Frontera NorteSur July 2000

Jose Z. Garcia
Director, Center for Latin American Studies
New Mexico State University

At a breakfast cafe one morning in May near Bisbee, Arizona, I asked Tom Collins, a prosecutor for Cochise county and a property owner himself, how much consensus about migration there was among the local ranchers. "It depends on what you mean by `rancher,'" he replied, adding that if by rancher I meant anyone who owns land and raises a couple of cows or more, there was a great variation of opinion among them. If by rancher I meant someone whose livelihood depends wholly on cattle ranching, or someone who's lived by cattle ranching in the region for several generations, there was more cohesion. By the end of the conversation I had the distinct impression--never verbalized--that some of the "ranchers" who were making Southern Arizona famous were not strongly representative of the longstanding ranching families of the area.

As news coverage of angry ranchers in Arizona intensified this Spring I traveled to the Douglas- Agua Prieta, Nogales-Nogales, and Phoenix areas, speaking to ranchers, U.S. law enforcement officials, Grupo Beta officers and other Mexican government officials, Border Patrol officials, reporters at the Arizona Republic, and common citizens. I was trying to assess the fallout from the publicity this Spring, and Jeff Barnet asked me to put some of my conclusions in writing. What follows is a background section on recent trends in the Arizona portion of the border, followed by a brief commentary about some aspects of the rancher flap.

Background

For the last year and a half or so the U.S. Border Patrol has had difficulty coping with increased illegal migration flows from Mexico into Arizona, especially in the Southeast corner between Nogales and Douglas. As the San Diego-Calexico and El Paso-Cd. Juárez border regions have been more effectively "hardened" against illegal migration through fencing, sensing, and beefed up patrolling, the relatively "soft" border in Arizona has become a target of opportunity for "polleros" (smugglers) who have redirected the flow of illegal migrants toward this more deserted region.

Greater demand for jobs in the U.S. as the economy continues to expands acts as a "pull" factor, encouraging more migration toward lucrative job markets. Severe drought in Central Mexico acts as a "push" factor for many migrants, driving them northward. While the Border Patrol has been authorized to increase personnel dramatically in recent years, the agency has had difficulty finding enough qualified applicants willing to do the job.

The traffic jam on the Arizona-Sonora border caused by this redirected flow of migrants has created a host of collateral problems. As migrants enter Mexican border towns waiting for a chance to cross, their inexperience makes them easy prey for criminals who steal, assault, rape, and occasionally murder. Grupo Beta, a border law enforcement agency of the Mexican Migration Service, has had to work overtime with underpaid, understaffed officers to prevent victimization of migrants, inform them of the risks they are taking, and explain their rights as Mexican citizens.

Some drug traffickers use migrants as "mules" to transport drugs across the border, while others have gotten into the migrant-smuggling business as an increasingly lucrative alternative to the risky business of transporting drugs into the U.S. Prices paid for "polleros" to guide groups into the U.S. have been increasing. Once in the U.S., the hot Arizona sun in the summer and the deserted, often roadless landscape, combine dangerously: law enforcement agents are engaged almost as much in providing first aid to dehydrated migrants as they are in repatriation. Much of this story has been covered in recent editions of Frontera NorteSur (see Archives for a feature on this story in the June 2000 issue).

National news media paid scant attention to this story until this spring, when several ranchers on the Arizona border began a high-profile campaign to publicize what they viewed as inadequate federal attention to damage caused by migrant trespassers. Perhaps the most famous of these is Roger Barnett, who claimed he had rounded up over 3000 illegal migrants, often at gunpoint, and turned them over to authorities. Other voices, often sounding xenophobic, chimed in as well, some asking for mobilization of the national guard, others threatening to take common collective action on their own.

This publicity campaign, in turn, caused a strong public reaction in Mexico, from government officials and common citizens alike who complained about "vigilante justice" in Arizona. Migrants became the object of greater sympathy in Mexico, and Arizona ranchers replaced the "migra" as the ones wearing the black hats on the U.S. side. U.S. officials were forced to respond to the effect that vigilante justice would not be condoned. Republican Governor Jane Hull in Arizona went so far as to advocate a form of legalizing some migration through a temporary worker program. In the rapidly escalating image-control contest, "vigilante" ranchers, real or imagined, became everybody's favorite target. Ranchers, in turn, have lowered their profile and the story has largely vanished from national news coverage.

Meanwhile the Arizona desert is still heated by a summer sun. Migration continues through Arizona, although the negative publicity about the Douglas area (where most of the vocal ranchers held press conferences) has caused some shift in migration flows toward Sasabe-Sasabe, small twin border towns about 35 miles West of Nogales-Nogales. In Nogales, Mexico, I heard a rumor I could not confirm from government agents on either side of the border that a rancher had shot a Mexican migrant a few meters on the U.S. side of Sasabe, causing the victim to have a leg amputated.

Commentary

The rancher debate has sharpened public awareness on both sides of the Mexican border of the contradictions of current supply-side policy toward illegal migration. Labor shortages for roofing, construction, agriculture, restaurant, and other industries--in Phoenix, Denver, Albuquerque, and Southern California--drive up demand for these relatively high-paying jobs, stimulating migration. But in practice law enforcement rarely punishes those who most utilize illegal migrants.

The costs of migration control are thus borne by the border communities. On the Mexican side this takes the form of victimization of migrants. On the U.S. side constitutional protections up to the 100 km mark have been downgraded from "probable cause" for arrest to "reasonable suspicion," and citizens witness daily reminders of the expanding presence of law enforcement officials near the border.

While pockets of xenophobic support for some of the vocal ranchers of Arizona have emerged (among other things, Barnett favors annexation of Mexico to the U.S.), in the long run the vocal ranchers have done the border community a favor, pointing out contradictions, making us sort out our own priorities, and strengthening the voices of those who, like Governor Hull, would alter policies and practices to reflect current migration realities and a more equitable distribution of the costs.

As Tom Collins suggested to me that morning near Bisbee, border ranchers are not a monolithic bloc. Families that have been in the area for several generations and whose members have extensive contact with Mexican citizens on the other side are far less likely to be sympathetic to Barnett and others who raised the rancher profile this spring.

Some ranchers offer migrants water and food and don't turn them in to authorities. Still others, while acknowledging migrant traffic through their land constitutes a nuisance (migrants sometimes leave trash and occasionally plastic bags have gotten into the stomachs of cattle, causing severe digestive problems), deny their property has been significantly affected. Barnett, whose main income derives from towing companies he owns throughout the state, does not represent the migrant views or lifestyle of the surrounding ranching community, even though he does own a ranch near Douglas.

The wide range of opinions by citizens of Southeast Arizona about the spring rancher flap is a mute testimony to the subtle complexities of the migration issue as it touches even a relatively small community in a single area of Arizona. Invariably I was impressed by the sophistication and wisdom of citizens on both sides of the border--a sophistication not often matched by the relatively inflexible, ineffective, and often insensitive policies and practices that currently pass as national migration control.