Gridlock on Mexico's Border: 'Alien Commuters' Travel Hours to US Farm Jobs John Carlos Frey - NBC News
go to original March 25, 2014

Mexican agricultural workers wait in line to cross the border at Mexicali, Mexico on March 5. (Sandy Huffaker/NBC News)

MEXICALI, Mexico — Norma Cortez, 59, a farmworker for 35 years, limps into her simple kitchen at 12:30 a.m. to make a cup of coffee. She is getting ready for work after only a few hours of sleep, a routine she does five to six days a week through the six-month winter vegetable harvest. She is one of tens of thousands who work the rich agricultural fields of Yuma, Ariz., packaging heads of lettuce for shipment across the United States for such brands as Dole Foods, Church Brothers and Tanimura & Antle. The work is tedious and rough — she still feels yesterday’s eight-hour shift in her swollen hands and aching back as she prepares bag lunches for her and her husband Roberto, 60, then washes the dishes from last night’s meal.

The day’s work ahead is tough and low-paid, but the worst part is the commute. From Mexicali, just south of the California border, the morning trip to the Arizona fields typically takes seven hours, including a mind-numbing wait to cross the border, plus two more hours coming home. “The life of a farm worker is hard enough,” Norma says, “but the waiting time to get to work is worse.”

California’s Imperial Valley and neighboring Yuma County in Arizona provide 90 percent of the winter vegetables consumed in the United States — from lettuce and spinach to broccoli and cauliflower. Only a handful of the harvesters, farmworker advocates say, are hired by means of guest worker visas. The vast majority, like the Cortezes, are so-called “alien commuters” — they have green cards granting residency in the United States, but because they make poverty wages or have undocumented family members, they live in Mexico.

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