Borderline (page 5 of 5)

Clandestine Lives

This month, the MCDC will launch another operation in all four Southwestern border states. Meanwhile, President Bush has proposed a temporary guest-worker program that would, in part, provide safe passage for migrants who hold down jobs and become productive members of American society. Three major proposals have also been floated in Congress. Two are versions of guest-worker programs. The third, which passed in the House of Representatives and is overwhelmingly supported by the Minutemen, calls for the construction of fencing from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico. Vicente Fox -- whose country receives $20 billion annually in the form of "remittances" sent by Mexican workers to their families -- says the bill's passage was "shameful." Others argue that such a fence would probably do little to cut down on illegal immigration.

One afternoon back at last October's operation, a Mexican named Vicente Rodriguez gestures toward the armed men and women seated on lawn chairs beneath American flags in an area south of San Diego. Standing on the Mexican side of a low, rusty border fence that most adults could simply step over, Rodriguez speaks in perfect English. "America needs manual labor; that's the bottom line," he says. "The problem is, the laws of the land don't fit the economic reality. The United States is changing." He nods toward the Minutemen. "They want it to stay the same."

Some of the Minutemen acknowledge that what they are reacting to is globalization. "We outsource all the jobs, and then insource all these replacement workers to whom companies don't have to pay [a fair] wage," says Tim Donnelly, head of the MCDC's California chapter. "There are people who are profiting, just as there were people who were profiting back in 1775," he goes on, making reference to the original Minutemen. "But we small few will bring this nation back in accordance with its founding principles."

In southern Arizona, a white Border Patrol pickup truck emerges from the dark. The six migrants sitting in the road quietly pile into the back of it, while two Border Patrol agents suit up in what looks like black riot gear in pursuit of the 24 who fled.

In the morning, the Minutemen will learn that all 24 were apprehended. As for the other six, they will be processed and returned to Mexico within a few hours. It is likely that they will try to come north again another day, once they've managed to save up the money. If they succeed before a solution to the border problem is found, the best they can hope for is to somehow blend into the landscape, finding work, finding family, keeping a low profile, and living out their clandestine lives in America.

From Reader's Digest - April 2006

 

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