Up Against the Wall. Peter Laufer

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СКАЧАТЬ Card, they only arrest. They say, “You have a right to call a relative, but you’re going to jail.” If I don’t have a Green Card, they’ll deport me to my country, to Mexico. That’s what they do. They don’t ask for identification, they ask for a Green Card, or your permission to stay in the United States, like a passport. If I don’t have anything with me, they’ll arrest me, and they’ll take me out to the border.

      But life was more uncertain for her when Pete Wilson was governor of California and he rallied voters to pass Proposition 187, the referendum that limited the rights of undocumented migrants and was ultimately struck down by the courts. During the anti-immigrant climate of those years in the mid-1990s, just picking the kids up at school was cause for concern. “The INS came to the schools and they arrested parents. For more than a week, we didn’t send our boy to the school, when I heard that the INS was here in my county.”

      Juana María figures about 70 percent of her Latino friends in California are in the state illegally. When we talked, Juana María still held out hope for legalizing her status. Meanwhile, she and her family thrived. She worked hard at the local PTA, organizing fund-raising dinners of rich Mexican food. Her daughter was christened at the local Catholic church in a Spanish-language ceremony, followed by a block party crowded with friends and relatives, food and music. Her husband went off to work each day; she worked part time. They paid their taxes: Americans by every definition except for paperwork.

      A few days after we talked at her home, it was Mexican Lunch Day at the local elementary school. Juana María brought together a group of the Latino mothers to prepare burritos. The women were lined up in the kitchen, the first ladling out the rice, the next passing out a tortilla, the third the beans. The burritos were topped off with lettuce and cream and salsa. The money raised was used to provide childcare for Latino mothers who were taking classes to earn a high school equivalency certificate.

      Despite the all-American lifestyle, Juana María suffers because of her illegal status in the United States.

      I feel sad because I cannot go to Mexico and come back again. I cannot visit my relatives. My friends who have Green Cards, they do that every year or every other year. I want to go to Mexico. But how can I cross? Maybe I’d be lucky, and not have any problems, like the first time. Or maybe I’d have a lot of problems.

      

      She has reason to worry; she’s heard the horror stories. “I have friends who came two months after I came here to the United States. Two years later they went to Mexico.” The return trip was a disaster. “One of the ladies,” she says it with a combination of sadness and a matter-of-fact reporting of the news, “the coyote killed her. With a screwdriver. In Tijuana. I say no. I’m not going. I love my relatives. But my life is first, and my kids.”

      Nonetheless when Juana María’s father-in-law was dying, her husband chose to take the chance on a trip back to Mexico. In just over ten years, the price of a coyote had increased fivefold. He paid the $2,500 for help crossing from Tijuana to San Diego. The costs for help crossing illegally continue to soar. As the Trump administration focused political capital and dollars on the border, coyote fees—along with the bribes to authorities and bandits on the route north—tallied as much as ten thousand dollars.

      Juana-María’s husband crossed with a false Green Card—not a counterfeit, but stolen. Coyotes prowl border nightclubs, Juana María explains, looking for drunk Latinos with legitimate identification papers. They steal their Green Cards. Her husband sat down at a table with a coyote who displayed a stack of stolen Green Cards. Together they searched through the cards for a picture of a Mexican who looked enough like her husband to satisfy a border guard. He crossed the border with someone else’s Green Card. The system isn’t perfect. He crossed successfully three times. She tells me,

      But the last time the officer said, “You don’t look like him!” They arrested him and sent him back to Mexico. He called me from Rosarita and said, “I am here because they caught me and sent me back to Mexico.” I called the coyote and said, “You promised me my husband would come to California safely. If my husband is not here in my house, I will not pay you anything.” The coyote went to get my husband at Rosarita and he crossed again at Tijuana with the same stolen Green Card. That day was lucky.

      

      “Sometimes the coyotes have business with the immigration officer,” she said, “and they give him money under the table. My husband flew home from San Diego. When he was on the airplane, I sent the money by Western Union to the coyote.”

      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.”

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