The Hidden Toll

Most of the white crosses bear only a name and age. Some include a hometown.

Jorge Alvarado Hernandez, age 35.

Maria De Socorro, a 20-year-old from Guanajuato.

Ulises Ortiz Cruz, 17, from Veracruz.

Some say only “No Identificado.” Identity unknown.

They are the illegal migrants--most of them men, most from Mexico--who died scrambling for a chance at American prosperity. They are, activists say, the forgotten ones, the ones who never made it.

Now, a movement is afoot to remember them.

Wednesday, a priest blessed nearly 600 crosses that have been erected at Our Lady of Angels Catholic Church in downtown Los Angeles to honor those who have died on the U.S.-Mexico border in the San Diego area since 1994--from the extremes of weather and at the hands of those who prey on migrants. The ceremony was part of activities marking Mexico’s Day of the Dead, which is celebrated today to honor all the deceased.

The events are part of a series of vigils, marches and rallies using border crosses across the country today coordinated by the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization that works for social justice.

“This is the biggest effort nationwide that we’ve had,” said the group’s Fernando Garcia in El Paso.

Today at noon, Our Lady of Angels will hold a Mass honoring dead migrants, followed by another blessing ceremony.

The crosses are intended as a memorial--and an indictment of U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service policies that have made the border an increasingly deadly place, say immigration rights activists who also spoke at Wednesday’s event.

On the American side of the entire Mexican border in the last fiscal year, an average of at least one person died every day while crossing, according to INS data. That number does not include deaths in Mexico and does not account for those whose bodies were never recovered, activists said.

“If we had improved labor conditions and wages on both sides of the border, my God, you would not see this kind of situation,” said Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. “We’re just not dealing with that as a nation.”

After Wednesday’s ceremony, some wept and prayed among the 591 crosses, mounted with flowers in plastic jars and along a wrought iron fence in front of the church. Some remembered friends who disappeared trying to enter the United States.

Ana Sorto, 43, said her childhood friend from El Salvador disappeared at the Mexican border nine years ago. Her body was never recovered. “Her name is not here,” Sorto said.

Teresa Alvarado, 71, found the name of her son’s friend on a cross: Celerino L. Alvarado, 33, from Oaxaca. “I am here to pray for all those who lost their lives,” she said in Spanish.

Above the crosses hangs a sign. “Cuantos mas?” it reads.

How many more?

The border crosses were first erected along the San Diego-Tijuana border in 1998, said officials at Global Exchange, a San Francisco-based organization that promotes international exchange and helps publicize the project.

They were erected in Los Angeles during this summer’s Democratic National Convention to highlight immigration policies, and have been on display in Mexico City and several southern states in Mexico.

“One of the things we’ve wanted to do over the years is rescue the migrant dead from anonymity--give them a face and a name,” said Claudia Smith, an activist with the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation. “So the real human cost will be driven home.”

In California, activists who use border crosses are calling for an end to Operation Gatekeeper, an INS program begun in 1994. The program aims to divert illegal migrants from entering the United States in urban areas, particularly San Diego, and deter them from coming altogether, INS officials said.

“Operation Gatekeeper has brought a level of control to San Diego that we’ve never seen before,” said Nicole Chulick, an INS spokeswoman. “Before, it was basically uncontrolled.”

Border Patrol staffing--including a new squad of emergency medical technicians--has more than doubled under Operation Gatekeeper and similar efforts in Texas and Arizona, Chulick said. Between fiscal years 1999 and 2000, border rescues doubled and apprehensions in San Diego and El Paso dropped to record lows, she said.

Still, apprehensions overall are higher than ever. And more migrants than ever are dying: between fiscal years 1999 and 2000, deaths increased 57% to 369, INS data show.

Rather than reduce illegal immigration, Operation Gatekeeper has instead pushed the border crossers into rural areas in Arizona and Texas, the data indicate.

For example, highway deaths that occur when migrants on foot are struck by cars in urban areas, particularly San Diego, have declined dramatically. The San Diego border was once the deadliest in the nation, but now fatalities are highest near the Rio Grande in Texas. There, the biggest danger is the river itself: Drownings have more than tripled since Operation Gatekeeper began, according to the Mexican Foreign Relations Office.

In the desolate reaches of California’s Imperial Valley, summer temperatures topping 120 degrees fell many migrants. In the nearby Tecate Mountains, where temperatures can fall to near freezing in the winter, many succumb to hypothermia.

“We wanted to move them out of [urban] areas to give us a greater window of opportunity” to catch them, said Jim Warner, a spokesman for the San Diego sector of the Border Patrol.

But, he said, professional smugglers--not the INS--are to blame for escalating deaths. “Smugglers have no regard for a person’s life,” Warner said.

In 1998, Amnesty International condemned Border Patrol policies along the U.S.-Mexico border. Other organizations, including Human Rights Watch and the American Friends Service Committee, have joined the outcry.

“No one is arguing that these people are not illegally crossing the border, but you can design a strategy that does not guarantee that all these people are going to die,” Smith said. “Maybe we would do something about the employer magnet,” she said, referring to economic demand in the United States for the inexpensive labor that immigrants often provide.