A Mexican boy peers through the border fence near Sunland Park, N.M. Erecting fences along the U.S.-Mexican border is one way the border patrol is seeking to curtail illegal immigration. (Catholic Herald photo by Sam Lucero)

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EL PASO, Texas — Sand and rocks cover the barren terrain on the outskirts of Sunland Park, N.M. On this stretch of land, U.S. Border Patrol agents make frequent stops near the border towns of Sunland Park and El Paso.

As the summer sun bakes the earth, visitors peer at a steel chain-linked fence in the distance. Standing about eight feet high, the fence travels for miles across the desert. Its purpose is twofold: to mark the border between the United States and Mexico, and to deter illegal entry into the United States.

During a five-day border immersion experience in June, hosted by Maryknoll Lay Missioners and sponsored by the Milwaukee Archdiocese’s Office of World Mission Ministries, seven members of the archdiocese learned about border and immigration issues. They also learned about — and witnessed — the economic and social impact these issues have on people, and how church teachings tell people of faith to respond.

History of the border

The U.S.-Mexico border is nearly 2,000 miles long and travels through four U.S. and six Mexican states. With an estimated 350 million people legally crossing the border annually, it is the most frequently crossed international border in the world.

While the Immigration Act of 1924 established the U.S. Border Patrol and created border stations to formally admit Mexican workers into the country, it wasn’t until the mid-1990s that lawmakers began calling for fenced borders. The request grew after 9/11. Today, less than 100 miles of border is fenced.

In Texas, where more than half of the border — some 1,254 miles — is located, less than 1 percent of it is fenced. The border fence around El Paso, stretching some 11 miles, was erected in 1997 and is part of an increased effort by the U.S. Border Patrol to curtail illegal entry. The initiative, begun in 1994, is known as Operation Hold the Line. Similar border initiatives were created in San Diego (Operation Gatekeeper) and Nogales, Ariz. (Operation Safeguard).

In addition to the border fence, Operation Hold the Line established a human blockade of agents patrolling a 20-mile stretch of land along the El Paso-Ciudad Juarez border. Agents are stationed every quarter-mile, within sight of each other, to keep constant watch over illegal entry.

According to West Cosgrove, a Maryknoll lay missioner and coordinator of the El Paso border immersion experience called Friends Across Borders, the objective of these border operations was to move illegal entry away from the most populated border cities — where illegal border crossing was rampant — to the desert, where, it was assumed by the border patrol, fewer people would attempt to cross. Those who did would be turned back more easily.

The policy has not stopped people from attempting illegal entry through the desert. An estimated 400 people die each year seeking to enter the United States, usually in the southern Arizona desert.

An estimated 12 million undocumented people, most of them from Latin America, reside in the United States. In 1990, before tighter border initiatives began, some 3.5 million undocumented people resided in the United States.

Why people enter the U.S. illegally

Rosario, an undocumented immigrant, peers out of a window at Annunciation House, a safehouse in El Paso for immigrants who enter the country illegally. (Catholic Herald photo by Sam Lucero)

According to Cosgrove, tighter border security has contributed to this increase.

“An unintended consequence of tighter enforcement of the border is the number of undocumented people in the United States, which has shot up hugely,” he said.

Most of the undocumented immigrants come to the United States for work, explained Cosgrove.

“They used to come and go more frequently. People would work for three months, six months, and make more than enough to live on for a year,” he said. “Then they would take that money home and use it to build one cinderblock room and come back the next year.

“If you think about it, we would all do the same. Would you rather completely leave your family, culture, and friends forever, or come and go? But now that it is so tough to get across the border, once they’re in, they stay,” added Cosgrove. “And not only that, because they can’t visit their family and miss their family ... they bring their family.”

Understanding the reasons poor Mexicans and other Latin Americans enter the United States illegally is both simple and complicated, according to Cosgrove. It is simple to understand that they do it for economic reasons: seeking to feed their families. It is complicated when one looks at the factors causing people to enter illegally. Among these factors are unfair trade policies linked to NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement begun in 1994), which critics say have put Mexicans with small farms out of work.

NAFTA’s negative impact

NAFTA, said Cosgrove, has created some jobs in Mexico.

“But what NAFTA has had a negative effect on is the agricultural industry in Mexico,” he said.

He explained that nations have always protected their industries by placing tariffs on imports.

“The new model of NAFTA says we are going to remove tariffs. We’re going to let the market play itself out. NAFTA has allowed the U.S. to ship grains into Mexico, which used to protect its grain industry — corn, rice, beans, etc. Now, big agribusiness ships corn into Mexico,” said Cosgrove. “Whose corn is be better and cheaper? Some million-acre farmer, Archer Daniels, Cargill, (or) the little campesino farmer with an acre or two?”

While corn is now less expensive in Mexico, it has put small farmers out of work.

West Cosgrove, a Maryknoll lay missioner and coordinator of Friends Across Borders, hands a 50 peso bill to George Howley of Waukesha. The Milwaukee group was participating in a shopping exercise in Ciudad Juarez. View audio slideshow titled "An exercise in justice." (Catholic Herald photo by Sam Lucero)

“At the 10-year anniversary of NAFTA, they estimated 1.5 million small farmers had been put out of business because they couldn’t compete with U.S. imports,” said Cosgrove.

“For every trainload of corn we send to Mexico, Mexico sends us five more undocumented migrants,” he added, quoting a church worker who assists Mexican farmers in the state of Chihuahua. “His point being: It’s these economic systems that are partly responsible for these (undocumented immigrant) numbers going through the roof. NAFTA has had a negative influence.”

Maquilas thrive along Mexican border

Another outcome of NAFTA has been the upsurge of “maquilas,” or foreign-owned assembly plants operated in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso. Among the more than 300 maquilas operating in the border city are Delphi, Electrolux, Avery Labels and Hoover.

These jobs have brought unemployed Mexicans from the country’s interior to Ciudad Juarez, where they earn 50 pesos ($5) for a nine-hour workday. A family cannot subsist on this salary, so extended families must work and live together. Other Mexicans simply continue further north to find better paying jobs.

“Maquilas provide good working conditions,” said Cosgrove. “These are not sweatshops. Everything’s good but the salaries.”

U.S. church and labor groups often visit Mexican factory workers, said Cosgrove. When they learn about the paltry wages, one reaction is to call for a protest at a company’s U.S. headquarters. “These Mexican workers are saying, ‘Please, do not chase this company away,’” Cosgrove added. “Even if the president of Mexico wanted to double the minimum wage to $10 a day, I really think most of the companies would say ciao, see you later, we’re off to China.”

At the border near Sunland Park, Mexican boys, curious about the visitors on the other side, approach the fence. The physical barrier separating the two sides is also a symbolic barrier. Those on one side face a future with little hope, while those on the other side are blessed with opportunity.

Cosgrove believes that immigration reform should take into account the need for foreign workers who fill an important role in the American workforce. He called for a guest worker program that allows immigrants, who meet Homeland Security criteria, to come and go as seasonal workers.

By creating a new guest worker program with security checks, border patrol agents will be able to focus their time on threats such as drug smugglers and terrorists, added Cosgrove.

“The border patrol, by their own admission, says that most of the people that they catch and send back to Mexico are simply good, hard working people who are simply looking for a job to put food on their families’ tables,” he said. “These are our brothers and sisters, and what we have in common greatly outweighs the differences. Yes, we speak a different language; yes, we have a different culture, but that actually can enrich both of us.”