people are known here) who passed the most draconian immigration law in the US in April are grappling with their own diffuse fear of The Other. “There’s a real battle over the identity of the US as a country,” he says. “Who is it, and who does it want to be?”