Bruce R Leech - 11-11-2006 at 07:37 AM
"A Just Cause": Central American Migrants and Mexico's Southern Border
by Christine Kovic and Patty Kelly
Christine Kovic teaches Anthropology at the University of Houston-Clear Lake. Patty Kelly teaches Anthropology at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, CT.
Christine's mother, Lenore Walker, is a volunteer several days a week at Casa Juan Diego.
"We're fighting for a just cause, to find work."
Carlos, Honduran migrant in Tapachula
This past July we traveled to Mexico's southern border to speak with Central Americans about their experiences crossing this border and their journey
through Mexico to reach the United States. While the human rights abuses and deaths of mi-grants at the U.S.-Mexico border have received increased
media attention in recent years, Mexico's 750-mile southern border with Guatemala and Belize is seldom mentioned in articles and discussions about
migration. Every year thousands of Central Americans - predominantly from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala -- cross Mexico's southern border en
route to the U.S. At Casa Juan Diego in Houston, Chris-tine had met Central American migrants who told her of the difficulty of crossing Mexico,
particularly the southern border region, and we wanted to learn more by visiting the region.
While in the Mexican border city of Tapachula, we met Carlos, a Honduran man who had just begun his journey to the U.S. (All names of migrants in this
article are pseudonyms.) His hope is to work in the U.S. for a year or so and then to return to Honduras with enough money to start a small business,
perhaps a corner grocery store. He told us of the difficulty of finding work and supporting a family in his home country. Even if one has a job, he
said, the wages are so low you remain in poverty. So Carlos made the decision to migrate to the U.S. in search of work. Some people, he ex-plained,
think that migrants are criminals, out to rob people, create problems, break the law. "But that's not the case. We're fighting for a just cause-to
find work." Carlos and other migrants spoke of their search for work with just wages so that they could survive and provide a dignified life for their
families. Yet the jobs carried out by undocumented migrants are among the most dangerous, exploitative, and poorly paid.
Carlos's words are powerful ones in the current anti-immigrant climate in the U.S. Migrants are referred to as outlaws and criminals by anti-immigrant
groups, most drama-tically the Minutemen, as well as by government officials. In recent years the rights of all immigrants, particularly the
undocumented, have been restricted in the name of "homeland security." Carlos's assertion that migrants come to the U.S. for a "just cause," in search
of work, counters the image of migrants as lawbreak-ers and troublemakers. Further-more, the economies of the U.S. and Central America are closely
linked; the very rea-sons that people leave their homelands in search of work are linked to our way of life in the U.S.
Casa del Migrante
We met Carlos at the Casa del Migrante Albergue Belén, a shelter run by the Scalabrini fathers for Central American migrants crossing Mexico. It is
one of several Casas run by the Sacalabrinis to provide food, shelter, and medical care for migrants; others are located on the U.S.-Mexico border and
in Guatemala. In the Tapachula house, migrants stay for a few days before continuing on their journey north. When we were speaking with one woman in
front of the shelter, she looked at Christine's watch and asked what time it was. She explained that Mexican police had stolen her watch at the
border. We noticed that the others we had spoken with also lacked watches; they informed us that theirs had also been stolen. Indeed, no one we met at
the shelter had a watch and their long journey through Mexico had just begun.
At the Casa del Migrante we also met Claudia who had left her three children with relatives in Honduras to search for work in the U.S. Speaking of her
reasons for going north she explained, "It is very difficult in Honduras. I worked in an Asian-owned maquiladora that produced clothes - sweaters and
other items. I earned $400 lempiras (about 22 U.S. dollars) a week. The pay was low and I couldn't earn enough to survive and raise my three children.
And not only that, the maquiladora is now closing down, so my job is gone." She told us that the pay is marginally better in U.S.-owned maquiladoras,
but even so, it is difficult to survive. Claudia was angry with the Honduran government, frustrated by the economy, and determined to find a better
life for her children. "What can you do? You can't survive on your salary and it's worse if you're a single mother."
Claudia and the other men and women we spoke to at Casa del Migrante told us of the dangers of crossing Mexico and the U.S.-border. Claudia explained
that people have been robbed, raped, and injured while falling off trains. Not only that, she said she knew of people who had died crossing Mexico and
that crossing the desert on the U.S.-Mexico border is particularly dangerous. Yet Claudia, like Carlos and others, felt that she had to risk the
dangers. She had to provide for her children. As she put it, "One has to have faith in God and keep moving forward."
