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Thursday, 03/18/1999
NAFTA
Mexicans risk lives as they enter U.S. for jobs
By DEBORAH MARTINEZ of Southwest Texas State University
Despite the popular assumption that NAFTA would decrease illegal immigration to the United States, the new NAFTA jobs in Mexico have not kept Mexicans from slipping in to search for better-paying jobs.
And not much can be done to curb the wave of Mexican workers on whom numerous businesses and individuals depend.
According to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Texas was home to 700,000 illegal immigrants in October 1996.
The INS also reported that between 4.6 million and 5.4 million undocumented immigrants live in the United States. About 54 percent are from Mexico. And more keep coming, many risking their lives in treks across deserts or the Rio Grande, known on the Mexican side as the Rio Bravo.
U.S. Border Patrol agents have had little success in keeping undocumented immigrants out of the United States, said a report by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts.
"The alien traffic, it's definitely been picking up," said Agent Ricardo Lopez, the Border Patrol agent stationed at the Sarita checkpoint on U.S. 77. This is believed to be the area where illegal immigration is attempted more than anyplace else along the borders.
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