Student Slideshows Arizona 2011: Allison Coffey

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Text and photos by Allison Coffey

Border cities are as much sites of waiting as they are of transience. For Latin American migrants en route to El Norte, Mexican border cities are stopovers on the journey to another chance. The wait to cross is one of both anxiety and a hesitant optimism. The search for a coyote who will guide them through the desert and delays when temperatures threaten deadly highs are endured by either the naiveté of first-time crossers unaware of the trials faced in the desert, or by the desperation to reach family and work in the U.S.

Many of those who do cross, though, are stopped by the US Border Patrol. A record number of migrants – nearly 400,000 – were deported in 2010. In Nogales, the main port of entry along the border between Arizona and the Mexican state of Sonora, the presence of the deportees has been woven into the fabric of the city. The soup kitchens, shelters and medics who tend to returnees are many, and the migrant population is easily recognized on the city’s streets. Once sent back into Nogales, the deported must decide whether to take a chance on another crossing, or to return home.

Many of those who won’t risk the journey again gather in the dusty, barren lot of Transportes Fronterizos, a bus company that caters to deported migrants returning home. There, the migrants enter another waiting game, but the circumstances are different. The hope of reaching the U.S. that made their first border city wait bearable has been worn away by dehydrating days in the desert, weeks in detention, debilitating blisters on the soles of their feet, and a debt of 3,000 USD to the smugglers. The stay is now marked by boredom and defeat as they wait for family members to wire the money for their bus ticket.

Many border cities are centered around the economy of the crossing: turning profit for the smugglers in search of clients to lead north, the guesthouses that pack migrants until their departures, and the stalls selling water, backpacks and other goods to aid the journey. But Transportes Fronterizos is one business that relies on the economy of deportations to sustain itself. A new program, by the Mexican Government’s Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare that subsidizes deportees’ bus tickets home as a way to incentivize repatriation, has brought even more business for the company. But while he’s profiting from deportations and government subsidies, Don Valente Camacho, owner of Transportes Fronterizos, says that the program does little to prevent future crossings, but rather keeps migrants out of the border towns until they can earn enough money at home to be smuggled across the desert again.

While tighter border security isn’t enough to deter the scores of migrants who cross into the U.S. each year, many won’t make the journey a second time. For Luiz, a 22-year old migrant waiting at Transportes Fronterizos for a bus back to his home in Mexico City, crossing again isn’t worth the risk: “Many ugly things happen here at the border. Unfortunately it’s what the U.S. sees of Mexico and what Mexico sees of the U.S.”

Return to the 2011 Workshop page: Immigration on the US-Mexico Border