Chiapas-Mayab Railway
Looking at a map of Tapachula, the cross-stitch pat-tern representing the train tracks of the Chiapas-Mayab railway cuts through the southern portion
of the city like a large, deep scar. Migrants call the train "the Death Express" or simply, "the Beast." It is a freight train, not a passenger train,
so people must jump on and ride on tanks or ladders, or hide in freight cars. With at least twelve migration checkpoints in the 700 miles between
Tapachula and Mexico City, taking the bus is not an option for those lacking legal documents. Indeed, when Patty took the bus from Tapachula to San
Cristóbal de Las Casas (a trip of 220 miles), it was stopped three times by migration officials. Just outside the city of Comitán, migration officials
stepped on the bus and removed a woman and her small child and a young man, all traveling without documents. When Patty asked the bus driver what
would become of them, he replied, "Poor things, they'll get sent back to their countries." The train provides a way for migrants to try to avoid the
checkpoints; when immigration authorities stop the train, migrants jump off and run for cover.
Every year, dozens of people who fall from or are pushed off the trains are killed, and others are seriously wounded, losing arms and legs. The Grupo
Beta, a task force set up by the Mexican government to assist migrants, collects statistics on the numbers of injured and mutilated ("mutilados")
migrants whom they assist. The category mutilated presumably refers to those who have lost limbs as a result of train injuries, a category specific to
this region. For 2004, agents assisted 188 injured and 34 mutilated migrants. Numbers for the current year show that injuries are increasing. For
January to June of 2005, there were 111 injured and 53 mutilated. The nongovernmental Fray Matías de Córdova Human Rights Center based in Tapachula
reported 64 deaths at the southern border for 2004. Causes of death include train injuries, assaults (migrants are particularly vulnerable because of
their undocumented status), drowning from crossing the Suchiate River that borders Guatemala, and automobile accidents, among others. During the week
we spent in Tapachula, local newspapers reported the death of three migrants who were injured by the train.
The U.S.-owned Genesee & Wyoming Inc. acquired the Chiapas-Mayab railway in 1999. Genesee & Wyoming now owns track or trackage rights from
Ciudad Hidalgo/Tecún Umán (on the Mexico-Guatemala bor-der) through Chiapas's Pacific coast, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and the states of Tabasco,
Campeche, and Yucatán. According to an article by Ana Lilia Pérez in Contralínea Chiapas ("El expresso de la muerte," June 2005), this is the only
rail line in Mexico that has received loans from the World Bank. The train tracks are poorly maintained, leading to accidents and derailing. The
hazards are great given, that fuels and fertilizers are among the main products transported.
Yet, the train is only the symptom of a larger problem. As Roberto, a Honduran who had lived and worked in the U.S. for many years, said, "It's not
the train that's the problem, it's the government." He explained that the Honduran government needed to work to create jobs, to ensure living wages
for its citizens. People wouldn't have to leave the country if they had jobs with decent salaries. At the same time, he said, the migration policies
of the U.S. are part of the problem as well. While many Central Americans are able to find jobs in the U.S., there is little possibility for them to
gain legal status or work permits. Hence, they must cross Mexico clandestinely, using the trains or other dangerous routes. Roberto himself had held
many jobs in the U.S. He worked in construction and for two years in a chicken processing plant.
Albergue Jesús el Buen Pastor
At the Albergue Jesús el Buen Pastor del Pobre y el Migrante (Jesus the Good Shepherd Shelter for the Poor and Migrant), we met men and women, some as
young as 14 years old, who had been injured on the train. Many residents had lost an arm, or one or both legs. The Albergue is a three-bedroom house
run by Olga Sánchez Martínez, or simply Doña Olga as she is affectionately called. There were some forty residents in the Albergue when we visited. We
also met several wounded men in the hospital who were in grave condition and would likely go to the Albergue if they survived. Some residents of the
shelter who had lost both legs moved in wheelchairs while others were learning to walk with prostheses. A number of the residents had been to the U.S.
where they had worked for years. Others had been injured on their first attempt to travel north.
