"No more deaths in the Mexican desert" read some of the signs carried by demonstrators in New York City May 27. The Mexican-American Workers Association organized the demonstration in El Barrio, a neighborhood in Manhattan that is home to a growing number of Mexican immigrants. They held Washington as well as the Mexican government responsible for the deaths. The demonstrators also highlighted the exploitation of immigrant workers by greengrocers in New York, where some union-organizing efforts have been taking place.

The 14 were part of a group of 26 attempting to cross 70 miles of desert from the Mexican border to Interstate 8. Twenty-four were from the coffee producing area of the Mexican state of Veracruz.

They were among the many in Veracruz, which has been devastated by the falling world prices of coffee, who have been driven off the land and into the cities of Mexico and the United States. Two were from Guerrero state. Their final destination was North Carolina.

This is the worst known case of immigrants dying in the desert since July 1980 when 13 Salvadorans fleeing political persecution under a U.S.-backed regime died of dehydration in the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. The Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, where the 14 Mexican immigrants were found, is home to the Barry Goldwater Air Force Range, where tactical aviation training is regularly scheduled with the use of live ammunition and bombs. Temperatures there recently reached 115 degrees Fahrenheit.

Some 400 people lost their lives while crossing the U.S.-Mexico border last year, according to the New York daily El Diario/La Prensa. Heavy patrolling of the borders by U.S. immigration cops has forced many workers to try to cross in more remote areas, where they walk for days through the desert.

Under the Clinton administration, the U.S. government initiated Operation Gatekeeper in 1995, building miles of 12-foot-high fences along the border and beefing up the police presence. There are now 9,400 Border Patrol agents, making the Immigration and Naturalization Service the largest federal police agency.

Hundreds of thousands of workers have been deported in recent years. The 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, among other reactionary provisions, eliminated constitutional protections in order to speed deportations.

The response of both U.S. and Mexican government officials to the latest deaths, however, has been to blame immigrant smugglers for the deaths. U.S. president George Bush and Mexican president Vicente Fox extended condolences to the families and friends of the dead, vowing to arrest the smugglers rapidly.

U.S. attorney general John Ashcroft condemned the immigrant smugglers "for putting profits before people." Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castañeda called for targeting smugglers as the problem.

Many workers from Mexico and defenders of immigrant rights, on the other hand, have pointed to government immigration policies as contributing to the increasing numbers of deaths on the border.

In an interview, Lupe Castillo of the Human Rights Coalition, known by its name in Spanish, Coalición de Derechos Humanos, pointed out, "We knew more and more deaths would happen, and so did they." She held U.S. policy responsible and said the Mexican government is complicit.

Rick Ufford-Chase, executive director of Border Links, stated, "I’m outraged that there are people in Washington who think the way to control immigration is to give people a death sentence for coming into this country."

Thirty-five people attended a special vigil at the El Tiradito Shrine in Tucson the day after the 14 were found dead in the desert. Isabel Garcia, co-chair of Arizona Border Rights Coalition, said that "the real criminal here is U.S. policy. The real criminal act here is the enforcement of a strategy that is guaranteed to kill people."

The Coalición de Derechos Humanos has held weekly vigils remembering the immigrants who have died near the border since June 2 last year, when 500 attended a Tucson action protesting right-wing rancher vigilantes in Cochise County who were hunting and seizing immigrants for the U.S. Border Patrol.

The June 3 protest is projected as part of a proposed national day of action to highlight the deaths of workers who have died crossing the border and to oppose U.S. immigration laws, including the buildup of the Border Patrol and militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border.
 
 
Related article:
Tear down the fence!  
 
 
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