Mexico’s Other Border Dashes Dreams of Desperate Immigrants

Here in the Tijuana of Central America, thousands of men and women watch their dreams dissolve into desperation, bus fumes and the stench of urine wafting over a sun-baked plaza.

They have fled the poverty of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, setting out for the United States with great hopes. But when they tried to pass through Mexico--”crossing the beast,” they call it--their hopes perished.

Some were assaulted. Most were robbed. All were turned back and stranded in this mangy town on Guatemala’s border with Mexico.

“Here, we’re worth nothing. Here, you’re killed like a dog and they throw you into the river and nobody does anything,” said Steven, a barefoot Salvadoran veteran of border crossings, whose stubbly beard protruded from sharp cheekbones. Two dozen equally bedraggled men nodded their agreement.

While the United States has poured millions of dollars into building walls along its southwestern border to fight a tide of Stevens, the first hurdle for thousands of undocumented Central Americans lies 600 miles farther south.

Human rights workers throughout the region accuse the United States of using Mexico’s southern border as a first filter for unwanted immigrants.

And Tecun Uman, local officials say, is a dumping ground for these unfortunates. In an average week in 1990, 325 would-be immigrants landed here after being cast out of Mexico. By last January, the deluge reached 1,700 a week.

Transients now number about 25,000, overwhelming the city’s permanent population of 20,000.

Some, like Steven, take refuge in Tecun Uman’s tattered central park.

Others settle into dirt-floor shacks of cardboard and car doors along the Suchiate River, which borders Mexico. There is no sewage system. Electric wires have been strung illegally. The river regularly washes over the residents’ meager belongings and mounds of trash and human waste.

The police department has one squad car. Robberies are routine and a body turns up about every other day. Women sometimes sleep at the customs office so they won’t be raped.

Priests of the Scalabrini Missionaries of San Carlos provide some of the few services: a hot meal, rooms for a lucky few and talks about the difficulties ahead. Every day, people shuffle up to the mission’s House of the Immigrant for chicken noodle soup, tamales and a banana.

Among the hungry was 26-year-old Mari. In Honduras she worked 15 hours a day in a Chinese-owned factory stitching T-shirts destined for the United States. She earned 300 lempira--$25 a week.

She sold her tiny house to finance her trip. A Mexican immigration agent took the money, about $670, then tried to fondle her.

“When it’s a woman, they want to touch her and abuse her. They take all your money and leave you with nothing,” she said, clutching her remaining possessions--a black plastic purse holding a comb, a tube of lipstick and a compact of eye shadow.

What would she do now? “Maybe I’ll go back home,” she said, still dazed. “But I don’t know how.”

Alex Eduardo Lima, 22, of Guatemala walked more than 150 miles through Mexico before getting caught. Mexican authorities took about $3,600 from his group.

“Immigration nabs you, you spend up to three days without food, and the bathrooms are a pigsty, and without any water to drink. You have to put up with the stink,” Lima said.

More than 90% of those who pass through the House of the Immigrant report having been robbed, mostly in southern Mexico and Guatemala.

“Delinquents armed with knives, machetes, guns and even automatic rifles steal immigrants’ clothes and shoes because the travelers often hide their money there,” said the Rev. Ademar Barilli, director of the mission.

Mexico has taken some steps to protect immigrants. Special police units now patrol the borders--five in the north, two in the south.

In southeastern Mexico, arrests of assailants for January alone nearly doubled the 24 arrests for all of 1996. More than 700 immigration officers, police and soldiers have been trained in human rights in the southern states where most immigrants are caught.

And at least five officials were dismissed in 1996 for corruption or human rights violations, said Hugo Ayala, director of the Beta South Group.

But critics say the larger problem is that the United States has put the squeeze on Mexico to block Central American immigrants.

“The United States for years has used Mexico as a filter for third-country nationals that they don’t want,” said Susan Gzesh of the Chicago-based Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Human Rights.

In 1988, the Immigration and Naturalization Service sought “the assistance of Mexico and Central American countries to slow down the flow of illegal aliens into the United States,” according to excerpts of INS internal memorandums published by the U.S. Committee for Refugees in Washington.

From that moment, “the immigration policies of the two countries have been more synchronized to dominate the flow of Central Americans through Mexico to the United States,” said Rodolfo Casillas, who studies the phenomenon at the Colegio de Mexico in Mexico City.

Mexican and American officials deny it. “The U.S. has not asked for help,” said Mexican immigration spokesman Juan Lozano.

“It’s simply a function of geography,” said INS spokesman Greg Gagne. “We do encourage Mexico to enforce its own immigration policy, and we applaud its efforts to control its own borders as would any country.”

But the critics point to the numbers: In 1988, Mexico caught just 14,000 undocumented immigrants. In 1996, about 107,000 were turned back on their way north, according to Mexico’s National Immigration Institute.

The crackdown continues unabated. Mexico recently increased penalties for trafficking in undocumented immigrants to up to 12 years in prison. Penalties increase if the smugglers are officials or deal with minors.

The number of immigration agents has tripled in the last year to 30 along the southern border. Soldiers man roadblocks at all exits from Tapachula, the principal Mexican border city, and along the most-traveled corridors.

The result festers in Tecun Uman, where each week about 300 broke and discouraged travelers ask Guatemalan officials to help them get back home. Peter Fuente, a local customs official, can only handle 100.

“We need more buses and drivers and, especially, money for expenses to transport the people, like food and gasoline,” said Fuente, adding that officers sometimes buy meals for the immigrants out of their own pockets.

And then there are those who reach Tecun Uman and--daunted by fear of robbery, rape, corruption and border patrols--go no farther.

Beatriz, 23, had hoped to reach the United States and work cleaning homes, but gave up. She resorted to prostitution to feed her 7-year-old daughter.

“When I got here and heard the stories about how hard it is to cross, I decided it wasn’t worth it,” the sweating, rotund woman said as she sipped a lukewarm beer and batted flies on the patio of a clapboard bordello.

“If I’m dead, I can’t do anything to support my little girl.”