By Ana Kailis
TIJUANA — To cross the border from southern California to the Mexican town of Tijuana is a remarkably simple process. A 30-minute trolley ride from San Diego to the border town barrio of San Ysidro and then a seven-minute walk across a footbridge lands you in one of Mexico's best known tourist destinations.
No documents are requested, no passports shown. In fact, you don't see one customs official as you enter Mexico, only a few security personnel.
The ease with which you can make this journey from the north to the south belies the hardship and difficulty endured by those wanting to travel from south to north. With growing restrictions on legal migration to the US, hundreds of thousands of Mexicans, Central and South Americans attempt to cross the border illegally every year.
Entering Tijuana, it is clear why they make this choice, risking imprisonment or deportation to reach "el norte". Despite its reputation as a tourist locality, a "must see" of the south, there is a stark disparity of wealth and poverty in Tijuana.
As tourists shop for beautiful Mexican handicrafts in the myriad of markets, indigenous women and children beg on the streets for a peso. The older children sell chicks and jewellery with an impatience shown only by those who go hungry.
As northerners flock to Tijuana for a piece of Mexico, southerners migrate here to chase the tourist dollar and a livelihood. For many this is meagre. Lack of infrastructure, social welfare and work creates a desperation that forces many to consider the journey across the border.
Though the border is heavily patrolled, many succeed by using illegal documents and by crossing in more remote areas. The journey, however, can cost a life's savings, and on arrival, illegal immigrants become extremely vulnerable to discrimination and exploitation.
Without access to health services, education and welfare payments, illegal immigrants form a super-exploited layer in US society.
Employers take advantage of their situation, paying low wages and forcing them to work in substandard conditions. Agricultural workers, for example, get paid during the harvest season only. They are expected to support themselves through the long non-harvest period, during which they receive no benefits, housing or food.
Many employers have a hand in the production of illegal documents to facilitate the flow of illegal immigrant workers to the US.
Immigration is becoming increasingly important in US domestic politics as the neo-liberal offensive in Mexico drives more and more people north, and as groups of illegal immigrants in the US begin to fight for their human rights.