Do human-rights organizations that are distributing guides to the Arizona desert encourage Mexicans to illegally immigrate?

It may be the middle of winter, but things are heating up once again along the 2,000-mile-long U.S.-Mexico border. Immigration-control advocates are furious because Mexico's National Human Rights Commission is distributing 70,000 maps of the Arizona desert to would-be illegal migrants. The maps flag the most dangerous crossings — and show the location of emergency water supplies.

The Human Rights Commission, an autonomous government-funded agency, said on Jan. 24 that it's joining forces with Humane Borders, a Tucson (Ariz.)-based humanitarian group, to distribute the poster-size topographical maps, which use red dots to pinpoint where hundreds of immigrants have died. Blue flags indicate where the 70 water tanks placed by Humane Borders are, and stars show where U.S. Border Patrol rescue beacons are located.

Nearly 500 Mexicans died while trying to cross the border in 2005, an all-time record, the commission said. "We're not trying to encourage migration," says commission spokesman Miguel Angel Paredes. "We just want them to be aware of the dangers and to know where they can find water," he said.

"Brazen" Tactics

That explanation isn't going over well with anti-immigration forces, who say the maps — which carry such warnings as "Don't Go" and "There is not enough water" — encourage illegal crossings. A year ago, Mexico was criticized for distributing a 34-page comic-book-style pamphlet [English Translation: Guide For the Mexican Immigrant] that told migrants how to behave in order to avoid arrest and deportation while in the U.S.

Representative Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), who advocates a sharp tightening of border controls and a crackdown on illegal aliens, blasted the Mexican government for aiding migrants with the new map. "It's no secret that the Mexican government has a strong interest in weakening our border security and increasing the flow of immigrants to the U.S.," he said in a Jan 24 statement. "The only thing that has changed recently is how brazen they are about it."

Mexico has been criticized for not doing enough to create jobs and economic opportunities at home, but Gerónimo Gutiérrez, Undersecretary for North America at Mexico's Foreign Secretariat (the equivalent of the U.S. State Dept.), tells BusinessWeek that "it is certainly not the policy of the Mexican government to encourage undocumented migration in any way." Gutiérrez says he had contacted the commission and Humane Borders to express his concern that the map distribution "could imperil a rational and constructive discussion about immigration reform" in the U.S.

Build a Fence?

Gutiérrez stresses that the administration of Mexican President Vicente Fox has pursued policies that tackle some of the root causes of illegal immigration. He notes that the government's poverty-reduction program, called Opportunities, has raised millions of families out of poverty, reducing the need to migrate. He also cites government-financed infrastructure-building projects in migrant-sending communities and the introduction of a new health-insurance program to provide more of a social safety net.

The latest border flap comes less than two months after the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill calling for the construction of 700 miles of new border fencing and increased funding for the U.S. Border Patrol. The bill also would require employers to verify the legal status of their workers. Most political analysts believe that the more extreme measures, such as the fence, are unlikely to become law. The Senate will begin debate next month on its own immigration bill, which calls for the creation of a temporary-workers program to bring some migrants out of the shadows.

The idea of a temporary-worker program enjoys quite a bit of support in the U.S. President George W. Bush has said such a program is essential, because many industries rely on immigrant labor to fill jobs that Americans are unwilling to do. On Jan. 19, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Service Employees International Union, the American Health Care Assn., the Laborers' International Union of North America, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops held a news conference in Washington to throw their weight behind a temporary-worker program that would put migrants on a path to legal residency.

Labor Demand

"We support legislation that would provide a step-by-step process in which an undocumented worker could qualify for permanent legal status," said Thomas Donohue, president and chief executive of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "The status quo, or a border-security bill with draconian fines and penalties, would only drive them deeper into the shadows and subject them on occasion to exploitation," he said.

The concept of a temporary-worker program isn't entirely new. Faced with a labor shortage as a result of World War II, the U.S. instituted the Bracero Program in 1942. Under its aegis, millions of Mexicans found temporary work, mainly in the farm sector. The program was dismantled in the 1960s.

The braceros may be gone, but the demand for cheap, low-skilled labor is still there. Today, more than 10 million illegal aliens — most of them from Mexico or Central America — are believed to be living in the U.S., toiling at minimum-wage jobs in agriculture, meat-packing plants, restaurants, hotels, lawn care, child care, and other service fields.