Bulletins of CIEPAC
"Chiapas day by day"

Summary: Last June 2006, two Ciepac associates traveled to Mexico's border with the United States, to begin filming a documentary on the root causes of migration. They traveled to Arizona, the most dangerous crossing point for undocumented migrants where entering the US requires traversing the desert for three, four or more days and daytime temperatures from May to September often exceed 120 degrees F. (50 degrees C.). To date, and since the start of US authorities' fiscal year on October 1, 2005, ninety-nine people have perished⁽¹⁾ (of those whose bodies were found), just along the 389 mi (626 km) Mexico-Arizona border, a fraction of the entire 1,951 mi (3,141 km) Mexico-US border. Since 1994, more than 4,000 people have died along that border, most of them in Arizona.

Ciepac interviewed migrants, vigilantes, intellectuals and activists on border issues. What follows are the testimonies of two women, as extraordinary as they are representative of the millions of undocumented Mexican and Central American migrants whose stories are rarely heard in the mainstream press. The women's straightforward and frank accounts paint a bleak picture of conditions back home, and Mexico watchers might rightly wonder how long people will endure before anger explodes in uncontrollable ways.

Sandra and Yanet survived the trek through the desert, but barely. Ciepac interviewed them in Arizona, hours before they were met by relatives and driven to their final destination. Their accounts are shocking for what they reveal about courage in life- and-death situations, and for the motives that push people to risk life itself for a job. The women scorn their politicians, and exude pessimism about Mexico's future, as long as the political class controls the country's future.

Sandra, from the state of Michoacán, 28 years old, was forced to travel to the US six months pregnant, due to the lack of opportunities at home. She paid a terrible price. Two days into the Arizona desert heat, her water ran out, she dehydrated and lost her baby. Yanet, from Escuintla, Chiapas, 32 years old, miraculously survived 24 days in the desert, alone, left by the coyotes who had guided her, after she fell and fractured an ankle. She crawled on her hands and knees for weeks through hot, bristly desert sands until reaching a paved road. Sadly, she waited a while longer as dozens, perhaps hundreds, of cars whizzed by. Until a Mexican family, out for a drive, noticed her.

We withhold the women's last names to avoid jeopardizing their presence in the US.

Sandra's story
Mi name is Sandra and I'm from Jacona, Michoacán. I guess I wanted to get to know the United States [smiles sadly] but it's gone very bad for me. The crossing is very difficult. We're told that it's not difficult, it'll only be two nights, that we should take a 4-liter water jug. But no, it's not enough, you run out sometimes. That's what happened to me. We walked for four solid days, night and day, and we ran out of water after the second day. I was pregnant and my baby died in the womb. I was six months pregnant.

Q: Tell us why you had to leave.

Sandra: There was no work. We had to find a way to support the family. There is nothing. The jobs at the freezing plant are just temporary, two or three months and then nothing. I lived with my mother, two younger sisters and an eight-month-old baby. Since I was the oldest sibling I had to help my younger sisters. My mother didn't want me to come. She was helping me with my pregnancy. But, still, there was going to be another mouth to feed, more responsibility, more expenses and I was without work, my sisters are studying and my mother was the only one working. We just couldn't make ends meet with what she was making. There're no men in the family, just women, apart from the eight-month-old baby boy.

Q: Tell us how you met the guy who led you through the desert.

Sandra: We met this coyote in Jacona, he linked us up with a young girl from Zamora, a cousin of hers and me. They took us a bit further than Guanajuato where we took the bus and that's where we met the group of 13 that we traveled with. They took us to Sonora and put us up at a house for the rest of the day. They said we should buy apples, oranges, lots of sweets and to take along just a water jug and a 1.5 liter bottle. And that the trek would be just two nights and a day. Turned out to be more. We ran out of water. I got dehydrated and ended up in the hospital. To their credit they didn't abandon me, they helped me out to a paved road. That's where we saw the squad car. They ran, grabbed my backpack and I lost my documents, all my family's phone numbers. When I awoke I was in the hospital. There the doctors told me that the baby had died. It had choked from dehydration. The crossing is so difficult. Very, very difficult.

Q: Do you remember where you crossed?

Sandra: By way of Altar, Sonora. They brought us over the hill. Where, supposedly, they unload drugs. Where, it's said, the "mules" [smalltime runners hired by narcotics traffickers to carry drugs into the US] unload it. I don't know what that's all about [smiles]. They took us across close by.

