Immigrant crossings into Arizona on the rise

Tue, 18 May 2010 23:10:00 +0000

The migrants walk for days through miles of mesquite scrub, running low on food and sometimes water, paying armed drug thug "guides" and dodging U.S. law enforcement officers along the way. And still they keep coming. The latest figures show that Arizona, which is about to put into effect the nation's toughest immigration law, also is the only border state where illegal crossings are on the rise.

While tightened security and daunting fences in Texas and California have made Arizona a busy crossing corridor for years, migrant smugglers now are finding new ways through the state's treacherous deserts.

Carmen Gonzalez, 27, recalled seven days and six nights of walking with her husband in the desert and being accosted by Mexican thugs with AK-47s, who demanded $100 bribes before abandoning them.

"It was so hard and so ugly," Gonzalez said at a shelter in this Mexican border town, where she, her husband and her brother were staying after being deported from Arizona. "I won't try again because we went through too much suffering in the desert."

Salon.com > Olga R. Rodriguez

Immigrant crossings into Arizona on the rise