| Ziglar said U.S.
border communities, once flooded with people sleeping in bushes and waiting
for an opportunity to dart across the international boundary are reporting a
decrease in "environmental damage" caused by migrants. "Whether it is trash
left or fires set or vandalism, that has all clearly diminished rather
dramatically," he said. But Gabriela Ayala, 27, said the drop in migration means more unemployment and a lot less business in her grocery shop in Jacume. "Two years ago there were tons of people walking around the town, buying food and water," she said. "Today I only saw three carloads" of illegal migrants. Jacume is a town of 150 families in the rocky hills right up against the border with California. The streets are made of sand, and beyond the cluster of homes, Laura's hamburger joint and the tiny school with Winnie-the-Pooh painted on its door, there is nothing much except rattlesnakes and coyotes. For $20 a person, Ayala said, drivers still pick up migrants from the closest paved road nine miles south of here, and bring them into Jacume -- and, more importantly, within a few feet of the town across the border, Jacumba, Calif. Until the mid-1990s there was nothing but a wire fence to separate the two towns, but by then hundreds of migrants a day had discovered this place. So U.S. officials built a tall, black wall on the boundary, right at the edge of Agustin Rodriquez's farm. Then after Sept. 11, the helicopters and lights arrived. All day long, Rodriquez can look out beyond his chickens and see a U.S. Border Patrol car parked on a hill. "There has been a big change. Just two years ago, groups of migrants came to my house every day, looking for food or water," said Rodriquez. "Now maybe someone comes once a week, maybe twice." [ Continue.......... ] |