Q: From Altar to Sásabe [small border town]?

Sandra: Yeah, in fact when we were about to cross [the smugglers] were sending marijuana, and we weren't supposed to cross, but the coyotes said not to worry and they took us across. But in fact, before leaving the house, news came that the drug smugglers seized one of their companions, they caught him with a young woman and they cut her feet and beat up the other two coyotes. And even so they took the risk of crossing us over at that spot.

Q: What would you say to the people who see this documentary?

Sandra: They should think it over real well and not believe the coyotes. They don't tell the truth. They make it out like it's real easy to cross, but that's not true, it's real difficult. It's very difficult.

Q: Tell us a bit about the Coca-Cola plant where you worked.

Sandra, Well, the Coke plant paid us poorly but it was steady work, rain or shine. I could help my mother out, pay the rent, everything, help my sisters. I worked there 7 years, 4 months. Until they closed the plant. I earned 661 pesos⁽²⁾ a week. But if we worked overtime, another eight hours, we could earn in a week 1,000, 1,100, 1,200 pesos, depending how much overtime we put in. But it was from 6 in the morning to 10 at night. Six days a week. And sometimes on Sunday, from 6 in the morning to 6 in the evening. But they paid Sundays a bit more. But then they closed the plant and we were left without a job and now have no place to work. That's why I came here.

Q: When the plant shut, were you given compensation?

Sandra: Yes, but then my grandfather got sick, I had to use the severance pay to pay for the operation. He had gall-bladder cancer. The only thing the Social Security hospital did was to get me a doctor. I had to pay the hospitalization and medicines on my own. The hospital could only schedule an operation for him in two to three months, and the operation couldn't wait. And that's where the Coke plant severance pay went. All told it was 16,000 pesos for just two days in a hospital room. But it wasn't in the Social Security hospital because there was no room. And cancer medicines are expensive. I had to pay 2,400 pesos for each.

Q: What are your plans now?

Sandra: Well, as long as I'm here, I'm going to work hard, earn a bit of money and go back to live with my family. But I would never do this again. To be honest, never.

Q: The people who'll see your story might say, well, yeah, it's difficult to get across and might decide against it, due to the risk involved, but what's the alternative?

Sandra: If the government back there, in Mexico, would support us by creating jobs, perhaps none of this would need to happen. But just the opposite is happening, they are closing everything, the countryside isn't producing anything anymore, the factories are closing, everything's closing. Jobs at stores pay 450 pesos a week, and you've got to pay transportation and meals. We just can't make ends meet.

P: Tell us a bit of your decision, a brave one I might add, to come here.

Sandra: I had been thinking of it because lots of people say that there is money and a lot of things here, but they don't tell you the full story, of what you have to go through to earn some money. The crossing. Through the desert, it's so difficult, unbearable. What forced me to do it was plain need. I didn't have a job. What my mom was earning didn't make it. We had to pay rent, the light bill, food, we couldn't make it. My mom works in a doctor's home doing the cleaning for him. He pays her 400 pesos a week. From Monday to Saturday. Just for rent we were paying 1,500 pesos [a month]. The light bill would come to 300, 200 pesos, depending. And what my mother earned didn't cover it. My sisters, one just turned 15, the other 16. They don't work, they got a scholarship to keep studying. [cries]

Q: In other parts of Mexico, perhaps in Mexico City, are there jobs or not?

Sandra: Not very many, and the few that exist ask for degrees. And I barely finished primary school.

Q: Would you have like to continue studying?

Sandra: Yes, that's why the opportunity I didn't have we're giving it to my sisters. One's in high school now, but she wants to drop out, cause there's no money. That's why I made the decision to come here [she dries her tears with her hand]. My mom didn't want me to come. My sisters, on the other hand, supported me. In any event I had to do something, I couldn't be without a job. And then the 8-month old needed diapers, needed milk. Those things are expensive there. That's why I had to do it and come here.

Q: How old are you Sandra?

Sandra: 28. I'm 28 years old. [cries]

Q: Sandra, how much did you pay the coyote?

Sandra: Fortunately nothing, because I was going to pay him once he got me to my uncle and aunt's. So it was only what I spent on the bus ticket here [to the border] and a bit of money in my backpack that I lost, nothing else. I would have had to pay him 800 dollars, but he was only going to take me to Phoenix where my…family was going to pick me up.

Q: Tell us what you said before, why you're not going to vote.