Having overcome a number of severe illnesses in her life, Doña Olga began to visit the ill in hospitals as an act of charity. Over time, she began to
meet Central Americans in the hospitals who had been injured by the trains or assault. She saw that these migrants were vulnerable; they were without
family or friends in Mexico to assist them. She began to help them in the hospital, asking for money in the streets to purchase medicines or other
materials. She cared for some of the injured in her own home. Six years ago she founded the shelter in a borrowed home and since then has received
hundreds, if not thousands, of Central American migrants.
The house is far too small for the group of people it serves and Doña Olga has been raising money to build a new shelter on the outskirts of the city.
The migrants themselves, many of them missing an arm or leg, are constructing the new shelter. In January of 2005 President Fox awarded Dona Olga
Mexico's first National Human Rights Award for her work with wounded migrants. The prize came with a monetary award of over 20,000 U.S. dollars, which
went toward construction of the new shelter. Doña Olga hopes to move to the new shelter before the end of the year, but still needs money for doors,
windows, beds, a fence, and other items.
At the shelter we met men and women who explained how they had made the difficult decision to leave Central America to migrate to the U.S. We met a
Honduran man, José, who once worked as a farmer, but unable to make a living, he moved to the city where he began to make leather belts to sell in the
market. He also made hammocks to sell. Even with two or three jobs, he couldn't earn enough to survive. In his journey through Mexico, he lost an arm
to the train. He spoke eloquently about the difficulty of surviving in the Honduran countryside. Rural producers are paid so little for their crops,
he explained, that it is hardly worth harvesting.
Alma, a Salvadoran woman, had worked in a maquiladora in El Salvador earning about $34 U.S. dollars a week, but the factory closed down after she had
been there just a month. Not only was she left without a job, she also had to pay the expense of all the paperwork she had to assemble to be hired. A
single mother, she left her three children, ages 7, 5, and 3, with her mother and began the journey north. In December of last year she fell off the
train and lost both her legs. She planed to return to El Salvador and open a small store in August, after spending seven months in the shelter.
We also met Julio, a Salvadoran man who wanted to speak to us in English. "I need to practice," he said and smiled. He explained that he often
translates in the shelter for non-Spanish speakers. He had worked in numerous cities in the U.S., including Dallas, Texas, where he had been employed
as a baker for a five star hotel. Having lost a leg to the train, he was waiting for a prosthesis. Meanwhile, he works daily in construction, helping
to build the new shelter.
Migration, U.S. Policy, and Global Capitalism
The migrants' stories are intimately linked to U.S. policy and global capitalism. Mexico is under increasing pressure from the U.S. to close its
southern border to Central American migrants. Since his campaign, Mexican President Vicente Fox has promised to work to protect the rights of Mexican
migrants in the U.S. It appears that he has used the issue of the southern border as a bargaining chip with the Bush administration in order to gain
status for Mexican migrants. To give but one example, the theme of migration was discussed in an April 2001 meeting between Jorge Casta-ñeda, Santiago
Creel, Collin Powell, and John Ashcroft. In a press conference following the meeting, Mexican Secretary of Interior Santiago Creel an-nounced that his
government was willing to increase its work to stem migration at its southern border in exchange for the U.S. providing more legal channels for
Mexican workers in the U.S. (see Juan Manuel Sandoval Palacios, "Migración y Seguridad nacional en las fronteras sur y norte de México," Geoecono-mía
y Geopolítica en el area del Plan Puebla Panamá, edited by Daniel Villafuerte and Xóxchitl Leyva, 2005). In June of 2001 the Mexican government
announced the South Plan (Plan Sur) to regulate Central Ameri-can migration along its southern border. In just 15 days following this announcement,
6,000 people on Mexico's southern border were deported. Meanwhile, in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, no migration accord has been reached
between Mexico and the U.S.
The current anti-immigrant atmosphere in the U.S. scapegoats immigrants for a variety of social, economic, and political problems. Migrants themselves
are viewed as a problem and closing the U.S. border and increasing penalties for undocumented migrants are seen as solutions. Yet Central Americans
and other migrants in the U.S. along with workers in the global south subsidize our standard of living in the U.S. in myriad ways. We purchase
inexpensive clothing and other products at extremely low prices due to the wages paid in maquiladoras where people such as Claudia and Alma worked
without earning enough to survive. We eat fruits, vege-tables, and chicken grown and processed in the U.S. by migrants such as Roberto who work for
low wages in difficult and dangerous conditions. Guests at a luxury hotel in the U.S. consume fresh baked bread because of Julio's work as a baker,
yet he is unable to obtain legal documents to work. Migrants cannot be seen as a problem to be solved. We need to understand migration as being linked
to the way we live, the way we eat, and the way we shop. There must be new migration policies that allow young people to look for work without risking
the loss of their arms or legs in the process.
