Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Jun 21 2005 (IPS) — In May 2001, a group of 26 undocumented Mexican immigrants crossed the border into the United States and headed north through an Arizona desert area so barren and hostile it is known as the Devil’s Highway.

After days of walking, only 12 emerged alive.. The other 14 had succumbed to dehydration and exposure under the scorching desert sun.

In their struggle to survive, they drank their own urine and shredded their hands and mouths eating cactus.

Their story is an especially tragic one, but sadly, not unique. In 2001 alone, 391 Mexicans died while attempting to cross into the United States, and hundreds more like them lose their lives every year.

But the story of these 14 particular men will soon be told on the big screen, in ‘The Devil’s Highway’, a film set to begin shooting in September, and scheduled for a 2006 release.

The new movie will follow the men’s doomed journey through the eyes of everyone involved: the would-be immigrants themselves, the "coyotes" or human traffickers who abandoned them in the desert, and the U.S. Border Patrol agents who found them, according to the film’s Mexican director, Rodolfo (Rudy) Joffroy.

As part of the pre-production process, Joffroy and his crew visited the Arizona desert area where the events took place, as well as locations in the state of Veracruz, on the Gulf of Mexico, where many of the original group of 26 men hailed from.

The director was also assisted in his background research by the staff of the Mexican consulates located near the border in the southern United States, who helped him gain an inside view of migration between the two countries.

‘The Devil’s Highway’ will mark Joffroy’s directorial debut. The film’s script is based on a 2004 book of the same name by Luis Urrea, a Tijuana-born writer who now lives in the United States.

The death of these 14 men briefly stirred up controversy on both sides of the border, with Mexican and U.S. authorities both laying the blame on the so-called coyotes who abandoned their "clients" in the desert.

But human rights activists pointed to Washington as ultimately responsible, because of its "police approach" to immigration.

"These movies tend to be harsh, because they reflect a reality that gets lost in the statistics about this or that number of deaths, but is so tragic that we always hope it will somehow grab the attention of the authorities," film critic Gustavo Palacios told IPS.

"We wish the film every success, because it will help to open people’s eyes and ears to the drama of immigration," he added.

Many of the undocumented Mexicans who cross the border into the United States enter through the desert regions of Arizona. Official statistics indicate that almost one half of the just over one million would-be immigrants apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol in 2004 came by this route.

Entering the United States through the least heavily guarded areas along the border is almost always a life-threatening endeavour, because it means crossing churning rivers or inhospitable deserts where temperatures soar above 40 degrees Celsius, and it is far too easy to become disoriented and lost.

Nevertheless, every year roughly 400,000 Mexicans make it past the strict U.S. border controls to become productive members of that country’s workforce, while over one million fail and are sent back home.

And every year, hundreds more die in the attempt. The statistics show that between 1995 and 2004, 2,952 lives were lost along the 3,200-km border separating Mexico and the United States. The years with the highest numbers of fatalities were 2000, with 491, and 2003, with 422.

For many years, Mexico has been calling for a migration accord to promote safe, orderly emigration and to normalise the status of the many undocumented Mexican immigrants living and working in the United States.

Washington, however, has made it clear that it will go no further than a system of temporary "guest worker" permits, and that it will maintain its ironclad control over the Mexico-U.S. border.

There are close to 40 million people of Latin American origin living in the United States, the majority of who are Mexican.

It was once possible to enter the United States through areas near the major border cities, but those routes were closed off in 1993 with the erection of walls and fences and beefed-up security on the U.S. side. Control of the border has been even tighter since the Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

Since then, undocumented immigrants and their guides – the coyotes – have been forced to make the crossing along the most remote, dangerous stretches.

If they manage to get across, they are frequently transported farther into U.S. territory in the backs of freight trucks or in sealed train cars, inside suitcases or standing. Some who survive the border crossing itself subsequently lose their lives on this last leg of the journey – and join the statistics alongside the 14 men who died travelling "the devil’s highway".