Sandra: Because one votes but the government always screws us. That's all they do. Take away the little work we have. They jack up the price of everything constantly but our salaries don't go up, and if there is a raise, it's one or two pesos a day.

P: What are we going to do with this country, Sandra?

Sandra: See how it destroys itself. What else is there? Because even if we want to do something the government doesn't let us. It doesn't help us, doesn't lend a hand, not a bit.

Q: What would you say if [president Vicente] Fox and Lázaro Cárdenas [governor of Michoacán] were standing here before you?

Sandra: Stop being so inhuman and create some jobs. And I'd say some other things too, [laughs], stop stealing so much from us, cause they're constantly raising taxes, price of things goes up, and wages stay the same. They never go up. While they're eating well, we're suffering.

Q: What would you say to the people in the United States who don't treat immigrants well, those standing at the border, have you heard of them?

Sandra: Sure. I'd tell them to put themselves in our shoes. They're in a country where there are jobs. Not us. And stop treating us so poorly when we cross. But, not everyone's alike, there are folks who treat migrants okay.

Q: Back in Michoacán, had you ever heard of the Free Trade Agreement?

Sandra: Not very much.

Q: I wonder whether you know that Fox is traveling abroad. He goes to many countries and sings Mexico's praises, that there is progress, advances, job opportunities…

Sandra: What jobs? The ones he shut down? The companies he's closed? Those would be the only ones, cause there aren't any jobs.

Q: Why's he saying those things then?

Sandra: Cause he's a liar. He wants to get along with everyone, even though in his own country he's a failure.

Q: Aren't all politicians liars?

Sandra: They're the worst liars, they promise so many things, and once they get where they're headed, they don't keep their word, they forget everything.

Q: Why do they lie so much and why do people keep voting for them, if it's always the same story?

Sandra: In any event, no matter who's elected, we're always screwed. And even if we don't vote, they use our vote.

Q: Who does?

Sandra: Lots of folks say it's the PRI [Institutional Revolutionary Party-in power for 71 years, until 2000], other say it's not. But, truth is, even the dead vote. Once, after 10 years of having died, he came out to vote. My great grandfather. It seems that a notice arrived at my grandmother's house, saying my grandfather should turn out to vote, but he had been dead for a decade. And, as it turns out, seems that he did vote.

Q: Is your situation back in Michoacán shared by a lot of people?

Sandra: Yeah, lots of people are in the same boat, or maybe even worse, we could say. Lots of people take on debt and then it forces them to do things. Like coming here, and a lot of others are taking their lives, just out of debt. Where I lived I heard people talk about it all the time. Among neighbors, they'd say, "so and so killed himself", or he went to the United States because his debts were going to finish him off. But in any event, what could we do?

Q: What would you say to the most powerful man in the world, the president of the US?

Sandra: Well, I'd ask him to give us a chance to work, nothing else. Work here for awhile and then we could go home, wherever we're from.

Q: Sandra, why doesn't the US government just leave the border open, so that people could enter, earn a bit of money, then return and never have to come back?

Sandra: I don't know.

Q: Something else you'd like to say?

Sandra: Just that folks should consider it carefully become crossing over here, because it's very difficult. You start the journey with so many hopes that things will go well, but you never know what you'll come up against here. That's all I'd like to say.

Yanet's story
Yanet: [commenting on the interview with Sandra] Her experience was worse, because she lost her child, think of it, losing a child. God! I would die weeping.

Q: Tell us your name, where you're from, why you left Chiapas.

Yanet: First of all, I'm from Chiapas and I'd like to talk especially to the women and tell them…to consider it well…before deciding to leave home [cries]…it's so difficult, getting out of the desert alive, especially when you suffer from an illness, like blood pressure. I never thought it would happen to me, I tried on other occasions and nothing happened, I never imagined that the coyotes would leave me behind, surrounded by unfamiliar hills, living from day to day without water, pleading to God that I'd find water. And especially with a broken foot. Some days I'd find water and other days nothing. Water above all, I had to find plants, and thank God I found some, they were prickly pears, well, I'm not sure what they were, but I ate them. During the day the sun was so hot, I'd faint, no water, but thanks be to God, with His help, I kept finding some, even if it was rancid water. Then I came upon a puddle and I stayed there five days, in the hope someone would come by, but no one came [cries], at times I would shout, for someone to help me, and there was no one [sobs]. I would place stones on my stomach, because there was no water, and try to keep up my strength, I would lie in the sand, I'd try to bury myself, I stopped caring about myself, [cries], the thorns would get into me. And days would go by. Far away I could hear the train going by, I could see lights, that's how I guided myself, and I would start again, to walk during the day, but on my knees, because I couldn't get up on my feet. I would get a fever and my foot would hurt at night. I would descend to the washes looking for water, going through garbage, whatever, in the hope of finding water. That's how it went. I never gave up. Until I reached a paved road, thanks be to God. And that's how I'm here now.

