Why don't illegal Mexican immigrants entering the U.S. come by bus instead of a risky crossing in the desert?

Question

I mean no disrespect, and take no position on the rightness or wrongness, but is there a reason that Mexican citizens can't enter the U.S. on tourist visas? Why pay a guide a large amount of money, when you could use that money for a bus or plane ticket and be safe? What am I missing?

Answer 1

your missing the fee and paperwork they have to get in order to get the visa.

if it was as simple as just getting a visa then they wouldn't take the risks they take now.

Answer 2

You're missing quite a lot.

The main reason is because they don't have the money. This not only applies for illegal Mexican immigrants, but also illegal immigrants from other nations, including Asia.

If they enter the US on tourist visas, then they're required to provide some personal information that could be used to track them down when the visas expire. If they enter without a record that's documented in US bureaucratic agencies, then it's much harder to find them or prove where they're from. For example, an illegal immigrant from Argentina could easily be mistaken for an illegal immigrant from Mexico by an inexperienced law/border enforcement official; thus, if the immigrant were deported back to Mexico (the mistaken country of origin) as opposed to all the way back to Argentina, it's much easier for that immigrant to try again later.

Also, money for a bus or a plane ticket typically requires funds up front to buy it, which many of these illegal immigrants don't have available on hand (perhaps a strong reason that they're willing to risk their lives over this). However, there are lots of people and groups (the term in Latin America is a "coyote") that help illegals in their journey by arranging transportation and/or accommodation along the way.

Of course, this is a huge fee (remember where I said that the illegals usually don't have a lot of money). Naturally, the immigrant, once smuggled into the new country, will owe an enormous financial debt to the coyote (often an organized crime syndicate), which can motivate them to find employment anywhere they can get it. Sound familiar? It usually takes years, sometimes decades to pay off the debt, depending on how far they've come and what they can find.

Under that pressure of paying off a debt (that can be extracted with the murder of a family member if payments are not made), who has time to also save up for regular living expenses (especially in California), an education, health care, and all the other benefits that Americans take for granted?

It might make you consider how awful life is in their nation of origin if most of them can't even afford to enjoy some of the basic freedoms for which they risked their everything to come to the US in the first place.

Answer 3

this may be really shocking to someone from the US (it was for me) but many people around the world will NEVER get to see US soil, no matter how much they want too. because we from the US get to sit in little cubicles in little offices on foreign soil and tell people "NO!! you CAN'T go to Disneyworld!! we don't CARE if your only child is dying and wants to see it just one time!!" ...or whatever they say.

we can deny people a tourist visa for absolutely no reason at all. the officer could have missed his morning coffee, been in a bad mood, and just denied visas all day long.

this is the way it works. illegals are people who either just didn't care to try and get paperwork, or they were denied. we don't give visas to poor people, plain and simple. and if they actually did get one...they can come to the US and be denied the permit to leave the border city.

the whole thing is so screwed up....yet also, i can see the logic in not giving a visa to someone you know is going to get in the US and never leave.

Answer 4

Well Is allot that take the bus even airplanes, Is just a Tourist Visa and the ending staying here and live illegaly...

Answer 5

If they are entering the U.S. illegally they certainly can't hop on a bus. I suppose many come here illegally because they can't come here legally for a variety of reasons. The way things are going in this country we might as well send them Limosines and set up a welcoming comittee.

Answer 6

they need a passport and sponser for that,, it's hard to gat if you are Mexican,,,,like they need to know two legal households to sponser them and to say that they will be visiting with

but about half of illegal do come under a visit visa and never go home,,,,it happens a lot especially in the Northeast and Midwest

Answer 7

You have to be rich to get a "tourist visa".I mean a wealth person would never go to the U.S. to have a "slave job"

Answer 8

One would think that border control would catch them because they don't have the paper work needed.

Answer 9

They would need a passport and sponser for that