The Chicago Reporter

Daniela ran alongside two men and three women, crossing through thick, rough brush and near-vertical hills. Hunched over to avoid being seen, they reached the river's edge and climbed onto the inflatable raft.

"Tengo cuatro piezas," said one of the traffickers, known as "coyotes," on the raft into the c rackling walkie-talkie, meaning, "I have four pieces." Kneeled over, Daniela waited for the raft to reach the other side of the river. She watched the water reach up to the coyotes' chins as they pulled the raft across. She held on tighter, afraid that the raft would flip over without a warning.

When the raft finally reached the edge, one of the coyotes pointed to a hill, "Run as fast as you can to that marker right there." Daniela's eyes widened at the sight of the climb. But she ran, knowing her feet were pounding on American soil.

When Daniela and the others got to the marker, they quickly jumped into a 15-passenger Chevy Astro van. "When I sat down, I thought, –˜There, it's over–"my headache will finally end,'" Daniela said.

Sitting back, she took deep breaths to calm her racing heart. But no sooner had Daniela managed to regulate her breathing than a white immigration truck turned behind them.

The coyote stepped on the accelerator, trying to lose the truck. As more immigration trucks surrounded the van, the driver panicked. He slammed on the brakes, jumped out of the van and began running at full speed–"but to no avail. The immigration agents caught him, along with Daniela and the six others left in the van. They were taken to an immigration detention center, where they were held for two days.

This was Daniela's second attempt at an illegal border crossing in less than 24 hours. The day before, she was caught falsely identifying herself using someone else's visa and passport at a border crossing in El Paso, Texas.

If Daniela ever gets caught again, she could face a felony charge, with possible jail time. But she said she was determined to reunite with her husband, who is a permanent legal U.S. resident working in Chicago. "Sometimes I get so desperate that you may actually see me in Chicago," she said in Spanish.

Technically, Daniela's marriage entitles her to a legal pathway to Chicago. But the paperwork for family-based visas can take up to 15 years, according to Tim Roche, consul at the U.S.

Consulate in Guadalajara, Mexico. In order to reunite with her husband before their one-year wedding anniversary, Daniela said she was willing to take a risk and attempt to enter the U.S. illegally again. "If I want to reunite with my husband, I don't have any other option," she said.

Experts say Daniela's story is all too common. They point out that most Mexicans, especially those who seek better work opportunities, do not have legal means to enter the U.S.–"or, if they are entitled to a visa, the process for acquiring one can be arduous and take prohibitively long. This, they say, is partly why the problem of illegal immigration from Mexico continues to go unabated.

"The system is hypocritical and perverse," said Jorge Durand, co-director of the Mexican Migration Project, a collaborative research project based at Princeton University and the University of Guadalajara."Although the U.S. needs these workers, they don't give them the visa to legally work there." Since 1982, Durand's group has collected detailed surveys of thousands of Mexicans migrating to the U.S. A Chicago Reporter analysis of the group's data, which include detailed information on 4,370 people who have traveled to the U.S. since 1980, shows that a vast majority of migrants chose to travel without proper documents.

In all, undocumented immigrants accounted for nearly 86 percent of the group's survey respondents who were not permanent U.S. residents or citizens. Legal temporary workers, by comparison, made up 2.3 percent of the respondents, while those who had a tourist visa made up 7.6 percent.

To Carmen Mercer, these figures are a painful reminder of failure to enforce the nation's immigration laws. Mercer, vice president of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps., a "border security" group based in Phoenix, said the fact that many migrants do not think twice about crossing the border illegally signals that enforcement efforts are not having their intended effect: deterrence.

The way to make that work, she said, is by fining the companies that are employing undocumented workers and forcing them to close for a period of time. "The only way we can change this is by holding the employers accountable," she said.

But Fred Tsao, policy director at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, is skeptical that enforcement will be an effective solution. "You build a 10-foot fence for an 11-foot ladder. You can try to throw up barriers. But people really driven and determined are going to find ways to come," he said. "Immigration is a fact of life. People move from place to place in order to make better lives for themselves.

Immigration law can either help facilitate that process and make it orderly, or it can inhibit that process."

Tsao said reforming legal ways for people to come to the U.S. is what's needed. "There's no relatively straightforward way right now for people to come in for the opportunity to work," he said. "There are a number of visa programs that try to facilitate that. But anybody who's had an experience in working with them would say they're cumbersome, and they involved a lot of paperwork."

It was three years ago when Daniela first met her future husband. He was visiting La Manzanilla de La Paz, their mutual hometown located about an hour and a half from Guadalajara, nestled between the Sierra Del Tigre in the Mexican state of Jalisco. The two tied the knot in late December.

The couple's original plan was for Daniela to pursue the legal route to emigrate. They planned to apply for her permanent residency status–"as well as for a combined B1 and B2 tourist visa that would allow her multiple entries to the U.S. for up to 15 years. They figured Daniela would be able to visit her husband periodically in Chicago while the paperwork for her residency wound its way through the process.

According to the Roche, the consul in Guadalajara, applicants for B1 and B2 visas are required to pay $110 in fees and have an interview with a consulate official to demonstrate that they will abide by terms of the visa. A tourist, for example, can not work during their stay in the U.S."We try to see if this case makes sense: Do they have the financial means? Do they have strong enough ties [in Mexico] that convince us that they will return?" he said.

