This article by Larry Rohter about Brazilian immigration to the US is a compelling mixture of the old and the new. The old part refers to this:
At the Federal Police office in Governador Valadares, the main city in this fertile region of rolling hills, the line of people seeking passports each day stretches around the block.
Those waiting one afternoon did not want to talk with a reporter about their travel plans, but the Federal Police delegate for the region, Rui Antônio da Silva, estimated that 90 percent were headed for the United States via the Mexican route. "We believe that just in this region there are about 30 gangs that offer this service to people," he said. "It's a very lucrative business, and a lot of people are involved."
Mr. da Silva said that last year his office issued an average of about 45 passports a day. Since January the number has jumped to a daily average of 140. A few minutes later, an assistant came into his office. "The numbers just don't stop growing," she said. "We hit a new record today, more than 200 passports."
American authorities say that many of the trafficking gangs use travel agencies as fronts. Governador Valadares, a pleasant city of 250,000 in the sprawling inland state of Minas Gerais, which is the source of the majority of the Brazilians apprehended on the Mexican border, now has more than 100 such firms, up from 40 just a couple of years ago.
As the article points out, Governador Valadares has long been a city that has sent immigrants to the US. Books have been written about the city and emigration
How do I know so much about it? It's my wife's hometown and it's where we had our church wedding. Governador Valadares is a brutally hot city (in the summer) on the Rio Doce in Eastern Minas Gerais where the granite mountain known as Ibitaruna and the hot valley below provide one of the world's best launch points for hang gliders and parasailing. Non-residents teasingly refer to it as "Valadolares" (Valadollars) and among many other Brazilians it has risen to fame primarily through the sad exodus of some of its best and brightest citizens (of course I'm thrilled that at least one of them left).
Mércia commented to me that she believes that the article is right about the number of "gangs" offering this service, but the consequences can be very grim and the cost, both financial and personal can be quite high:
People here who have been approached by trafficking rings said that the going rate at the moment for door-to-door transport to Boston, the preferred destination of illegal Brazilian immigrants, is about $10,500. That is more than two years' income for the average Brazilian, but effectively 30 percent less than a year ago, because the American dollar is weaker now.
[..]
For years, Jaider de Andrade, a 35-year-old farm worker, talked about going to the United States to look for work, and early in March he finally agreed to a trafficker's offer to fly him to Mexico and have him guided across the border there. By month's end, though, he was back home here again, in a coffin.
The smugglers, surprisingly have some sense of honor:
Mr. de Andrade's widow said her husband had offered a small parcel of land he owned as collateral. After he died, in an automobile accident in northern Mexico, the smuggler returned the land.
The situation is apparently driving the INS crazy, but if these two articles are any indication (as well as my own experience) these immigrants are doing what so many others before them have done: working hard and trying to make a future for themselves.
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