Q: Could you tell us how you fractured…was it your ankle?

Yanet, Yes, coming down a hill, my blood pressure dropped, the guys saw me, they grabbed me and said, one of them, one of the coyotes, "come on, ma'am! You can't even walk any more…try and walk!" I told them to let me go, that I'd try to walk as best I could. And with that one of them pulled me and I stepped on a rock and twisted my foot, it made a really ugly sound, and then I really couldn't walk. It was impossible. And they started saying that I was worthless, couldn't even walk. And so they left me, in a wash, alone. Next day, with a little half-liter bottle, my water ran out. I decided to start walking on my knees, because I couldn't, on foot I couldn't walk, it was so swollen, it turned green, so green, and as the days went by, my knees turned purple. That's how I got around, even on rocks, I had no choice. After about three days, some young guys went by and they took me up on a hill, a little hill, with a dirt road, but not even then did the migra see me. It was so difficult, for women it's so difficult.

Q: But did those guys also leave you behind?

Yanet: They left me behind, they said that they couldn't help me, cause I weighed too much.

Q: And those guys were also migrants, or were they from here?

Yanet: They were migrants too, but they weren't carrying much water, they left me just a bit. They weren't carrying much water either. They said they couldn't help me because they were going far and couldn't carry me all the way, they had a long way to go.

Q: So you stayed alongside the puddle, some five days?

Yanet: Yeah, five days in the hope someone would come by, I'd shout for help, hoping someone would hear, but no one did. At night I would light [fires], in the hope they'd see me, but no. No one saw me. The planes would come close, but nothing, no one saw me.

Q: How did you get out then?

Yanet: I'd follow the washes, and I'd come out to the highest points to see, more or less where the ranches were that I could see, that's how I'd orient myself, and by the noise of the trucks, because I could hear them off in the distance, and it was those noises, and the lights, maybe of a town, that guided me.

Q: How long were you in the desert?

Yanet: Well, let's see, from May 2 to the 26th [of May] when they picked me up.

Q: Alone?

Yanet: Alone, by myself, looking for water, some days I'd find water, others no, the empty water jugs, there was no food, nothing.

Q: Tell us how they found you.

Yanet: I reached a paved road, the cars would go by, they offered no help, until one man went by, a Mexican also, and he asked me if I was a wetback, and I said I was but I couldn't walk, so he said to me "Don't worry, my child, I'm going to call an ambulance for help" and, it was true, about 15 minutes later, the man came back, with his wife and daughter, and that's how I ended up in the hospital. But it was so difficult, the desert, so difficult. I stopped caring if there were rocks, thorns, whatever…I had to get out. It was so hard.

Q: What would you tell the women of Chiapas, cause it's not like they have much hope back home either, what would you tell them?

Yanet: I'd say that even though life is rough [starts to cry] to struggle on, don't try it, cause if this time I made it, not the next. Maybe it was a miracle from God, who knows, but there wasn't even time to cry…I couldn't even think of…I just wanted to get out, find out about my mom, my brothers and sisters [cries], that's what I cared about, I stopped caring about the rocks, or my shins, I just wanted to get out, to find out about my mom. And even if they promised me no matter what, I would never try it again, it's so difficult. No. The coyotes paint such a pretty picture, and then they talk to you so ugly, so rude to you.

Q: What are your plans, do you want to stay, or go back to Chiapas?

Yanet: For the time being I want to work, not too long, perhaps three, or five years, then go back to my land and never return again to the United States. Because if this time I got out, who knows next time.

Q: Can you tell us how you decided to come here?

Yanet: Well, yeah, the hurricane [Stan, of 2005], the disasters Chiapas has had. There is no work. Well I couldn't find where to work. In the countryside it's impossible. In my house at least, only my father worked. My brothers work out in the fields, helping my dad. We can't work. Where are we supposed to work? We have no place to work. And dad's already elderly. He's ill. He's not going to be with us forever, we have to learn to work. That's why I decided to come here, I never thought I'd go through what I did, in the desert. It's so difficult.

