Friday, 26 November 1999
http://www.azstarnet.com/public/dnews/1126N01.html
Chris Richards,
The Arizona Daily Star
Beginning on Wednesday, travelers to Mexico's interior must pay a deposit
of at least $400 on U.S.-registered vehicles. The Horta family, above, of Oregon,
headed to Colima, Mexico, beat the fee Tuesday at a checkpoint south of Nogales.
By Tim Steller
The Arizona Daily Star
NOGALES, Sonora - Come December, Mexicans who live north of the border traditionally
head home en masse to see their families.
Maybe not this year.
The evolving enforcement of border laws in Mexico and the United States means it
will be costlier to travel south and riskier for undocumented Mexicans to return
north.
Starting Wednesday, the Mexican government will collect a deposit of $400 to $800
for each American-registered vehicle that departs the border zone for Mexico's interior.
And on the return, undocumented Mexicans will face the biggest U.S. Border Patrol
force ever to roam the international line. That means their probability of getting
apprehended is increasing, and smugglers likely will demand higher fees.
The news is already deterring travel in Mexican enclaves around the United States.
In the orchards of eastern Washington state, Mexican workers are worried about paying
the deposit, said Ezequiel Morfin, president of a farmworkers' union there.
``That's why many people have had to cancel their trips,'' Morfin said by telephone
from Granger, Wash.
In the strawberry fields near Watsonville, Calif., the return trip is giving undocumented
Mexicans pause, said Jose Rojas Guzman, a farmworker who decided to make the journey.
``Many people are staying because it's so difficult to cross,'' Rojas said as he
awaited an inspection at the Kilometer 21 checkpoint south of Nogales, Sonora.
The changes mean that Mexican customs is expecting somewhat fewer vehicles to cross
into the interior at Kilometer 21, said Miguel Encinas Nava, the customs administrator
in Nogales, Sonora.
In December 1997, 18,884 vehicle owners paid for permission to take their cars into
the interior at Kilometer 21, one of the busiest interior checkpoints in northwestern
Mexico. That number rose to 19,120 last December and compares with about 5,000 per
month the rest of the year.
The cost of a permit allowing entry of a vehicle into Mexico for six months will
remain what it has been in past years: about $10.
But beginning Wednesday, drivers of cars up to model year 1993 also will have to
pay a $400 deposit. For cars from model years 1994 to 1998, the deposit will cost
$600; and from 1999 forward, $800.
The owners must present the car's registration or title (or a photocopy of the title)
and pay the deposit with cash or a credit card. The driver will receive a receipt
that the driver must present upon returning north in order to get a refund.
All the transactions will take place at Banjercito, the bank of the Mexican military,
which has branches that will be open 24 hours a day and computer systems that will
be connected in a network, Encinas said.
The network will allow drivers to receive their deposit even if the port from which
they leave Mexico isn't the place they entered the country, Encinas said.
The deposits apply only to vehicles traveling beyond the border travel zone. Those
traveling to cities such as Nogales, Agua Prieta or Puerto Peñasco, Sonora,
need not pay the fee.
As the Mexican government makes travel to the interior more costly, the Border Patrol
is aiming to deter undocumented southbound travelers from making the return trip.
In special operations next month, agents near Nogales are ``going to try to be in
high-visibility mode so they can see us as they're heading south,'' Border Patrol
spokesman Rob Daniels said.
Not just the number of agents but also the cost and risk of crossing is deterring
some undocumented Mexicans in California, said strawberry picker Jesus Gama Cordova,
52.
``Some people work half the season just to pay the coyote,'' or immigrant
smuggler, Gama said.
Nevertheless, he will be traveling home to Jalisco state with Rojas this week. He
plans to return north again, illegally, after Christmas.
Those who stay will be following a predictable pattern, argues University of Pennsylvania
sociologist Douglas Massey. He wrote last year that border enforcement has changed
a ``circular movement into a much more unidirectional flow.''
``Migrants otherwise disposed to return have been given much more incentive to remain
north of the border,'' he wrote.
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