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Road trip from Vail to Puerto Peñasco shows need for open border
The Williams family just got back from an 1,852-mile (roundtrip) road trip from our home in EagleVail, Colorado, to Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, Mexico. It was a great low-cost beach vacation driving through the heart of some of the most spectacular canyon country in the United States (we even got in a side hike on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon).
It was also a revelatory road trip at a time when political rhetoric is painting a false picture of a war zone along our southern border with Mexico. In fact, the crossing from Lukeville, Arizona, into Sonoyta, Mexico, was uncrowded and provided relatively smooth sailing both ways.
This is not a major port of entry for immigrants traveling through Mexico and seeking asylum in the United States from drug cartels and gang warfare in the Northern Triangle of Central American. But we saw clear evidence of poverty, desperation and stepped-up border control, including a weary man on foot stopped by park rangers in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Temperatures there exceed 100 Fahrenheit in mid-June.
But in Puerto Peñasco, known in the States as Rocky Point, temps were in the mid-80s with cool ocean breezes coming in off the Gulf of California. There are many nice homes there owned by Phoenix and Tucson residents and available on VRBO at very reasonable prices compared to resort areas like Cancun and Cabo San Lucas – hence the nickname “Arizona’s Beach”.
The surf is not that big at the northern-most point of the Gulf of California – between the Baja Peninsula and mainland Mexico – so if surfing is your thing, you’ll probably be bored. Compared to Nosara, Costa Rica, where we went last year, Rocky Point is not a big surf spot (shout out to Michael and all the guys at Nosara Surf School, as well as the Harmony Hotel).
Nor does it have anything approaching the reef off Belize, if diving or snorkeling is your thing. That stay on Caye Caulker was our 2013 trip.
But what Puerto Peñasco does have is long, uncrowded, sandy beaches – especially the more east you head in its Las Conchas neighborhood – and tons of awesome homes to rent for relatively cheap. We got a 2016 home that sleeps 11 and has its own pool for $400 a night. The beach was just a short jaunt down the street.
It’s a great beach for kids and paddleboards, and in Las Conches you’re only 15 or 20 minutes from the downtown Malecon (or pier) where you’ll find a Mexican version of Seattle’s Pike Street Market and insanely cheap shrimp, flounder and grouper right off the fishing boats.
We grilled those up back “home” but also found plenty of relatively inexpensive and very good restaurants like The New Mexican grill, La Curva and the touristy but beachside and quite good Wrecked at the Reef. Its Italian neighbor, Mare Blu, is worth a try as well. And another big shout out to the folks at Agave Grill in Ajo, Arizona, on the way down, who treated us very well.
Puerto Peñasco is only about 250 miles up the mainland coast from Bahia Kino, Mexico, where I spent some time in high school doing a Denver Public Schools Outward Bound-style class called Senior Seminar, where we did an exchange student program in the city of Hermosillo and then drove out to the coast for rock climbing, a 72-hour desert survival solo and then a 10K run. We also hiked to the Seri Indian village of El Desemboque.
This was all in the 1980s, when crossing back and forth through Nogales and Tijuana was not that big a deal. I even hitchhiked once from Tijuana to Ensenada. Those times have unfortunately changed, but I would love for us to return to a better border situation, with more openness and direct commerce and cultural exchange. The current militarize stance is a farce give the economic and social interconnectedness of our two nations.
There’s no reason for the current situation other than the policies of our respective governments and the failed “War on Drugs” that never dealt with the insatiable demand in the United States or the fact our gun lobby has promoted policies that flood Mexico and Central American with U.S. guns. Government and corporate greed are what’s poisoning life along the border – not the people struggling to make a living and provide for their families on both sides.
On that topic, here’s a story I produced for the Vail Daily that ran on June 30. It’s about the acute need for Mexican and Central American labor in Vail and other Colorado resort towns and the recent conclusion of Immigrant Heritage Month:
‘Doing really critical work to keep these ski towns open’
Reformers spotlight economic benefit during Immigrant Heritage Month
In a week filled with tumultuous immigration news, reform advocates in Colorado’s high country want people to focus on the economic contributions of immigrants in the midst of a worsening work-visa and labor-shortage crisis and as June’s Immigrant Heritage Month comes to a close.
