Getting Across

Polleros , or chicken herders, are human smugglers, known on the US side of the border as coyotes. They lead illegal immigrants across the desert to a van awaiting them somewhere along a desert highway, and then make their way back across the border for a short rest before it’s time to pick up the next group.

The chicken herders who worked around Douglas often stopped off at the Border Mart before walking back across into Mexico. No documentation was likely to be required of them to return, and a casual, inconspicuous saunter across the dividing line was usually enough to assure the Mexican border guards there was no reason to be suspicious.

If caught illegally on the US side of the border, the short-term consequences would be nothing more than a minor inconvenience and a free ride home; but avoiding detection is a matter of pride among the polleros, according to Douglas residents who have had plenty of dealings with them. The best can lead hundreds of ‘chickens’ into the US before getting caught.

Being caught a second time, however, could mean a stint in jail and necessitate relocation. Chicken herders who worked the Douglas area would be forced to move on to another location if they get apprehended, which means learning a new route and risking getting lost in the desert, not to mention the consequences of stepping on the turf of another group of smugglers.

The Border Mart’s Mr Montano has seen much of this business.

“You know, the main reason why people come here from Mexico has nothing to do with drugs and guns, but everything to do with money,” he said.

In Mexico, the minimum wage is around 530 pesos a week (about €28 or $40), depending on the job and the employer. There is a set minimum wage, but no one seems to know what it is, so the wage just becomes something an employer offers, and people take what they can get with no room to complain, said Montano.

“And a week in Mexico is not 9 to 5, Monday through Friday,” he reminded.

A work week in Mexico is usually seven days and at least 10 to 12 hours per day. A Mexican in the US can make more in a morning’s work than they can in a seven-day work week at home, “Just cleaning hotel rooms!” Montano exclaimed.

In Mexico, minimum-wage earners “slaved and toiled,” he said, while in the US, a job standing behind a counter, washing dishes, cleaning toilets or taking out the trash was a dream - even at only $5 an hour.

“Now, imagine if you have a cousin in Phoenix or Dallas or somewhere who says he can get you a job working on a construction crew, earning over $10 an hour?” he asked. “Man, you’d be very tempted to make the trip, as dangerous as it is.”  

Braving the desert

As Luis Alberto Urrea explains in his book, The Devil’s Highway, making the trip to the north, El Norte, implies much more than just crossing a line.

“In North America, the myth tends west: the cowboys, the Indians, the frontier, the wild lands, the bears and wolves and gold mines and vast ranches were in the west. But in Mexico, a country narrow at the bottom and wide at the top, the myth ran north…For Mexicans, the Gold Rush lay in those mystical lands up there, above…”

Douglas, and the surrounding lands of Cochise County, represents the desert gateway to the Mexican dream. But just getting to that threshold, from places as far south as the state of Chiapas, near the border with Guatemala, or Veracruz or Oaxaca – all in Mexico’s narrow south – is a long trip, often made in a second-class seat on a dusty old bus.

Still, the reward is worth the hassle, and many men and women have made this long and dangerous trip to the US via Mexico’s frontier. They did well enough and proved it by sending money home. Collectively, these men and women sent back to Mexico $25 billion in remittances in 2008 alone. As such, when a cousin or uncle in the north send an invitation to come and work, there is plenty of proof to show that money can be earned, if the trip can be made.

And if the trip must be made illegally, coyotes are always on the prowl.

Coyotes have a tendency to spin tall tales about the trip to bring in more clients, claiming that the dangerous trek takes much less time and requires little water, often leading them into deadly situations. Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants attempt to cross through the desert every year. Here the frontier is open, patrolled largely by cameras on towers and an understaffed Local Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), which has assigned some 3,300 CBP agents to prevent illegal immigration and rescue those stranded and dying across the vast expanse of desert and highway.

According to the humanitarian group No More Deaths, between 1 October 2008 and 3 July 2009, 94 external pagebodies have been recovered from this desert areacall_made. Last year, 183 bodies were recovered, with 238 bodies recovered the previous year. However, the organization says that it has become increasingly more difficult to get an accurate account of how many people have died while attempting to cross the border, and many bodies may be discovered late, or not at all.

On both ends of the border - from San Diego, California to Brownsville, Texas - federal authorities have begun to squeeze the flow of illegal human trafficking, forcing it toward the center, into the deserts of Arizona.This result was precipitated in part because federal authorities failed to take the time to talk to local officials, Cochise County Arizona’s Sheriff Larry Dever told ISN. Border control, he said, is a federal problem, but the consequences are local.

Sheriff Dever did concede that there are regular conference calls between the Department of Homeland Security and border sheriffs in Arizona, but added, “Every time you have a conversation with these people, it’s like the first time.”

Dever doesn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel, or any bright light on the horizon. And Cochise County is especially prickled by illegal immigrant crossings because unlike other borderland in Arizona, a large percentage of the crossed land in Cochise is private.

“It’s like somebody’s trespassing in your backyard,” Dever said.