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NACO, Sonora, Mexico — It’s lunchtime in Naco and save for one lone customer, El Toro restaurant is empty.
According to owner David L—pez, it’s been like this for nearly a year now.
“Our sales are down at least 30 to 35 percent,” he said. “And it started going that way in April of last year.”
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L—pez is not alone.
Business owners throughout Naco’s service sector report a similar downturn, and they all point to the same cause: Would-be border crossers are coming in far fewer numbers to Naco, long a key jumping-off point for those hoping to cross into the United States illegally.
“It has gone down very, very, very much,” said Guadalupe Armenta, owner of the Farmacia Naco drugstore, when asked if local economic activity had slowed. “And that’s because the migrants are not coming like they used to.”
“Corzo,” who did not want his real name or that of his business to appear in print, runs a hotel that has traditionally been popular with border-crossers-in-waiting. He said that while in years past all 10 of his rooms would fill routinely, these days he is lucky to rent one or two.
And a clerk at the Posada del Rey motel said that only three or four of their 33 rooms are now occupied on a typical night, as opposed to several years ago when the motel often had to turn away customers.
Even those merchants who do not cater to migrants are feeling the pinch.
Mart’n Borquez and Kristina Ch‡vez said clients at their hamburger and taco stand on Naco’s main thoroughfare are almost exclusively local residents, but they, also, have been indirectly affected by the slowdown.
“Many of our customers are local people who get business from migrants, and they are suffering,” Borquez said. “So as a result, they don’t buy from us.”
Figures from the U.S. Border Patrol Tucson Sector, which includes Cochise County, reflect the recent decrease in crossing activity.
While 18,430 undocumented immigrants were arrested by the agency in Cochise County in February 2005, the number dropped almost 50 percent in February 2006 to 9,271.
Many Naco residents attribute the decrease to the Border Patrol buildup in the area.
“Some are saying (the decrease) comes from the larger number of Border Patrol agents,” Armenta said. “There is more vigilance here, and so the migrants look for other places that aren’t as tight.”
Others point to the Minuteman group as the key factor scaring border crossers away. They note that the most significant change in local migrant activity coincided with the start of the Minuteman Project last spring.
Corzo, the hotel owner, believes that the local police in Naco also have served to scare off migrants by clamping down on human smuggling activity.
“Now, if you drive through town with six or eight people in your truck, they stop you and accuse you of being a pollero,” he said, using a colloquial term for human smuggler. “Or they take the migrants to the station and say, ‘If you don’t tell us who brought you here, we’ll put you in jail.’ ”
Still, none of the merchants believe that the decrease in activity in Naco means that migrants are giving up in their efforts to cross into the United States.
Some said the increased vigilance in Cochise County is simply sending potential crossers further west, to areas like the more desolate and more dangerous Altar Desert, in the Yuma Sector of the Arizona-Sonora border. In an alternative explanation, L—pez, the owner at El Toro, thought that word of readily available construction work in New Orleans was drawing migrants eastward to the Texas border.
At Farmacia Naco, Guadalupe Armenta expressed confidence that he could survive the recent downturn. After all, he said, the majority of his customers are U.S. citizens who cross over to Mexico to buy prescription drugs at discount prices.
Other business owners, more cautiously optimistic that their fortunes will change, are counting on local authorities to help them through this tough period by easing up on operating fees.
Armenta suggested that the town should use the opportunity to reorient its service industry away from migrants and toward U.S. tourists.
“What we need to do is work with Bisbee to bring in the tourists from there,” he said. “But right now, we are lacking the organization to do it.”
HERALD/REVIEW reporter Jonathan Clark can be reached at 515-4693 or by e-mail at svhnews@transedge.com.
TheSilverRose wrote on Jun 27, 2009 10:22 PM:
Thank You! "