Mexican migrant town is left on its knees

Adam Thomson:

Altar (map), a rough and airless town lost in Mexico's wild northern desert, used to provide a thriving trade for its 8,000 permanent residents. Seared by merciless summer heat, and just 60 miles from the Arizona border, it has served as the last and most important watering hole for thousands of undocumented Mexicans headed for the US.

Juan Ramírez, who sells last-minute supplies for migrants - miniature bars of soap, woollen blankets to protect against the freezing nights and carpet-bottomed moccasins to avoid leaving footprints on the perilous journey north - remembers the good times well. "There were people from all over," he says. "There were times when the main square looked like a stadium just before a big game."

Today, it looks like one long after the final whistle has blown. Since the US recession bit in 2008, Washington beefed up security along the border and Arizona passed a zero-tolerance anti-immigration law, the human river that once flowed north, much of it through Altar, has become almost as dry as the desert itself.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at May 3, 2012 1:41 AM
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