The Face of the Frontier

The Spanish word for "border" is "frontera," which also translates as "frontier." The translation is appropriate for the arrival of the Minutemen in Arizona, the "citizen volunteers" policing the U.S.-Mexico border for the month of April. The definition of "frontier" is as fitting today as it was during the expansion of the United States 200 years ago: the often deadly line between savagery and civilization. Indeed, the Minutemen's website warns that "Future generations will inherit a tangle of rancorous, unassimilated, squabbling cultures with no common bond to hold them together...The result: political, economic and social mayhem." And so the Minutemen bring their "frontierism" to the frontera, claiming they want only to protect our great nation.

The Minutemen volunteers often defend their actions to the media by saying that illegal immigration is a huge drain on public resources. But exactly how do Mexican immigrants affect public resources? The Minutemen might be surprised to learn that in Arizona alone, Mexican immigrants spend nearly $1.5 billion in mortgage payments and rent annually. This doesn't include the property taxes they pay which go directly to funding public schools. In 2002, Mexican immigrants paid nearly $600 million in federal taxes, while using approximately $250 million in social services such as Medicaid and food stamps, and $31 million in health care - leaving the United States with a profit of $319 million, according to a report of the American Graduate School of International Management in June 2003. And, since undocumented Mexican workers cannot file income tax returns, they don't receive tax refunds, allowing the United States to spend that hefty profit with one hand while waving away immigration issues with the other hand.

American financial institutions enjoy nice profits as well. In 2001, Mexican immigrants sent home $486 million, generating approximately $58 million in transaction fees. Most importantly, it is well-documented that the estimated seven million undocumented immigrant workers in the United States are now providing our Social Security system with a subsidy of as much as $7 billion per year.

The silent middleman in the heated immigration debate is the Mexican worker him/herself. The Minutemen voice their concerns over the internet, through volunteers, and through the media; the U.S. and Mexican governments have researchers, speech writers, ambassadors, and elected officials. They paint illegal immigrants as criminals and mercenaries. But the words of the Mexican immigrants and undocumented workers themselves are rarely heard. Not only are their words in Spanish, but often they simply remain silent. If we did listen to their voices, we'd learn why they leave their homes and families in search of work, even the type of work and rate of pay that many Americans simply will not accept. We'd learn exactly how immigrants risk death to cross the border simply to break their backs working in this country. If the coyote (the smuggler) doesn't kill the immigrant, the desert or Border Patrol likely will. Still, in the hopes of keeping themselves and their families alive and fed, they take the risk.

The author Luis Alberto Urrea describes the deadly border crossing process in his book, The Devil's Highway. The book details the true story of the "Yuma 14," the 14 Mexican immigrants who died tragically in May 2001 when their coyote abandoned their group of 26 in the Arizona desert. In researching the book, Urrea learned that smugglers would describe the immigrants they smuggled with the the word "pollos" – cooked chickens — because of the desert heat they would have to endure. The guides leading the"walkers" across the border, give them cocaine to make them walk faster and longer - of course the cocaine helps their hearts explode, too, because of the extreme physical elements. The Border Patrol agents whom Urrea interviewed revealed that their word for a Mexican is "tonk" - the name based on the stark sound of a flashlight breaking over a human head.