Bubba
Jun 13, 2004, 2:29 PM
Post #2 of 5
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TomG:
I read your article which was interesting but I'm not sure where you are going with it.
These migrants that come through Mexico on their way to the U.S. are desperate and the U. S. has made their plight even more difficult by forcing them into passage from easier access points in places such as Tijuana to inhospitable lands in Arizona where they are even more likely to perish. These people must traverse dangerous routes from points in Sonora to such towns as Phoenix and Tucson before they disperse thoroughout the United States in search of employment picking grapes in California or plucking chickens in Alabama.
During the past year, according the the Guadalajara daily, MURAL, 206,000 illegals were captured trying to cross into Arizona from Mexico and were returned to this country or points of origin. Along this route. 208 migrants were known to have died in 2003. God knows how many were never found. The countries heading the list of those sending illegal immigrants through Mexico in 2003 were Guatamala, El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador and Brazil. Others encountered included people from Poland, Afganistan, Jamaica, Argentina, Ukraine, Haiti and China.
Among Mexican nationals, Michoacan contributed the most illegal immigrants deported from the Arizona border so far in 2004 followed by Guanajuato. Other major contributors of illegal immigrants caught in the desert in Arizona and deported included the states of Hidalgo, Veracruz, Chiapas, Oaxaca and Estado de Mexico.
When my wife worked for an exclusive Napa Valley winery, she told me that Michoacan was a major source of vineyard employees from field workers to cellar management. If this important supply of labor were cut off, the wine industry in Califonia would be in a shambles.
Why can't there be a rational policy in the United States for allowing migrant labor in to perform these vital functions. We have known many migrant workers both in California and here in Mexico who have absolutely no desire to stay in the United States beyond the time necessary to make a decent living. A respectful and rational guest worker program would make sense. If a few stayed over, they would contribute to a productive society. Instead the U.S. encourages the sort of criminal activity we see in the article regarding Ecuadorean worker smuggling and coyotes depositing desperate and hopefull laborers in hostile deserts. This is shameful and inexcusable.
Of course, Latin American governments' apparent opposition to illegal migration into the U.S. is a sham just as the opposition to that migration into the U.S. is a sham by the U.S. government. I promise you that the economy of California, my home state for the past 30 plus years, would virtually collapse without its huge influx of illegal workers from all over the globe. And, on my last visit to my native state of Alabama, it became apparent to me that were it not for Latin American laborers, we would be plucking and gutting our own chickens.
Go figure!
(This post was edited by Bubba on Jun 13, 2004, 2:43 PM)
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