“Oftentimes people think about our broken immigration system solely through the lens of people who are here undocumented but forget that our system is actually really complex and [includes] special work visas that people for a really long time have been able to tap into to get the kind of labor they need, whether that’s in construction and landscaping or even farms across the state of Colorado,” said FWD.us Colorado State Immigration Manager Marissa Molina.
Landscaping and construction companies up and down the Vail Valley have been struggling all spring and so far this summer to find enough workers in Eagle County, where the unemployment rate is below 2 percent and the once-solid H-2B temporary work visa for unskilled, nonagricultural workers has become an unreliable crapshoot.
Glen Ellison of Ceres Landcare and Ceres+ Landscape Architecture in Eagle says for 18 years he went to great expense and effort to sponsor 35 H-2B workers – many from one town in Mexico – because he couldn’t find U.S. citizens willing and able to do the hard work in often tough conditions to create and maintain the high-end landscaping in Beaver Creek and Cordillera.
The last two years of the Trump administration the program has failed to produce a single worker for Ellison, and it also came up empty during the Great Recession one year under the Obama administration.
“As difficult as it was accept back then, it was probably for a good reason. But today, when there’s an uptick in the economy and last year we didn’t get a single employee back or this year … it’s maddening,” Ellison said. “They’re 35 crafty, dedicated, loyal, hardworking [men], like family members.”
Gary Woodworth, president and CEO of the Gallegos Corporation masonry and construction company in Wolcott, has been using H-2B visas for two decades. In recent years, the breakdown of the work visa system has prompted him to travel to Washington to lobby for the only part of the system he says was working. Ellison joined him on a recent trip.
“It’s important to us to be able to increase our numbers with that legal workforce that is vetted when they come here,” Woodworth said at a Vail Symposium event on immigration and work visas in Edwards last spring.
“By the time they come to our place to work, they’ve been through all of the counselor appointments, they’ve been verified. They don’t have any criminal backgrounds or they would not be here. They’re here for one reason and that’s to work, send money home and go home at the end of the year,” Woodworth added.
Both Ellison and Woodworth say they’ve gone to great lengths to recruit American citizens for their unfilled jobs but simply can’t get the workers – even at relatively high pay rates with benefits. Woodworth agrees that the work visa system has become entangled in the larger immigration debate.
“Immigration reform beyond that is a large issue that I think we all would like to see corrected, updated in some form so that we can employ more of the local people that we know are in and amongst us that we helped to raise as kids and support and educate and give them an opportunity in our country,” Woodworth said.
Molina, who was brought to Glenwood Springs from Mexico at the age of 9, is now a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status, or DACA. A so-called “Dreamer,” Molina feels her parents and so many like them haven’t received the recognition they deserve as roofers and housekeepers often working in the shadows without benefits and retirement plans.
“While they’re contributing in really great numbers to our economy and are doing really critical work to keep these ski towns open and running, their work is so invisible,” said Molina, the first DACA recipient to serve on a Colorado state board (Metropolitan State University of Denver).
On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court announced it will decide the fate of nearly 800,000 Dreamers nationwide after the Trump administration tried to end the Obama administration program and states challenged that move. The court will hear the case in October and likely rule next year. There are 17,000 DACA recipients in Colorado, including many right here in Eagle County.
“For the more than 17,000 DACA recipients in Colorado, the Supreme Court’s decision to hear arguments on the termination of this vital program is deeply disappointing and will force Dreamers to continue to live their lives in fear and uncertainty,” Molina said, urging people to renew and go to www.InformedImmigrant.com for more information and resources.
The Democrat-controlled U.S. House earlier this month passed the DREAM Act to permanently protection DACA recipients, with Vail Valley Rep. Joe Neguse testifying for the bill as the son of immigrants from Africa. The Republican-controlled Senate is unlikely to even consider it.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court at least temporarily ended Trump administration efforts to put a citizenship question on the 2020 U.S. Census, but some analysist say just the attempt likely already has had a chilling effect on the true count that determines federal funding for a wide variety of programs and congressional redistricting that could impact Eagle County in 2022.
Also on Thursday, the U.S. House passed a Senate version of a $4.6 billion humanitarian aid package for the crisis on the border, with progressive Democrats angered the bill doesn’t do enough to check the Trump administration’s child custody and family separation policies after a story last weekend in The New York Times revealed inhumane conditions in Clint, Texas.
