The mining town of Cananea, Sonora, about 25 miles south of the border, is a major stopping point for migrants.

In the migrants' path:

By Ignacio Ibarra
The Arizona Daily Star

NACO, Sonora - Four men sprawl across a double bed pushed into the corner of the small room they and seven other people share.

In the lobby of this small huesped (guest house) on the southern edge of this once-sleepy border town, more than 20 people compete for space on one of several double beds and couches crammed in by the owner.

Scenes like this are common at the more than 20 huespedes that have sprung up here since January. Migrants increasingly stymied by the U.S. Border Patrol north of Agua Prieta are flocking to Naco, a town of about 7,000 about 20 miles west.

Residents in Naco and Cananea, a mining town about 25 miles south of the border, see economic good in the influx, noting that the money migrants bring in has meant business for locals.

Three years ago in Agua Prieta, an increase in migrants also brought a mini economic boom for hotels, taxis, restaurants and food stores. But the burden eclipsed the benefit as the numbers of would-be border crossers continued to skyrocket.

Agua Prieta Mayor Vicente Teran Uribe complained to Arizona Gov. Jane Hull and other leaders in May that the Border Patrol's strategy had turned his city into ``Mexico's Kosovo.''

The agency's strengthening of border law enforcement in popular crossing areas like San Diego, El Paso and Nogales made Douglas the path of least resistance for illegal entrants, many of whom are repeatedly apprehended and sent back to Agua Prieta.

At the peak of the migration in March, Teran estimates that the city's population had nearly

Border crossers head west of Agua Prieta in an attempt to enter the United States.

doubled to 200,000 people, with up to 3,000 people arriving each day from other parts of Mexico or being deported to the city by the Border Patrol.

He said people, many of them penniless, were spilling out of the hotels and guest houses and into the streets, turning his city into a refugee camp.

Since January, Grupo Beta, the federal migrant-protection unit based in Agua Prieta, has recorded a major shift in migrant activity from Agua Prieta to Nogales, Cananea and the areas in between.

U.S. Border Patrol officials have seen the shift, too. The tiny Naco station, with about 70 agents, now has the second-highest apprehension numbers in the Tucson sector. The station's numbers this spring were more than quadruple those of spring 1998.

Officials in Naco, Sonora, say they're concerned about the migration through their town. But

Locals from Agua Prieta, Sonora, look to see if there is any activity on the other side of the wall separating their town from its sister city, Douglas

they have not seen the assaults, robberies and other crime smugglers have brought to Agua Prieta.

City Manager Olga Aparicio said Mexican immigration officials have recorded more than 40,000 deportations here by the U.S. Border Patrol since January.

She said estimates based on anecdotal information from area social service organizations indicate as many as 120,000 people have arrived in the town from central and southern Mexican states in the same period.

``The vast majority of the `co-nationals' (Mexican migrants) are hard-working, clean, honest people who don't cause problems,'' she said. ``They're Mexicans in their own country and there is nothing we can do to push them aside.''

Pascual Llamas Valenzuela, 57, who has lived in Naco his entire life, agreed, adding that the

Migrants who fail to reach the United States sometimes find jobs and settle in the border towns

migrants are the reason the local economy is surging, with new homes and businesses going up all over town.

``They don't have much, but what little change they have they spend - on taxis, restaurants, and at the hotels and huespedes,'' Llamas said, ``and that money's been moving around this little town.''

Llamas said he believes most of the migrants eventually make it into the United States, but those who don't often end up destitute and unable to pay a smuggler or get themselves back home.

``It's difficult to watch them suffer. Sometimes they even have their children with them,'' he said.

Some of those migrants end up running up hotel bills until relatives can send them money to get home. The unlucky ones end up sleeping in the park or in vacant lots, living on handouts from church groups and local residents.

Some give up their dream of the United States and settle down, taking jobs at the maquiladoras that operate in Naco and Agua Prieta.

Naco huesped owner Melissa Estrada said the Border Patrol's enforcement in the United States

Would-be illegal entrants leave a Naco, Sonora, bus station and head toward the border.

means some of her guests stay up to a week trying to make it across. If her guests run out of money, she said, she extends them credit that they are seldom able to pay.

``Truthfully, I feel I'm helping them. The people who stay here are from Jalisco, Michoacan, Guanajuato and places like that,'' she said. ``They talk about the lack of rain, failed crops and jobs pay very little.''

Estrada said she averages 15 to 20 guests a night and charges them 30 pesos ($3) per person per night. She also serves meals for about $2 and has a small convenience store available to her guests.

Such businesses are thriving not only in Naco and Agua Prieta, but also in Cananea, a town of about 35,000 southwest of Naco.

Fleets of taxis and private vehicles shuttle migrants from local hotels to the ejidos (cooperatives) of San Pedro and Morelos on the border about 25 miles away.

Long suspected as bases for drug smuggling through the San Pedro River corridor, the small ranching and farming villages have become major staging areas for alien smuggling.

Cananea state police Commander Victor M. Urrea Ozuna said the number of migrants has tapered off

The nearby fence aside, border monuments like these are the official markers of the U.S.-Mexican border.

with the summer heat, but earlier an estimated 1,000 people per day were moving through the city.

``Unlike Agua Prieta, we're not a destination, we're just a stopping-off point. They're only here long enough to get transport out to the ejidos,'' he said.

Cananea's distance from the border prevents the deportation of migrants to the city by the Border Patrol, something officials and residents in all three cities agree is the biggest migrant problem.

``I see them go by here every morning after the Border Patrol drops them off. They've got no money, no place to go, so they end up there,'' said Naco ice cream shop owner Jesus Oseguera, motioning to the small city park across the street where about 40 people milled about.

People in the three cities generally agree that the migrants are not a threat.

Urrea said a migrant is suspected in the strangulation murder of a woman at a local hotel, but he is unaware of any large-scale law enforcement problems resulting from the migrants' presence.

Guadalupe Quintero de Contreras, who migrated to Cananea more than 40 years ago from southern Mexico, believes the migration is both understandable and unstoppable as long as Mexico's economy lurches from crisis to crisis.

``You see them at the hotels, the cars full of people, but if there is a risk, it's to themselves,'' said Quintero, 63. ``It's not their fault they're here. It's the (Mexican) government that has to take that responsibility.''

Mexicans living in the rural areas are no less sympathetic, but like their U.S. counterparts, they feel victimized by the migration.

Jesus Estrada, a member of Ejido Rancho Dos west of Naco, said ejido members have lost about 100 head of cattle from the ingestion of plastic bottles left behind by migrants headed for the border.

Fourteen of the cattle were his, and at $300 each, it's a loss he can't afford.

``I feel sorry for them. They're out here sometimes with women and children. But it's gotten so bad that sometimes I feel like taking some shots at them myself,'' he said as he burned piles of plastic bottles he's forced to gather up weekly on his range.

``This may be good for business to the people in town, but for me, it's nothing but a loss.''

In Agua Prieta, city officials are exploring ways to better manage the migrant influx without restricting the rights of the Mexican citizens who comprise the bulk of the migrant population.

The city provides emergency housing and repatriation funds for people in trouble and in need of help getting home. But there are also efforts to see what more can be done to assist the migrants.

Mayor Teran said he sees little hope for relief unless the Border Patrol is prepared to review and change a strategy that pushed the migrant flow to his city, then compounded the problem by deporting to Agua Prieta migrants caught in Nogales and other Arizona cities.

``I've said this to them before: They (the Border Patrol) need to stop experimenting with our town,'' said Teran.