Migrating from or through Mexico to the United States without visas, 473 persons died last year along the border before reaching their destination.  Most died of exposure to the elements (i.e., they froze to death in the mountains or died from heat stroke and dehydration in the desert or they drownedin canals or rivers). Some were murdered.  The 10-year total of border-area migrant deaths is over 3,000.  They died looking for work.  Looking for one of the 4-D jobs (dirty, dangerous, dull, domestic) that Americans disdain.  At home in Mexico and Central America meanwhile, economic policies have destroyed millions of jobs in the countryside and in the cities . 

A fact studiously ignored in the United States (see, for example, Time magazine’s February 6, 2006 cover story on migration), is that the US has promoted the same economic policies that have wrought disaster.  But the chickens have come home to roost with a vengeance.  There has been a significant upsurge (300% in ten years) of emigration from Mexico and Central America. People can't find jobs at home and American policy makers shun asking why.

The response in the US has been a partial gamut of options: beefed-up border security, raising walls, threats of sanctions to employers who hire undocumented migrants, persecuting day laborers in Wal-Mart parking lots.  All options are exercised. Except one.  The only one that would make a significant advance in solving the migratory crisis, i.e., a thorough revision of economic policies. Open-market, neoliberal policies enshrined in free-trade agreements make it illegal for Mexico and the Central American countries to protect certain strategic and vulnerable parts of their economies. Protecting economies would entail the use of tariffs and duties to keep out competing goods from (principally) the United States.  Yet by protecting their economies, countries such as Mexico would be able to resume successful industrialization programs that created jobs.  Likewise, protecting the rural sector from cheap, highly subsidized, US agricultural products would help reestablish livelihoods on small farms, allow people to stay on the land and preclude the need to migrate to survive.

Yet it appears that exploring such options, the real root cause of emigration, is verboten in the United States. It’s not even seriously discussed in academic circles. 

While the blinders remain on, “sealing the border” will continue to be an attractive alternative for American policy makers, even though it is certain to fail in the long run.  Other stopgap measures, such as President Bush’s “guest worker” program, and similar initiatives pending before the US Congress, will not make more than a token dent in granting legal status to a fraction of the estimated 500,000 Mexicans who, without visas, cross the border successfully every year and find jobs.

While hundreds of thousands of migrants succeed, hundreds die every year.  Studying the following list is one way to comprehend the human tragedy transpiring as summertime temperatures on the desert reach 118-120 degrees F. (48-49 degrees C.).  It is only a partial register of the people who died in fiscal year 2004-2005, since it was gathered along a single stretch of the 2,000 mi (3,200 km) border, i.e., the busy Arizona sector. 

In addition, most human and migrant rights activists say that the number of dead grossly underestimates the true number of migrants who die each year, since the register is only of bodies found.  Many more migrants are separated from the group because some physical impairment prevents continuing the walk, get disoriented in unfamiliar desert or mountainous terrain and eventually die from exposure, but their remains are never found.  It is common for migrants to relate that they frequently passed human remains during their trek.

Although the economic policies that the United States promotes (and demands) of Mexico and Central America are behind the hundreds of tragedies compiled in the following table, reading the names of the dead and the circumstances in which they died can only lead us to question why the Mexican government doesn’t do more to protect its citizens.  Why aren't serious diplomatic efforts made to stop immoral operations that force migrants into inhospitable terrain in a vain attempt to “discourage” crossings?  Why does the Fox government back down to American pressure and stop the distribution of pamphlets with life-saving tips on surviving the 3-4 day trek from the border?  Can we imagine what the response of the US government would be if this many Americans were, for whatever reason, needlessly losing their lives?

            The following list was compiled by the Tucson groups Human Rights Coalition / Without Borders Indigenous Alliance, for fiscal 2004-2005 (October 1—September 30).

http://www.derechoshumanosaz.net/
coalicion@derechoshumanosaz.net

P.O. Box 1286
Tucson, Arizona 85702, EEUU
Tel:  520-770-1373
To see the original table, visit:
http://www.derechoshumanosaz.net/deaths.php4