Images of a young father and his toddler daughter drowned in the Rio Grande earlier in the week provided graphic proof of the desperation on the border as Central American refugees seek work and a better way of life in the United States.
David O. Williams
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Roland Peterson
July 1, 2019 at 4:22 pm
This writer’s obvious liberal bias renders his writing nothing more than Democrat propaganda. Until he actually lives in Puerto Penasco for at least 6 months will he be anything more than a star-eyed tourist.
David O. Williams
July 1, 2019 at 4:29 pm
I didn’t say I wanted to live there, Roland, just that we should make it easier to go back and forth. Vail has a sister city in Mexico, San Miguel de Allende, and I’d like to be able to drive there without fear — just as people from Latin America should be able to visit, boost our economy and recreate here without fear. And you accuse me of having liberal bias as if that’s an insult. I equate liberalism with with humanitarianism. You should try it.
Leland long
July 1, 2019 at 5:35 pm
You are wrong about the Sonoyta border not being a major point of immigration. Just a few miles west of the border the Mexican highway comes within a mile of the border which just has a vehicle barrier allowing unimpeded passage…groups of over 100 (dropped off busses) have been captured here requesting asylum. In addition, Your article would have been better without the obvious political bias. A democratic senate and house with Obama failed to pass ANY immigration legislation as you may remember. A DACA bill with no concessions to the Republicans has little chance of passing is how I would have worded it…but Vail residents will appreciate your imprecise wording. I do agree that we need a new green card program in light of the ‘great’ economy we are experiencing but Dems are not going to give this Pres any victories before the election.
David O. Williams
July 1, 2019 at 6:13 pm
If that’s true, I regret the error. Now let me correct you. A Democrat-controlled Senate passed comprehensive immigration reform in 2013 and John Boehner refused to even bring it up for debate in the GOP-controlled House. Hence Obama’s executive actions on DACA, which the vast majority of Americans support. That bill included massive amounts of border security spending. Your comment would have been better without the obvious political bias, but thanks.
Daniel Williams
August 14, 2019 at 8:55 am
My own personal feeling on the matter of immigration at our Southern Border is American Jobs. We have lived with illegal immigrants taking our labor jobs for so long . . . a whole new generation of Americans don’t even realize that, the grass mowing, house building jobs and other related industries jobs have all been taken by illegal aliens willing to work for pennies on the dollar.
These kinds of jobs used to be available for those of us that couldn’t afford college or even for those of us home from college looking for work on summer break. But when you can hire 3 to 6 IA for the price of 1 American, it b/c problematic to be a good Patriot . . . does everyone have a maid in Vail, CO?
Better question . . . are they legal or illegal?
David O. Williams
August 14, 2019 at 10:28 am
Sounds like your issue is more with the companies that either knowingly or unknowingly hire workers without proper documentation, like Trump’s golf resorts. Immigrants are not so much taking jobs from Americans as being recruited and brought to the U.S. for cheap labor. Why are none of the poultry companies in Mississippi suffering any consequences and instead otherwise law-abiding workers are having their families torn apart? Send a few execs to jail and see how quicky their hiring practices change. And guess what, those jobs you are referencing are still available in Vail for anyone who can’t afford college or during summer break, and they pay quite well. My son was just back from college and worked at a restaurant because it paid about the same as a back-breaking landscaping or construction job — jobs that will go unfilled with American labor. Finally, my housekeeper is a legal citizen, but thanks for asking.
Phil
June 20, 2020 at 11:38 am
I lived in Puerto Peñasco for 2 years. Obviously when one goes on a short vacation there don’t see or understand the day to day life in Peñasco. I witness first hand a small cartel crew take a good friend of mine by mistake. Fortunately my friend returned safe. So writer please don’t tell us about Puerto Peñasco. You liberals don’t want to see past your own nose.
David O. Williams
June 20, 2020 at 4:36 pm
And you conservatives don’t want to acknowledge your allegiance to the gun industry and failed war on drugs provides the cartels with an endless supply of cash and weapons. Your failed immigration policies and cosying up to corrupt and authoritarian foreign governments, while demanding cheap labor to clean your toilets and mow your lawns, has fed the instability of Mexico over the last 30 years. In the 80s it was pretty much an open border and totally safe. Your policies have made Mexico what it is today. Still, it’s home to the largest ex-patriot population of Americans. Give Trump four more years and he’ll make it worse for everyone. Please don’t tell me about Mexico.