Houston Catholic Worker, Vol. XXV, No. 6, September-October 2005.
Mexico accused of abusing its illegals
Bruce R Leech - 11-11-2006 at 07:51 AM
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The State Department says that the Mexican government, angry that a thousand American volunteers will begin an Arizona border vigil next month,
consistently violates the rights of illegal immigrants crossing its southern border into Mexico.
Many of the illegals in Mexico, who emigrate from Central and South America, complain of "double dangers" of extortion by Mexican authorities and
robbery and killings by organized gangs.
The State Department's Human Rights Practices report, released only last month, cites abuses at all levels of the Mexican government, and charges
that Mexican police and immigration officials not only violate the rights of illegal immigrants, but traffic in illegal aliens.
Although Mexico demands that its citizens' rights be protected when they illegally enter the United States, immigrants who cross illegally into
Mexico "are often ripped off six ways until sundown," says George Grayson, a professor at the College of William & Mary and a fellow at the
Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).
Mr. Grayson, who wrote a report for the center on Mexico's abuses of aliens, says "very little" is being done by Mexico to protect the welfare of
the Central Americans and the others who cross into Mexico.
Mexican President Vicente Fox said last week that his government will sue in U.S. or international courts if the volunteers -- part of the
Minuteman Project, which is designed to protest the Bush administration's lax immigration policies -- break the law.
"We totally reject the idea of these migrant-hunting groups," Mr. Fox said prior to yesterday's Baylor University summit in Waco, Texas, with
President Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, at which the countries agreed to improve security and unify business practices.
"We will use the law, international law and even U.S. law to make sure that these types of groups ... will not have any opportunity to progress,"
Mr. Fox said last week.
In response, Sen. Jon Kyl, Arizona Republican, urged Mr. Fox to respect America's right to defend its borders and "demonstrate perhaps a little
less disdain for the rule of law north of the border."
Mr. Kyl said Mr. Fox's "pre-emptive threats" to file lawsuits on behalf of those crossing the border unlawfully "is hardly helpful, since it
presumes that illegal aliens have more of a right to break American law than American citizens have to peacefully assist authorities in enforcing it."
Rep. Tom Tancredo, Colorado Republican, chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, says Mexico had "raised the bar on chutzpah" by
criticizing efforts by the Minuteman volunteers to protest immigration enforcement by the U.S. government.
"Since when are 'Neighborhood Watch' citizens 'vigilantes'?" Mr. Tancredo asked. "President Fox thinks we should tear down the fence that keeps
illegal aliens out? Then why doesn't he put up a welcome sign on his southern border with Guatemala instead of using his military to keep poor
Guatemalans out? Such hypocrisy about borders defies historic parallel."
In a press conference yesterday in Waco, President Bush described the Arizona volunteers as "vigilantes."
Alfonso Nieto, spokesman for the Mexican Embassy in Washington, said the presence of "vigilantes" on the border "will only exacerbate a climate of
unease and provide sources of confrontation that will not contribute to solving the flow of economic migrants demanded by the U.S. government."
Mr. Nieto would not comment on suspected immigrant abuses in his own country, but Mexican government officials earlier said Mr. Fox created a
national program on human rights to address problems.
James Gilchrist, one of the Minutemen organizers, who expects to send 30 private planes aloft to patrol the border, said the volunteers will not
confront the aliens, but report them to the Border Patrol. The American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona said it will post legal observers to monitor
the Minutemen.
Mr. Grayson says most of Mexico's abuses occur along its 600-mile border with Guatemala, and that three groups -- criminals, local police and
immigration agents -- account for most of the mistreatment. He said Mexico's efforts to promote professionalization among its own border officials
"thus far have achieved limited success."
About 200,000 immigrants were detained last year on Mexico's southern border, most of them from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Most of them
were trying to reach the United States.
Mr. Bush, to criticism by both Democrats and Republicans, proposes to hire 210 new Border Patrol agents instead of the 2,000 set out in the
intelligence-overhaul bill that he signed in December. The Senate voted last week to provide additional funding for the 2,000 agents in next year's
budget, signaling a willingness to challenge Mr. Bush on immigration security.