The Mexican-immigrant labor pool relied upon by southern Colorado’s farm and ranch industry would be threatened by an increased presence of Immigration and Naturalization Service officials, according to an activist group in Durango.

The recently formed Compañero Latino Resource Center opposes the new INS office set to open soon in Durango because they believe it would exploit skilled farm workers who travel to Colorado every year from northern Mexico for crop-planting and harvesting jobs.

"They are scared, and a new office here will only make them more desperate," said Jim Fitzgerald, a sociology professor at Fort Lewis College and a Compañero Latino organizer.

"Before, it was really common for them to come up and work the fields in the southwestern U.S. and then return home between planting and harvest; that was the tradition. But now, because of more border patrols, they are coming and are forced to stay here much longer than they want to, hiding out farther and farther from the border for four to five years far away from their families."

The advocacy group, which is supported by the San Juan Citizens Alliance, hopes to put an outreach program in Cortez or Mancos for the estimated 100-200 legal and illegal Mexican immigrants residing in Montezuma County.

Their goals are threefold: to reduce the displacement of Mexican laborers emigrating here to escape a depressed economy back home; to provide local immigrants with assistance regarding social-service programs and legal needs such as with claims of abuse, work permits, citizenship and tax returns; and to become familiar with immigration law and related issues.

Campañero Latino’s philosophy coincides with a recent push by the nation’s top labor unions to have Congress provide amnesty for the approximately 6 million immigrants who reside in the U.S. illegally.

Last week the AFL-CIO announced support for allowing the country’s growing immigrant work force in construction, farm, service, manufacturing and other industries to unionize as protection against unfair labor practices by unscrupulous employers.

The new labor-union proposal would also lift sanctions against employers who have hired undocumented immigrants because those rules have not been enforced, and they have not stopped the flow of immigrants who have been guaranteed labor jobs in the nation’s still sizzling economy. That would allow immigrants here illegally the right to work without the constant fear of deportation, in addition to legal protection for fair wages and decent working conditions.

"Their labor status needs to be legal," said Fitzgerald. "If (illegals) are not treated as real people while they are here, then they are more likely to be exploited by employers who hire them and by the ‘coyotes’ that they pay a lot of money to get them here."

Locally, ranchers and farmers hire documented migrant laborers who appreciate the opportunity for jobs that are tough to make attractive to U.S. workers.

"We have found that the Mexican laborers are highly skilled farmers who have a lot of experience; they want to work, and are reliable," said long-time Montezuma County farmer Sid Snyder. "They do the jobs that other ranch hands sometimes don’t have time to do, or refuse to do."

Increasingly, Mexican immigrants are passing through Cortez and Durango on their way to pre-arranged jobs elsewhere, according to the INS, which prompted more offices to be set up in Durango, Alamosa, Carbondale, Craig and Brush. But that increase in enforcement does not prevent Mexican workers from seeking available jobs in the U.S.; rather it makes the nation’s highways more dangerous as hired drivers, called "coyotes," become even more desperate to elude authorities, often driving decrepit vans with up to two dozen migrant passengers for 18 hours straight in order to get further from the border more quickly.

Fatigue was the likely cause of a late-night crash in Cortez last month, when a van crammed with 17 Mexican nationals ran a stop sign on North Broadway, and collided with another vehicle. No one was injured, and the driver fled the scene, only to be picked up later by the State Patrol as he walked south along Highway 160 near Towaoc.

Similar incidents have turned out worse. A Dec. 4 crash on I-40 near Albuquerque killed 13 Mexican nationals after a smuggler’s van slammed into a tractor-trailer during icy conditions. Another crash recently near La Junta left three dead, and on Jan. 22 one person was killed on I-70 in New Mexico when a Chevrolet Suburban transporting 22 illegal Mexican immigrants blew a tire and flipped.

"The present situation is impossible, and it is counter-productive," Fitzgerald said. "The more pressure you put on these people, the more underground you drive them, increasing the likelihood that they will drive without a license or insurance, or in an unsafe vehicle. This makes the area less secure for everyone."

INS Supervisory Special Agent Don Buechner said the goal of the increased INS presence here is to prevent transports from passing through the state, ideally eliminating this particular route from the border. Beefed-up patrols in the Tucson, Ariz., sector resulted in a record 70,000 immigrants being detained for the month of January.

"Before there was no one to respond when police encountered an illegal transport, so they would let them go," Buechner said. "But also we will be targeting employers who knowingly hire illegals or are recruiting them."