_ My opinion_:  If you want your crops worked and fruits picked,  you are going to have no other choice but to increase pay.    I can remember when employers paid more money for wages in the early 70's that they are paying today.   The more illegals crossed the border,  the less money employers paid for wages.

Because i had a career and made decent money,  i was very depressed when i had to  retire and accept disability.  The most anyone will get on disability is 75% of their gross income.  So people don't go out and buy more than one disability plan.   Only one will pay.   You are losing money for premiums.

My sister kept saying:  Stop complaining because your disability is  moderate income and not low income.  Yep i asked around different department stores thinking i probably could do that work if i couldn't drive and walk all day.  When some employees told me their income,  i was stunned.  Most are paying minnimum wage,  whatever that is.....i think 5.15 per hour...they only have 206.00 gross (before taxes) for a 40 hour work week.  It wasn't what i was thinking....they were also lifting merchandise all day, walking, standing and taking heat from their boss.

As of now i am not depressed anymore but blessed because i can live where everyone else live and they are working.  Oh well they told me i get too much money and i can't get an ebt card,  and i have to pay my own medicare premium...oh well,  i am not stressed anymore and very blessed.  Young people choose a career and not just a job.  It pays off in your young days, and your Golden years are paid in full.

ASABE, Mexico - The sandy streets of Sasabe are empty. Migrant

smugglers have to hunt for business at border-town shelters. Many

deported migrants give up after one try, taking their government up on

free bus rides home.

A U.S. crackdown is causing the longest and most significant drop in

illegal migration from Mexico since the Sept. 11 attacks. Officials say

the U.S. economic downturn, tighter security and a more perilous and

expensive journey are persuading many who try to sneak into the U.S. to

give up sooner.

Border Patrol arrests are down 17 percent so far this year along the

U.S.-Mexico border after falling 20 percent all of last fiscal year and

8 percent the year before that. While it's impossible to know how many

people are crossing illegally, the Patrol uses apprehensions to

estimate the ebb and flow of traffic.

The downturn in illegal immigration has

created labor shortages throughout the United States and several states

are considering temporary-worker programs, especially in agricultural

fields, where produce is going bad.

Mexicans in the U.S. are starting to send less money home, too.

**Money being sent back is down

Adolfo

Vasquez, a 41-year-old corn farmer from southern Mexico, picked fruit

for three years in Washington state. Last year it took him two tries to

get to his job. This year, he walked for four nights before U.S. Border

Patrol agents caught him. He doesn't plan to try again.

"It's very disheartening because every time it

gets twice as difficult," said Vasquez, resting under an aid station

tent for deportees in Nogales. "We're going to go to Los Cabos or

Tijuana. We hear there is work there."

The

number of returned migrants who try again through the heavily traveled

desert corridor west of Sasabe has dropped from 80 percent to 40

percent since January, said Border Patrol spokesman Jose Gonzalez.

Agents keep fingerprints on all those apprehended and can determine

multiple offenders, even if they give false names.

U.S. authorities attribute the drop to tighter

security and a new program in the Tucson sector that has prosecuted

more than 3,000 migrants for crossing illegally since it started in

January. They face jail sentences from a few days to six months.

But

none of the migrants interviewed by The Associated Press knew about the

new prosecution program. Those on their way home said the main

deterrents were tougher security and the dangers of the desert,

including bandits who rob and even rape migrants on both sides of the

border.

**More border securit

The

U.S. Border Patrol has added 200 officers since last year to the Tucson

sector, and a total of 3,000 agents now search the vast desert for

illegal migrants by truck, horse, ATV and helicopter. They now have

four drones scanning for drug and migrant smugglers, as well as two

newly built 12-foot walls with steel posts near Nogales and in Sasabe.

At the same time, Mexican drug smugglers have started to collect fees for access to the main routes into Arizona.

As a result, Grupo Beta, the Mexican

government's migrant rescue group, has seen a 257 percent increase in

the number of people seeking discounted bus tickets home this year. So

far, 2,500 people in Nogales and Sasabe asked for the tickets this

year, while Grupo Beta had only 700 requests in all of 2007.

"We

can't keep up with so many people who are heading back," said Enrique

Enriquez, coordinator for Grupo Beta in Nogales. He said his rescuers

spend the day shuttling migrants to a bus station.

Maria Fernandez, 25, made her first crossing

with her husband after both had been laid off from a department store

in Puebla state. Friends in New York offered to help them find work.

First they traveled to Altar, a farming town 70 miles south of Sasabe,

a major gathering point for those heading to Arizona.

There,

they had to pay about $50 so drug smugglers would allow them to travel

the bumpy road north, and another $30 for a van that took them and

another 25 migrants to Sasabe.

They walked for four nights through the

mesquite-covered desert, where they were robbed once. They hid from

Border Patrol agents at least five times. But when they reached the

highway where they would meet their next ride, they were spotted by a

helicopter.

Now, Fernandez was waiting in Nogales for her husband to be deported, as she had been.

"I won't try again because it's very difficult and, as a woman, one risks a lot," she said.

The

crackdown has made smugglers more desperate to recruit clients for the

trip north. If fewer people cross, their earnings drop.