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Reyes now works as a spot-welder on the assembly line of a Maytag large-appliance plant and earns $22 a day, most of which he sends back to his family in the U.S., who in turn send a portion of that back to the original family they left in Mexico. Like many former Mexican-Americans forced by circumstance to become American-Mexicans, Reyes dreams of one day bringing his relatives to Mexico so that they, too, may secure American employment in Mexico.
Still, the danger is very real. When 31-year-old illegal Arizona resident Ignacio Jimenez sought employment at an American plant in Mexico, he was shot at by Mexican border guards as he attempted to illegally enter the country of his citizenship, pursued by U.S. immigration officials who thought he might be entering the country illegally, and fired upon again by a second group of U.S. Border Patrol agents charged with keeping valuable table-busing and food-delivery personnel inside American borders.
"It was a nightmare," Jimenez said. "Many became disoriented and panicked, and some were mixed in with immigrants going the other way across the Rio Grande and ended up swimming to the wrong country."
He added: "My cousin almost drowned. They fished him out and sent him back to wash dishes at T.G.I. Friday's."