Secreto a Voces My column in The News of Mexico City

NOGALES, SONORA – I followed the old woman in the Ford Explorer for the last half-mile across the port of entry and into Sonora where tall, stonefaced chilangos watched us stoically as first she, then I, rumbled past the redlight/greenlight lottery system that passes for a federal checkpoint into Mexico. I earnestly hoped I’d draw a green. I was carrying three 30-packs of Bud Light, Christmas gift for an old friend (I guess even Sonorans get tired of drinking Tecate) and I hadn’t bothered to check out the liquor tariff laws.

But good luck for once, I was back behind the old lady, muscling through frenetic Obregon Boulevard in Nogales and back out on Highway 15. I wasn’t following her, exactly. But we were both heading south and the “W in ‘04” bumper sticker grabbed my attention.

I finally had a chance to stop and talk to her when we stopped at the same Oxxo.

“So did you vote for Bush after all?” I asked.

“Mánde?” she said, quizzically.

“The bumper sticker, Bush in ’04. I was just curious,” I said.

“Oh that,” she said in English. “Sure, my husband put that on there. We both voted for him.”

Interesting. I knew the Republicans had garnered a strong Hispanic backing in the last election – Bush carried something like 45 percent of the vote – but the libertarian in me is still surprised.

I don’t know why; Bush wasn’t necessarily any worse for Mexican-Americans than any of the Democrats running against him, part of the advantage of being a border governor, I suppose.

“Who are you going to vote for this time?” I asked.

She grimaced, then made a tch sound that made me cringe inwardly; my mom used to make the same noise when I did something stupid.

“Who should I vote for?” she said. “They’re attacking Mexicans everywhere.”

Who indeed; everywhere you look, Mexicans are bearing the mark of the great unwanted, an old story in this country except now it’s not Chinese or Irish. It’s 7, 10, 12 million people, quietly tolerated for decades, and now driven out like whipped dogs from the chicken coop.

But what’s got my attention in this are the Feds.

Who’s doing the driving out isn’t the United States but rather, local and state governments. And that’s going to have a fascinating effect on the country’s demographics.

Everywhere you look, the new game is immigration enforcement at the local level.

In Southern California, the Calexico school district hired a man to photograph school kids entering the U.S. from Mexicali. The offenders’ photos are turned over to school principals who then boot the kids out of the school.

In Arizona, the Legal Arizona Workers Act just kicked in on New Year’s Day, punishing employers who hire workers they know are there legally with suspensions of their business licenses the first time, the loss of their business the second.

The National Conference of State Legislatures says 244 pieces of immigration-related legislation were passed in 46 states last year. In Florida alone, six pieces were recently introduced.

Meanwhile, the Feds are barely scratching at the underlying mass of illegal immigrants throughout the country.

Federal data shows that Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported 30,408 absconders last fiscal year, illegal immigrants who were ordered to leave the country but instead skipped out on their deportation hearings. The number doubled from 15,462 in fiscal 2006.

At this rate, even if you lowball the numbers, it’ll take 233 years to run them all out. Three years ago, the Government Accountability Office released a report that ICE is too small of an agency. The GAO found that for every six border agents, there’s only one agent working immigration enforcement from the inside.

The result is a shifting of the population as the different states and cities devise their own rules and deal with illegal immigrants in their own way. The population will fragment, some heading south but others heading east, north, west, where ever they can run.

“Anything’s better than moving back to Mexico,” said the old woman as we stood talking outside the store.

An SUV with Illinois plates pulled out heading south, a nylon web holding down a pile of boxes, canvas bags and a new mountain bike. Three men on horseback negotiated a dirt path behind us, heading out into the clean desert country. A semi-truck slowed down for one of those devastating speed bumps the Mexicans are so fond of, its jake-brake groaning in the still afternoon air.

The lines of the old woman’s face deepened. Estela Santana was her name. She moved to Arizona with her husband in the 1960s, she says.

Eventually, they became citizens of both countries. Her grown son followed years later, walking in on a visa and simply staying. Nobody ever asked questions. Got married, have three kids. The kids go to school up in Phoenix, she says. The son’s been thinking of moving, Utah maybe.

-- Michel Marizco