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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| Guatemalan Government Cares More About Their People Than the Mexican Government..... |
| 2005-08-10 |
| EFL. Think the Mexican government will care enough about their citizens to do this? Nah....me neither. Alarmed by the increasing number of undocumented immigrants from Guatemala dying in the Arizona desert, the Guatemalan government is warning its countrymen to stay home rather than risk their lives trying to enter the United States illegally from Mexico. Last week, several high-level officials from Guatemala along with a Guatemalan television crew toured both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border near Nogales to document the dangers involved with crossing illegally into the United States. U.S. Border Patrol officials have counted a record 199 deaths in Arizona since Oct. 1, the start of the federal fiscal year. "It's not as easy as it seems," said Milton Alvarez, acting Consul General of Guatemala in Los Angeles. He visited the Arizona border along with Guatemala's Secretary of Foreign Relations Jorge Briz and Deputy Secretary of Foreign Relations Juan Jose Cabrera. "The smugglers are telling the migrants at the border they'll get them to Phoenix in three hours and the three hours can turn into three days or longer walking through the desert," Alvarez said. If they're lucky, they'll walk out.... Officially, the Guatemalan government has counted 10 migrant deaths in Arizona since May. But the government believes the actual number is "much higher" because many Guatemalans trying to cross illegally into the United States use fake Mexican documents to avoid being deported all the way back to Guatemala, Alvarez said. Tighter enforcement in the Tucson sector has pushed much of the traffic west. In the Yuma sector, apprehensions of Central Americans increased 808 percent from a year ago, to 1,090. Before setting out, most undocumented migrants from Guatemala are unaware of the risks of trying to enter the United States illegally, said Eliseo Dardon, president of Maya Tikal Organization, a Guatemalan community group based in Phoenix. Besides temperatures that can exceed 110 degrees in the summer, migrants risk being robbed, raped, abandoned or killed by smugglers, who charge $5,000 or more for the trip from Guatemala to the U.S. Not to mention the ones held hostage once they get here...lovely bunch of people, migrant smugglers. "What they see is (migrants) coming back after four or five years with money in their pockets," said Dardon, who was interviewed for the documentary to be aired as a weeklong special this month on Telediario, Canal 3, a major television network in Guatemala. "But they don't see the other side of the coin. This is not an American Dream anymore. It's become a nightmare." Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a Washington, D.C-based organization that advocates for tighter restrictions on immigration, praised Guatemala's efforts to discourage people from trying to sneak into the United States, though he said it won't stop people from trying. The United States needs to do a better job enforcing U.S. immigration laws against employers that hire undocumented immigrants, he said. That would send the message "that it's futile, that even if you do make it you aren't going to realize your goal of access to jobs," he said. |
| Posted by:Desert Blondie |
| #5 BAR, we need to perp walk some illegal-hiring CEOs and bankrupt their companies. It wouldn't take many before the word got around that hiring illegal "cheap" labor had a damned expensive downside and that the risk/reward ratio was prohibitive. Most businessmen aren't stupid. Make that negative cost/benefit relationship clear and our problem with illegals will go away quickly. |
| Posted by: mac 2005-08-10 23:51 |
| #4 Bill Clinton is President of Guatemala now? "I feel your pain." |
| Posted by: Chris W. 2005-08-10 13:26 |
| #3 The United States needs to do a better job enforcing U.S. immigration laws against employers that hire undocumented immigrants, he said. That would send the message "that it's futile, that even if you do make it you aren't going to realize your goal of access to jobs," he said. I agree completely. If employers are still willing to gamble on someone's identity without conducting anything more than a cursory check, then it's time to hit 'em where it'll hurt the most. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2005-08-10 12:35 |
| #2 They want to be Americans? Fine. Invade and annex right down to Panama. Scrap their cultures and defend the wee little border. |
| Posted by: BH 2005-08-10 11:51 |
| #1 Trouble is, Guatemala is a humid country with lots of water. Mexico North of DF is generally hot and dry. For this reason, Guatemalans are a lot more likely to die crossing the desert than are Mexicans, who have a greater likelihood of knowing how harsh a desert can be. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-08-10 11:41 |