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Back in Minnesota, the topic of illegal immigration was as far removed from Elizabeth Houle-Nelson’s life as the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border.

But illegal immigration hit closer to home once she moved to Oro Valley with her husband, Dennis Nelson, about five years ago.

“I just couldn’t understand why they were coming,” the retiree said of illegal border crossers. “I thought, ‘Why don’t they stay home? Why don’t they just get a visa and come legally?’ ”

Her search for answers eventually led Houle-Nelson to become an ardent supporter of Just Coffee. The Mexican coffee cooperative aims to create jobs that help keep farmers from migrating north of the border.

At a recent meeting of the Spanish Culture Club in Sun City Vistoso, Houle-Nelson shared her involvement with Just Coffee.

The cooperative grows the coffee in Salvador Urbina, Chiapas, and it roasts and packages the coffee in Agua Prieta, which is across the border from Douglas.

Houle-Nelson told more than 60 of her neighbors that trips to Agua Prieta and Chiapas to see the people behind the cooperative made a believer out of her.

“We saw the working model — something that really made a difference,” she said.

Fronteras de Cristo, the Presbyterian Church’s border ministry in Agua Prieta, helped start the cooperative in late 2002, using the fair-trade model that seeks living wages for the farmers, Cifuentes said.

In its first year, the cooperative exported 13,000 pounds of coffee to the United States, Cifuentes said. Last year, it was 50,000 pounds.