Sitting outside the Grupos Beta building we met a number of individuals who had recently been released by the U.S. Border Patrol.  The first gentleman was a man in his forties who had been crossing back and forth between Mexico and the United States for the last 20 years.  He was picked up in New York where he lived with his family and deported.  With the stepped up border security making a return trip near impossible, he will remain in Mexico while his two children (US citizens) and wife stay in New York.  His current plan is to wait two years in Mexico until his oldest daughter turns 21, at which time he'll apply for citizenship to join his family. 

We also met Juan Carlos Moreno, an author who was writing about his journey as a migrant border crosser, but lost most of his notes in the desert during his last attempt to cross.  He explained that treatment at the hands of the Border Patrol is inhuman, and they treat the migrants like animals.  During detention there were 200 to 300 people is the same cell, with so many of them in holding cell they were unable to lie down or use the toilet.  If they complained of being too hot or cold, the Border Patrol agents would take it to the other extreme.  There were also signs on the walls of the cell stating, "This is how cold it gets in the desert at night."  While possibly meant as a warning, others view this as psychological warfare.  Juan also stated that immigrants are exploited or robbed on both sides of the border.  Dangerous animals are also a problem when they cross at night.  On one occasion when crossing at night, he fell down a hill and broke his back.  He said there are three elements of danger during the journey: the discrimination and exploitation from the border town communities, the dangers of the desert, and the conditions they endure during detention by U.S. Border Patrol.

Families are sometimes separated from one another, as was the case with an unidentified female who was traveling with her cousin.  They were separated when they were picked up by the U.S. Border Patrol and she was very upset and stressed not knowing his fate or condition.  She also pointed out that they are willing to do the jobs most Americans don't want to do, but they won't let us do them now.

We also met two gentlemen from Puebla, Mexico, which is down near Oaxaca.  They had been working the vegetable fields of New York.  One of them has a wife and nine year old daughter in Tempe, Arizona.  He doesn't know what he's going to do now that border crossing has become so difficult and dangerous.  He was deported this time after being involved in an accident that wasn’t his fault.  The judge offered to let him go, but the police or ICE (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement) were waiting outside the courthouse and had him deported.  At the time he had a license and insurance.

After Grupos Beta, we went to a small neighborhood near the border fence for lunch with local families.  It was here we experienced some of the conditions Yolonda, from the book Lives on the Line, had experienced.  Yolonda was a poor struggling single mother, who came and built her own home out of discarded factory materials, in the hills of Nogales.  When approached by social workers in the 1990s, Yolonda became the first to provide the assistance needed to establish the link between the two boarders through the Borderlinks organization.  They provided lunch to church and student groups participating in an experimental program to teach them about the neighborhoods and factories in the Nogales area (Davidson 43). 

After lunch we traveled farther south to a well paved road that separated the Colonia Colossio neighborhood (picture 8) and the Master Lock and Oatey factories among others (picture 9).  This neighborhood (with about 2000 families) is the largest in Mexico and is the main supply of labor to the factories.  As people traveled north in search of employment opportunities at the factories, they acquired the land by squatter’s rights and built their homes out of whatever materials they could afford or find.  According to officials at the school of Hogar De Esperanza PAZ (Home of hope and peace), as more and more people arrived they cut down all the trees to cook and heat their homes, which has had a devastating impact on the local environment.

These factories called, maquiladoras began springing up in the mid-1960s.  The real boom came in the 1980s, when there were as many as 23 foreign factories, paying as little as fifty cents an hour, for repettitive, often dangerous, work (Davidson 26).  In 1988, workers attempted to organize unions for better wages and working conditions, but they were met by company security forces who were sent in to break up the unions and protests.  The passage of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) in 1994 only made things worse for the low wage factory worker in this border town.  Protesting workers were jailed, beaten, and in some cases killed in an effort to bring about change.  Some small successes were achieved though.  Some companies started offering child care and cafeterias.  Working conditions and wages have also improved, but they are still well below the standard many of the workers had hoped to achieve (Davidson 34-35).  Due to the increased labor cost and attempts to unionize, many of the factories have closed up shop in search of a cheaper labor pool in other countries.  According to our Borderlinks guide, the average salary is about ten U.S. dollars a day.

In the book, Lives on the line, Yolanda was able to stake out her independence in the squatter neighborhood of Los Encinos near the maquiladoras, which was very much the same as the one we visited.  First she was able to secure a plot of land to start building a home for her and her daughter, Bobbi (Davidson 23-24).  Her one-room shack build out of discarded pallets, cardboard, and corrugated tin from the factories provided an uneasy shelter.  However, she had no electricity, running water, or sewer system.  Water was supplied by truck to the residence of the neighborhood daily; the fifty-gallon drums used for water storage were usually scavenged chemical containers from the factories or dump (Davidson 27).  In 1991 Yolanda and the residents of her neighborhood protested the lack of utility services to their neighborhood.  After gaining the attention of the local news channels by blocking traffic on the highway, the local government finally relented.  Two years later, the sewer system pipes were provided by the city and the resident provided the back-breaking labor to dig the trenches, and electricity soon followed (Davidson 31).  Yolanda’s first factory job was with Jefel, an electronics company that made inductors.  However, she had higher aspirations for herself and used the factory job as a way to establish herself while seeking other opportunities to succeed.  At the age of 35 she was unable to continue working in the factories, as they favored much younger women.  She continued to support herself by selling used clothing and kitchen utensils and by babysitting and renting rooms to the newcomer to the neighborhood.  (Davidson 29 & 30).

          We finally ended our tour with a briefing at the school Hogar De Esperanza y PAZ.  The school official stated there are about 200 families in the neighborhood that surrounded the school that also serves as the community center.  Upon our arrival many students were playing various instruments, participating in arts and crafts, and playing on the playground.  In the neighborhood many of these homes where constructed in the same manner as the home built by Yolanda.

             The Borderlinks field trip was instrumental in giving a pulse to the articles and books I have read about the border situation between Arizona and Mexico.  I believe there are no easy answers to our current situation, but after meeting face to face with people many perceive to be the enemy, I also believe most of the information being spread about them is unfounded.  Above all, no one should have to die for opportunity.

Works Cited

Davidson, Miriam.  Lives on the Line.  Dispateches from the U.S.-Mexico Border.  Arizona:  The University of Arizona Press, 2000.  Print.

Regan, Margaret.  The Death of Josseline.  Immigration Stories from the Arizona-Mexico  Borderlands.  Massachusetts:  Beacon Press, 2009.  Print.