Q: Tell us about what you saw in that house, a photo.

Yanet: At the ranch?

Q: Yeah.

Yanet: Yeah, it was the first ranch I came across, I thought about asking for help there, but I was scared, cause I stared to look for water there, and I came across a photo that had…there were three men, but they were armed, they had a lot of weapons…in other words in the picture they were lots of shots, here [she points to her chest], like this [as if they were bullet holders crossing the men's chests], like they were sheriffs, or maybe Border Patrol, but they looked like bad guys in the photo, I got scared. I thought about asking for help, stay there that night, but then I started thinking, who knows, maybe they're killers, who knows? So I decided to leave, start walking, and from that point on, there were other ranches, that's how I finally made it to a paved road, but who knows, were they good or bad people, who knows, I don't know. There [in the photo] one man's name was, what, William, yeah, William, because it was in English, William Robinson, something like that in English. It was that photo that made me scared. Who knows what kind of people they were.

Q: And all this on your hands and knees, right?

Yanet: Yes, walking on my knees, like a child, what I never did as a little girl, now I did it as a grown-up. [laughs]

Q: And you put a blanket on your knees?

Yanet: Yeah, a blanket, I found some bandages, some used bandages thrown away, I put them on my knees so that the little rocks in the sand wouldn't hurt them. Because they'd get into [the wound in] my knees, they'd stick in and that's how I got the wound.

Q: Can you show us how your knees ended up?

Yanet: [pulls up her pants legs and reveals an enormous round ulcer on each knee] Well, they're healing now, all this [points to her knee] turned purple, all around, but as the days passed [in the hospital] it started going away. Here [points to her leg] there was a wound too, but as the days passed it also healed. And here [points to the plaster cast on her leg and ankle] it still hurts, because in the end I couldn't walk here either [points to her shins]. I tried to use some sticks like crutches, but I fell on my back, and decided not to use them anymore. My knees were hurting so much. But thanks to them I'm here. This one also [points to her other ankle] was injured, but a man who was migrating with us at the start knew how to massage, and he gave me a massage, otherwise I would have fractured both ankles.

Epilogue
We found out later that Sandra made it safely to her destination. We heard nothing further about Yanet, but we were told that reliable people had come for her and that she was in good hands. We strongly believe that the blame for these tragedies lies with politicians in Mexico and the United States. Economic policies in force since the mid-eighties in both countries have eliminated millions of jobs. But we lay the blame of the more than 4 thousand deaths along the border since 1994 directly on the US government, and specifically on the Border Patrol, the institution that began carrying out operations, in 1994, to "seal" certain border crossing points frequented by undocumented migrants. The operations have been successful, but only in pushing migrants, and the coyotes that guide them, to search for alternative routes far from BP's watch, over increasingly dangerous terrain.

Border Patrol documents in the public record show that this deadly strategy, forcing migrants to cross over inhospitable mountains and deserts, was purposely planned, with full knowledge that climates of extreme heat and cold would lead to the death of some migrants. But these deaths would be an "deterrent" to others seeking to cross.

The Border Patrol's inhuman cost-benefit analysis means that agents often do detect one, two or three migrants who have lost their way and may be dying in the desert but, according to US border-affairs activists, agents often think it's not worth the bother, or the cost, of rescuing a few migrants. They pursue larger groups but often leave smaller ones to their own devices. This may explain why Yanet was able to light fires at night, yet surprisingly go undetected in one of the most militarized swaths of land in the world.

BP's cold cost analysis may have an up side. In both cases Sandra and Yanet were taken by the Border Patrol to an Arizona hospital. But the BP failed to return, once the women were released, since, had it done so, it would have had to cover hospital fees for Sandra and Yanet. Instead, the women walked away free from the hospital and continued their journey. We wish them the best and, when they decide to return to Mexico, we would hope that they could share in building a nation whose government responds to people's needs, and citizens enjoy the right to not have to migrate in order to survive.

Translated by Miguel Pickard

Our profound thanks to Border Links, www.borderlinks.org, for making it possible for Ciepac to travel to the border region.

Notes

(1)http://regulus.azstarnet.com/borderdeaths/search.php The page was consulted for this Bulletin on July 9, 2006.

(2)Equivalent to US$57, at a current exchange rate of US$1 = MX$11.50.