Hundreds of crosses embedded in a 15 ft metal fence separating Mexico from the US greeted the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Mary Robinson, as she stepped off an aircraft yesterday afternoon and left Tijuana airport.
The first cross on the fence carries the name of Victor Nicolas Sanchez (50). Born in Mexico's impoverished rural southern state of Oaxaca, he drowned on January 21st, 1995, as he attempted an illegal crossing. The most recent cross has no name, belonging to an unidentified woman who drowned while trying to swim across the All American channel on November 13th, 1999.
Mrs Robinson was due to meet members of human rights organisations which have monitored 450 deaths along the Tijuana-US border zone since 1994, 306 of them this year alone. The rate of deaths has increased dramatically since the US government launched Operation Gatekeeper in 1994, sealing off the traditional access points for illegal crossings.
The security operation has pushed migrants further west towards the Otay and Tecate mountains, a two-day journey by foot where daytime temperatures reach 50
Celsius, while night-time turns freezing, leading to deaths from hypothermia. US border policy has also made the job of coyote, or people-smuggler, more lucrative than drug-trafficking, as the price per person has risen to $650, adding up to an industry worth $900 million a year, almost as much as the US Border Patrol's annual budget.
The US strategy is a gross abuse of the most fundamental human right, the right to life, said Ms Claudia Smith, a lawyer with the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, citing article 4 of the American Convention on Human Rights. Meeting Ms Smith was part of Mrs Robinson's schedule.
In addition to calling attention to the rights of migrants, Mrs Robinson called on Mexico to end the practice of obligatory pregnancy tests of women seeking work in the maquilas or US-owned assembly plants, the principal source of female employment.
Mrs Robinson met members of the Beta group, a special force set up by the Mexican government to defend the human rights of undocumented Mexicans. She also met academics of the Colegio de la Frontera Norte analysing cross-border issues.