Pub­lished in the State Press on Novem­ber 28, 2005.

With Pres­i­dent Bush in town to dis­cuss his plan to curb ille­gal immi­gra­tion, per­haps the time is right to press him on bor­der issues of a dif­fer­ent kind — like how the U.S. is respon­si­ble for fuel­ing the ille­gal immi­gra­tion it’s work­ing so hard to control.

While Bush reclines at the Bilt­more for a day, pon­der­ing an issue law­mak­ers can’t agree on, hun­dreds of thou­sands of Mex­i­cans will end shifts in bor­der sweat­shops owned by For­tune 500 com­pa­nies (accord­ing to Amnesty and Cor­p­watch), with a few dol­lars pay to show for it.

One might expect that the cor­po­ra­tions con­trol­ling Amer­ica would bring some progress to Mex­ico. But instead, they bring, at best, count­less under­paid jobs and, at worst, a dan­ger­ous atmos­phere of hos­til­ity against women.

In Juarez, Mex­ico, for exam­ple, over 300 young women and girls have been raped, tor­tured and mur­dered on their way to and from work at these fac­to­ries. Although the­o­ries abound, no one really knows who is respon­si­ble for these crimes, which remain largely unin­ves­ti­gated despite pleas and protests from griev­ing families.

The 80 For­tune 500 com­pa­nies that run fac­to­ries in Juarez are not directly respon­si­ble for rap­ing and muti­lat­ing these hun­dreds of women. But they are respon­si­ble for cre­at­ing an envi­ron­ment that fos­ters such vicious crimes.

Their prac­tice of hir­ing female work­ers who can be paid less than men has rede­fined mas­culin­ity in Juarez. It’s a city where men, tra­di­tion­ally the bread­win­ners, are largely unem­ployed. When a teenage girl is sud­denly respon­si­ble for sup­port­ing her fam­ily in an intensely patri­ar­chal soci­ety, she risks gar­ner­ing the hos­til­ity of men in her com­mu­nity. Her fem­i­nin­ity and sex­u­al­ity come into question.

Though this is a byprod­uct of indus­tri­al­iza­tion and not exclu­sively the fault of American-run fac­to­ries, these busi­nesses still have a respon­si­bil­ity to pro­tect their female workers.

Instead, most of these fac­to­ries run 24 hours a day, mean­ing that women who don’t earn enough to take a cab must walk or hitch­hike to work in the dark. Only Alcoa, a com­pany that pro­duces alu­minum, pro­vides mon­i­tored trans­porta­tion for its work­ers, accord­ing to Amnesty International.

Appar­ently, most of these com­pa­nies don’t feel the need to pro­tect their work­ers in the same way. The pres­i­dent of Elec­tro­com­po­nentes de Mex­ico, which pro­duces parts for Gen­eral Elec­tric, even told Mex­i­can Labor News and Analy­sis that they “have been con­sis­tent with the other plants in our area as far as offer­ing com­pet­i­tive wages and ben­e­fits, we offer sports teams and that sort of thing. We feel we treat our employ­ees very well.”

But not well enough to ensure safe trans­porta­tion for Irma Ros­ales, a 13-year-old employee who was raped and suf­fo­cated with a plas­tic bag on her way home from work.

Under such con­di­tions, who wouldn’t want to cross the bor­der to safely make $5.15 an hour instead of risk­ing one’s life to earn $4 a day?

Although Mexico’s pres­i­dent, Vicente Fox, has done lit­tle to bring the per­pe­tra­tors of these crimes to jus­tice, it isn’t beyond the scope of Pres­i­dent Bush or local law­mak­ers. In fact, Cal­i­for­nia Rep. Hilda Solis and New Mex­ico Sen. Jeff Binga­man intro­duced a House and Sen­ate con­cur­rent res­o­lu­tion express­ing con­gres­sional con­cern and propos­ing a set of actions to deal with the feminicide.

With the pres­i­dent in town and bring­ing national atten­tion to local bor­der issues, it is the per­fect time to write to local con­gres­sional rep­re­sen­ta­tives urg­ing them to cospon­sor the resolution.

And if you attend any of the numer­ous protests staged today, speak against the giant cor­po­ra­tions who breed the causes of ille­gal immi­gra­tion: poverty, poor qual­ity of life and unsafe communities.

• Tweet