It's been almost a year since our gardener Félix went to work in Texas, along with his brothers Juan and Sergio, all of them undocumented. This was Félix's fourth trip across the border. He was a teenager the first two times, and was detained and sent back the third time by Mexican cops, who stole …
Continue reading Our gardener's Texas odyssey and the self-defeating politics of U.S. immigration
Driving to San Antonio, a 12- to 14-hour tiresome but otherwise unremarkable marathon, takes a grim turn as one nears the Colombia International Bridge over the Rio Grande, the last stretch before entering the U.S. Up to that point, the roads are mostly first-class expressways, particularly Mex 85, north of Monterrey, recently resurfaced though repair crews can't …
Continue reading Sad migration stories from the U.S.-Mexico border and closer to home
My feelings are torn regarding the "caravan" of Honduran immigrants seeking asylum in the U.S. I see them begging at busy intersections in San Miguel and can't help remembering when I arrived from Cuba alone, when I was fourteen years old, with a nickel in my pocket and my head crammed with fears and dreams …
It's been a painful, shameful, embarrassing spectacle, even from the distance afforded by living in Mexico, to watch what passes for a debate on immigration among the Republican presidential candidates, led by Donald Trump.The more extreme and ridiculous his positions have become—starting with his opening campaign blast promising that he would build a two-thousand-mile wall …
Continue reading A not-too-modest proposal for reforming the American immigration system
While immigration reform languishes in Washington, Mexicans from around the ranch keep marching on north, illegally, to look for work. The last departures were two of Félix' three brothers. One forty-year-old brother left eight days ago and already called from Dallas to report that he's alive, well and working at a construction site. A twenty-three-year-old …
Occasionally I read something and say to myself, "Damn, I wish I'd written that!"This is one of those cases, a post on Burro Hall, a blog whose author I don't know. I believe he lives in Querétaro, about 40 minutes from here.Check it out so you too can share the nationwide alarm about unaccompanied children …
Continue reading The imminent threat of illegal (children) coming across the border
Magdalena García is a fellow Cuban refugee and a Presbyterian minister who performed an act of kindness I'll never forget when my mom died twelve years ago. She organized and conducted a beautiful memorial service at her church in Chicago, with music, flowers and a moving eulogy, after the Roman Catholic parish to which I …
According to a newswire story just a few days ago, Mexico's unemployment rate had "spiked" to 5 percent in January 2009. That is still almost three percentage points lower than the latest national jobless figures for the United States. Indeed, in some specific U.S. markets like Oregon, unemployment approaches 10 percent. More incredibly, two years …
El Rancho Santa Clara 