That’s Juana María’s theory, that the coyote bribed the guard. It’s hard to imagine a U.S. immigration officer jeopardizing his career and pension—not to mention risking prison time—for a cut of a $2,500 coyote fee. Hard to imagine, but certainly possible. U.S. officials along the border have been arrested for conspiring with smugglers. Corruption is not limited to the Mexican side of the border.
Crooked Cops
The Border Action Network is an Arizona-based group founded in 1999 that documents charges of abuse against the Border Patrol and other government agencies involved with securing the Mexican border. The list they post on their website of charges against Border Patrol agents gives credence to Juana María’s theory. Here are a few excerpts from that list from the era when she recounted her story:
Off-duty Border Patrol agent William Varas faces charges that he lied to authorities in July 2002 when he claimed that he fired his gun at immigrants only after they had first shot at him. Agent Matthew Hemmer was arrested in August 2000 on state charges of kidnapping, sexual assault and sexual abuse. A criminal complaint said Hemmer took an undocumented woman, then 21, to a remote location and sexually assaulted her before allowing her to return to Mexico. Agent Dennis Johnson, a former supervisor, was sentenced to seven years in prison for sexual assault and five years (concurrent) for kidnapping in connection with a September 28, 2000 incident. Johnson sexually assaulted a 23-year old El Salvadoran woman who was in custody, naked and handcuffed. Agent Charles Brown, a 23-year veteran, was arrested in November 2003 for allegedly selling classified information to a drug cartel. Brown worked in the agency’s intelligence unit.5
Juana María’s Solution
The Bush Administration’s 2004 election year proposal offering temporary worker status to Mexicans in the United States illegally was no solution to the border wars from Juana María’s point of view. Offering Green Cards is all well and good, she says, “but I feel bad that he wants to give permission for three years to work here, and then after three years you go back to your country.” She looks puzzled and disgusted by the suggestion. “You’re living your life here, you work so hard,” she points out with hurt pride, “now, go back? No. This is not an option.”
What is the solution for Juana María and the millions of other Mexicans living without documentation in the United States? “Amnesty for good persons,” she says. “So many persons come here for work, to have the best life.”
But why should someone who broke the law be given amnesty and the opportunity legally to pursue the American dream? Her answer comes immediately and without hesitation. “Because we work hard and we are important to the country, to help the country grow. And we grow too, because we have the best life.”
And the long-term solution? Should any determined Mexican who wants to come to the United States be greeted with a warm bienvenitos?
“No problem,” she agrees, “they can come.”
Does she favor an open border?
“Yes. Open the border.”
Her reasons are clear and come from personal experience.
“No business for the coyote. No people dead along the border. Then people in Mexico can come here and work, and the United States has cheap workers. That’s simple. Open the border and you have no problems. Then Mexican people can feel free to come here, like the Americans go to Mexico.”
If the border were open, where would Juana María prefer to live, Mexico or California?
“I love the life in California, but I miss my family,” she says, sounding a little dreamy.
Especially Christmas time, or New Year, when we make family parties. The traditions are so different comparing here to there. In Mexico we eat beans and cheese and tortillas, but every family is together. Here we have turkeys with everything, but I don’t feel happy. […] I mean, I feel happy because my kids have the best school, and we stay together with my husband. But I have a heart, and my heart is in Mexico.
On the crime-ridden, violent streets of Nuevo Laredo, some huddled masses listen to mariachis and wait for nighttime as they plot how to cross without documents from Mexico into Texas.
“I’m not worried about the Migra,” says one worker poised to cross the Rio Grande. “Cuando el estómago tiene hambre, no piensa en dificultades.” When the stomach is hungry, you don’t think of difficulties. The men eat sardines from tins, sip orange soda and trade stories.
“I usually go to Florida with the tobacco, or North Carolina for the tomato.”
How many times have you crossed?
“Well, I’ve crossed a lot of times. Maybe fifty or sixty.” A laugh.
On the Day of the Migrant for years local Catholics led processions in Nuevo Laredo from the central park—where many migrants gather before making the crossing—across town to the International Bridge. They walk in silence and carry white crosses to commemorate the Mexicans who have died trying to get into the United States. Nuevo Laredo Priest Leonardo López calls the deaths “executions by unemployment, the economy, and the persecutions of migrants.”1 Advocates for migrants’ rights blame U.S. border policies and the unsuccessful Mexican economy for the desperation that drives them to cross the border illicitly. “These immigrants that have died are not only victims of a dream but also of their desire to get ahead, of the frustration of not having money or stability,” says López.
Trump-era orders added to the desperation in Nuevo Laredo and other Mexican borderland cities. Under the dismissive so-called Remain in Mexico policy, migrants traversing Mexico seeking asylum in the United States were forced to stay on the south side of the frontier until their number was called for a hearing—and wait for weeks that stretched into months, a dangerous and deplorable limbo that for most ended with asylum denied. The vicious, inhumane policy led desperate families to send their children across the border alone because U.S. law obligated officials to accept into El Norte unaccompanied minors applying for asylum.
Pueblos along the migrant trail make migradollars as staging points for the trek north. Places such as Altar, 160 miles southwest of Tucson, fill with travelers as the U.S. Border Patrol tightened border security at urban crossing points. From Altar north into the United States there is nothing much more than desert, bandits and bribe-taking cops. In addition to merchants selling food and water in Altar, organized smuggling gangs are at work, providing temporary housing in marginal casas de huéspedes—guesthouses—and offering onward guided trips into the United States at prices that increase as the United States make the border more difficult to cross. Deadly cartels expand their brands from drugs to guns to people smuggling.
It is not against Mexican law to cross from Mexico into the United States, but it is against the law to smuggle undocumented foreigners. Consequently Mexican law enforcement officials could chase the smugglers since plenty of their clients come from countries south of Mexico’s border—but the cartels can outgun the cops. The former Mexico interior minister, Santiago Creel, watched the smuggling business grow fast after the United States instituted its Southwest Border Strategy in 1994, a strategy that forces undocumented migrants from hardened border cities into the wild desert. “We are talking about international mafias of extremely dangerous groups that have caused great pain to many families,” Creel said of the smuggling operations. “The great problem we face is a humanitarian one,” agreed the head of the Organized Crime Unit