Last week the NY Times published a very interesting news-feature on sheepherders in Colorado and Wyoming, most of whom are immigrants who work under a federal termporary worker visa.

These sheepherders earn $750 a month for working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Further, they live in "5-foot-by-10-foot [spaces] with no running water, toilet or electricity."

Sheepherding has long occupied the bottom rung of migrant labor. Most borregueros speak no English; many have only a vague idea of where they are and no knowledge of their legal rights as documented immigrants. The herders enter the country under the H-2A temporary agricultural worker program, which allows companies to hire foreigners if no Americans want their jobs.

The harsh, solitary lives of foreign sheepherders in the American West have remained virtually unchanged for more than a century. And government oversight of their circumstances remains piecemeal.

Ranchers say that paying the workers more would crush an industry long in decline. But over the past year, legal and immigrant rights groups have begun a campaign to improve the treatment of borregueros in Colorado and Wyoming, states where their plight is particularly unforgiving.

“It’s like going back in time,” said Thomas Acker, a Spanish professor at Mesa State College in Grand Junction, Colo., who hopes to persuade the state legislature to raise herders’ wages and to require ranchers to improve their standard of living. “That these men are required to live under these conditions for such long periods is inhumane.”

By Dario Castillejos, El Imparcial de México

Por Dario Castillejos, El Imparcial de México

An important issue in the U.S-Mexico relations sphere these days is the question of militarizing the border between the two countries.

Gov. Rick Perry, of Texas, has made clear that he wants U.S. troops guarding the border—

[Perry] wants 1,000 troops to help guard the Texas-Mexico border, and for the U.S. to fund strong security measures to fight the Mexican drug cartels that have spread violence and fear in Mexico, including Juárez.

"We're (also) asking the (Texas) Legislature for $135 million for border security - to go after transnational gangs, for technology and aviation assets," [he said.]

The Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, has further said that Mexican drug cartels are a major threat to American security, while also adding that it is a priority for the United States to help the Mexican government fight the cartels—

Mexican President Felipe Calderón's sweeping crackdown on narco-traffickers has triggered a desperate backlash of violence "of a different degree and level than we've ever seen before," Napolitano said in her first appearance before the House Homeland Security Committee. "It is something that deserves our utmost attention right now," she said.

Napolitano said she has reached out to national security adviser James L. Jones, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and local and state law enforcement officials to review ways to assist Mexican law enforcement; stop the flow of guns, assault rifles and cash from the United States into Mexico; and identify areas in which more resources might be needed.

What's your take? Should the U.S.' border with Mexico be militarized? We're especially interested to hear from those of you live near the border.

By Deb Milbrath, AAEC freelance.

By Nick Anderson, Houston Chronicle

The Wall Street Journal published a feature this week on entrepreneurial Hispanic immigrants who work as gardeners and landscapers.

From the piece—

Hispanic immigrants who work in construction, hotels and other blue-collar jobs have suffered from the brutal economic climate. But immigrant gardeners appear to be weathering the harsh conditions well.

"Gardening isn’t like working at a factory, where you depend on one employer," says Manuel Quezada, a 54-year-old veteran gardener, as he and his team put down sod in the front yard of a house here. "If I lose one house, it doesn’t hurt that much."

Far from Beverly Hills, in the neighborhood of Playa del Rey near Los Angeles International Airport, gardener Gustavo Quintero, 50, says customers are more deliberate about their spending during these down times. But, it isn’t a big deal, says the Mexican immigrant. "It’s mainly the extras," like seasonal flowers and pricey plants, "that people are doing without."

Latino immigrant gardeners and their pick-up trucks have become ubiquitous in neighborhoods of Los Angeles, Atlanta, San Antonio and other cities, where homeowners pay them anywhere from $100 to $1,000 a month to maintain lawns.

Veteran immigrant gardeners collect dozens of houses over the years to make up a "ruta," or route, that they call their own. Route owners become mini-entrepreneurs who invest in their own equipment, boast a high degree of independence and manage at least one employee. Routes are bought and sold, typically for two to three times what they generate in monthly earnings.

"I’ve been offered a lot of money for my route but I won’t sell," says Manuel Mora, a gardener in San Antonio who has 40 houses on his route and charges $40 to $80 per visit. The only thing hampering his job these days is a drought, he says. Even amid a foundering economy, "no house has let me go," he says.

"Crime in Latin America" by Angel Boligan, Cagle Cartoons, El Universal, Mexico City