10 - 16 May 2001
Issue No.533
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 10 - 16 May 2001 Issue No.533 |
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Bound to the North
The opportunities for Mexican immigration to the US are strictly seasonal, reports Ervin Hladnik-Milharcic from San Diego
Enrique Veloz is relaxed as he cuts the grass in front of an elegant house in the suburban village of La Jolla on the Pacific coast of the United States. A police car drives by, but Veloz only shrugs. "It is no problem," the Mexican gardener says. "Once you're across, nobody bothers you. Nobody. I have been working here for four years and I never had to show a document."
Veloz works as a gardener for $3 an hour, well below the official minimum wage of $5.50. He works illegally. The owner of the La Jolla villa is his illegal employer. Even though American laws forbidding illegal work and employment are tough, neither he nor his employer are worried. According to unofficial statistics, there are perhaps 8 million Mexicans who work illegally in the US. Like all of them, Veloz never showed a passport when he crossed the border. He never had a passport and never saw a customs officer. He jumped over the wall in San Diego.
The wall is the product of an economic and legal paradox. The border between the US and Mexico is unique. The most developed country in the world meets one of the great countries of the Third World. On the US side, there are infinite fields of strawberries, tomatoes, oranges and other produce that resist automated picking. They have to be collected, selected, washed and packaged -- work requiring many hands, an expensive commodity in America.
An employer can hire a pair of hands for a legal minimum of $5.50 per hour. But the profits of the agricultural industry have been steadily falling for the past 10 years. By some estimates they are now 10 per cent lower than they were in 1990. Working in the fields is already the lowest paid job there is and employers cannot legally lower it further. They need hands that are prepared to work for less. In the last decade of unparalleled economic growth, immigrants with residence and work permits could easily get jobs that paid more than the minimum wage. So who will work the fields?
There are many hands just across the border in Mexico. In the border region around Tijuana, jobs in American factories pay no more than 100 pesos -- equivalent to $3 -- per day. Approximately 1.4 million people work for such a wage in the maqiladores, mostly American assembly plants that produce anything from computer screens to luxury cars. After work, they go back to villages where roads are unpaved and there is no running water. In southern Mexico it is difficult to find work for 15 cents per day.
Millions of field labourers who cannot even dream of being employed by an assembly plant look north across the border, where one can earn a Mexican day wage in one hour and save enough money in a season of produce picking to build a house or sustain a family for a year in Mexico. Thus the temptation to go north to work in spring and summer is great. There is work, money and people who are willing to hire workers without checking papers. The fields of America are cultivated by millions of Mexicans that officially do not exist. And the police look the other way. The opportunity is there, then, but so is the wall.
The wall starts in the Pacific Ocean in San Diego's Imperial Beach county. "We built it from metal landing mats that the US military used in the Gulf War," says border patrol agent Gloria Chavez, pointing to the three-metre-tall construction that separates Mexico from the US. It runs from the sea to the mountains in the east for nearly 30km. On the other side of the mountains is the desert.
Built with anything but aesthetic considerations in mind, the wall is rusty, interrupted by rough terrain and not always straight -- but it serves its purpose. "In 1993 we caught half a million illegals just on the 66 miles of the San Diego sector," border agent Raul Villareal says proudly. "In 1994 we built the wall and their number dropped to 450,000. Then it rose again to 580,000. We got more agents and better technology and their numbers started dropping," Villareal continues. "Last year there were only 150,000. This year we caught 35,000 people. The falling numbers are a sign of our effectiveness. Less and less people are trying to cross here. We used to see 5,000 per night, now it is no more than 50," the agent says.
"This part of the border is much too well guarded," says Gloria Chavez. "The smugglers moved deeper east into the desert where there is no wall. But it is also much more dangerous to move. Here they jump across and in 10 minutes they are in the city. On the other side they have to cross 90 miles of the desert to reach the first town." A lot of them never reach the towns. Since they started building walls near the border cities, at least 1,500 illegal emigrants died in the desert.
"We have an infrared camera on that wall," says Villareal. "There are electronic sensors buried in the ground. We have night scopes so that we can see them in the dark and we are much better armed. We have more than 2,000 agents for this 66 miles, and the border patrol has 250 planes. We are the sixth largest air force in the world," he boasts.
With all the technology and barriers it seems impossible that 400,000 Mexicans will cross the border this year once the picking season starts.
"Se puede, se puede [it is possible]," insists a boy in a black hat leaning on the Mexican side of the wall. With him are two girls and 80 other persons scrutinising the police on the American side. "We cannot find work in Mexico," says Tina, who has been waiting for her opportunity for two weeks. "We heard that in the fields in the north there is a lot of work. We have family over there. We crossed last year; we will cross this year," she says. I ask why they do not try further east, in Mexicali, where the wall is shorter and there are fewer agents. "There is a desert over there. You have to walk for days," Tina says. "Here we will be in the city in a few minutes and there is a bus directly to Los Angeles."
Agent Chavez points to an older man whom she detected as a scout for the smugglers. He has a mobile phone with which he conveys the situation to his boss, who is waiting with a group of people in the bush.
"Now is a bad season," he says. "Too much control. From September till the end of April they are unpleasant," he laments. "But in spring, when they will need workers in the fields, they will let us across. Se puede." It is possible.
Both agents deny that there is ever any change in the strictness of border control. The situation is nonetheless strange. The border controls are strict, resulting in the repatriation of hundreds of people every night. But north of the immediate border area, nobody bothers either the illegal immigrants or their employers.
Paul Gastner, an expert on the border and director of the Institute for Regional Studies of the Californias, is candid in his assessment of the situation: "The construction industry is thriving. It wants cheap labourers who will not demand social security and health insurance. The illegal Mexicans accept any conditions," Gastner says. "The owners of plantations need cheap workers because profits are falling. The Mexicans work for $2 per hour. Who will ask them if they have work permits? The temptation is great," he says, referring to both workers and employers.
Breaking the law in the US carries serious penalties, but few violators of immigration laws are actually arrested. "The law is strict and the penalty for illegal employment is jail. But who will arrest plantation owners from here to San Francisco?" shrugs Gastner. "Congress is under pressure from two lobbies. On one side, the agriculture lobby is pressuring it for a liberal immigration policy. The unions, on the other side, want the borders closed because immigrants lower the wages of American workers. The Congress accommodated both," he explains. "It passed a very restrictive legislation, but never allocated the money to enforce it. In the era of prosperity they were all praising the immigrants who contributed to American wealth. Now it seems we are approaching an economic recession, unemployment will rise and I expect that the same people will start crying foul because immigrants are taking jobs from American workers."
A young Mexican from Oaxaca, leaning on the wall with a bag over his shoulder, has his own version of economics. "Spring is coming," he says. "They need me over there. I will get across." The La Jolla gardener agrees. Sooner or later, they all make it.
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