Guatemala–Mexico border

The Guatemala–Mexico border is the international border between Guatemala and Mexico. It measures 871 km (541 mi) and runs between north and west Guatemala (the Guatemalan departments of San Marcos, Huehuetenango, El Quiché and El Petén) and the Mexican states of Quintana Roo, Campeche, Tabasco and Chiapas. The border includes stretches of the Usumacinta River, the Salinas River, and the Suchiate River.

Usumacinta River, view from Chiapas, Mexico. The far bank is Guatemala

It is across this border that most of the commerce between Mexico and Guatemala and the rest of Central America takes place. In some models, this border represents the division between the Central American region of North America and North America proper.

Immigration issues

In 2006, Joseph Contreras profiled the issue of Guatemalan immigrants illegally entering Mexico for Newsweek magazine and pointed out that while Mexican president Vicente Fox demanded that the United States grant legal residency to millions of undocumented Mexican immigrants, Mexico had only granted legal status to 15,000 undocumented immigrants. Additionally, Contreras found that at coffee farms in the Mexican state Chiapas, "40,000 Guatemalan field hands endure backbreaking jobs and squalid living conditions to earn roughly [US]$3.50 a day" and that some farmers "even deduct the cost of room and board from that amount."^[1] The Mexican National Institute of Migration estimated that 400,235 people crossed the border illegally every year and that around 150,000 of them intended to enter the United States.^[2]

References

1. ^ Contreras, Joseph (June 5, 2006), "Stepping Over the Line", Newsweek 147 (23): p. 72, http://www.newsweek.com/2006/06/04/stepping-over-the-line.html 
2. ^ Gorney, Cynthia (February 2008), "Mexico's Other Border", National Geographic 213 (2): pp. 60–79, http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/02/mexicos-southern-border/cynthia-gorney-text