Daniela said her bank statement was among the documents that she brought with her to the interview. But she wasn't working at the time, so she didn't have a pay stub to show she had an income. Daniela suspects that was the reason why her application was ultimately denied.

The other legal options available to Mexicans were of little use to Daniela. Most work visas are designated for those with high skills or special talents. For a temporary-work visa, she'd have to find a U.S. company willing to hire her, pay a fee and become her sponsor. She had no such connection.

Without a tourist visa, Daniela knew that the only way for her to see her husband in Chicago was crossing the border illegally. In January, her husband made an initial deposit of $1,000 to arrange the crossing with coyotes. He was supposed to pay an additional $1,500 once Daniela arrived in Laredo, Texas. In addition to fees for coyotes, Daniela paid about $220 to fly from Mexico City to the airport in Hermosillo, Sonara.

From there, she paid another $35 to travel to the small border town in Sonara, where housing would cost her about $35 a night and she spent $50 on food.

Daniela said she met many others who were also trying to cross the border illegally."Most of the people I asked said they were trying to get across to find better-paying jobs," she said.

Statistics suggest that they were acting on a simple math. The Reporter analysis of the Mexican Migration Project data shows that nearly half of undocumented immigrants earned $5 or more an hour in the U.S., while about 46 percent of them made between $2 and $5. By American standards, some of their wages may not be considered high, but they are a far cry from the minimum wage in Mexico: about 50 pesos–"or $4.60–"per day, according to Mexico's National Minimum Wage Commission.

Four years ago, José came to Chicago from Mexico City as a 20-year-old searching for better work opportunities.

Before making the journey with a coyote from Ciudad Juarez in Mexico to El Paso, Texas, he made 50 pesos, or less than $5, a day painting houses.

"Since I didn't finish high school–"and I made very little money–"I didn't really see a future for myself if I stayed in Mexico," José said. "I just felt like I was always going to have the same dead-end job and never progress."

José now earns about $14,440 a year working as part of a maintenance crew at a local nonprofit. Each year, he sends his family about $3,000 to help his grandmother and to help pay for his sister's college tuition.

According to the Reporter analysis of the Mexican Migration Project data, 55 percent of undocumented immigrants sent back more than $100 on average each month to Mexico; 2.2 percent of them even managed to send more than $1,000.

But living in the shadows has its own drawbacks.

For example, in a 2002 survey of 1,653 Chicago immigrants, the University of Illinois at Chicago's Center for Urban Economic Development found that undocumented workers like José earned $2 an hour less than documented immigrants.

The center also found that 52 percent of workers seriously injured on the job were undocumented immigrants, who made up just 5 percent of the Chicago area's labor market.

And undocumented immigrants like José live in constant fear of being deported."I don't comment my status to anyone for fear that I'll get caught,"José said."When I drive, I drive with as much precaution as I can because if I get pulled over, I'm done."

And he has more to worry about as the government has been stepping up its immigration enforcement efforts. Since 2002, for instance, the Social Security Administration has been sending out more "no match" letters, which are produced when the combination of a name and Social Security number submitted for an employee fail to match. In 2006, nearly 138,000 employers received no-match letters nationwide, compared with about 122,000 businesses in 2003. Though no-match letters are not designed as an immigration enforcement tool, thousands of workers identified in no-match letters have been fired by employers.

Despite the difficulties, José said it's better than staying in Mexico."When you work in Mexico –¦ you don't make enough for it to go a long way like it does here," he said, "and that's why, despite the injustices and discrimination many undocumented people like me face, I'm still here and will probably remain here forever."

In July, despite the bitter memories of her last attempt at crossing the border, Daniela made up her mind to try once again. This time, Daniela's husband arranged for a coyote to take her across the Tijuana border by hiding her in the trunk of his car.

They made their move on July 2. But before the car reached the border, the coyote turned back, afraid the guard dogs would sniff out Daniela's curled-up body in the trunk. Next day, they approached the border again–"but with Daniela sitting in the passenger seat. The plan was to try her luck with a fake green card.

At around noon on July 3, Daniela's fate was again in the hands of an immigration officer. "As we neared the immigration officer, I couldn't stop my legs from trembling," she said. "To tell you the truth, I don't think there was a part of me that wasn't trembling."

The immigration officer inspected the documents briefly and let the car through, Daniela said. Six hours later, they reached Los Angeles, where Daniela's husband was awaiting their arrival. He paid the coyote a lump sum of $3,500–"a small price, Daniela said, in exchange for her long-awaited reunion with her husband.

"After having attempted to enter the U.S. so many times, the sight of him was liberating," she said. "Seeing him again on the other side of the border made me feel optimistic about sharing our lives together and being able to realize my goals in Chicago."

Daniela's dream is to learn enough English to work and attend a school to become a nurse. But she said the most important thing for her right now is to focus all of her energy on making her marriage work–"and hope that she'd never have to revisit all the border entries again.

"While I'm here illegally, if someone dies in Mexico–"even if it is my mother–"I'll say, –˜May God bless you, I'll pray for your soul from here,' because I don't plan on ever going through that again."

Shelley Zeiger helped research this article.