Some Mexican Migrants Turning to Bicycles

In this 2000 photo provided by the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, abandoned bikes with plastic water bottles are seen on a park trail in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument on the border in Arizona. The aid group Humane Borders estimates that a hundred or so bikes that appear to have been used by migrants turn up in the Arizona desert each month. One Mexican official said whole packs of bicycle-mounted migrants have passed by his office, heading to the border. (AP Photo/Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument) (AP)

SONOYTA, Mexico -- Many illegal immigrants no longer hike. They bike.

The 110-degree heat and rough terrain of the Arizona desert would exhaust the fittest of cyclists, but these migrants are often middle-aged housewives or farmers, riding battered second-hand bikes for 30 or 40 miles.

The bikes also carry their supplies and belongings, so if rocks or cactus spines shred the tires, they get off and push.

The prize? A chance at a low-wage job.

"We've seen them going by on bicycles right by our offices ... in whole groups," said Mario Lopez, an agent for Mexico's Grupo Beta migrant aid agency, whose offices sit just a few hundred yards from the border. "They're usually old bikes because they're going to abandon them anyway."

Most start their trip in Sonoyta, a Mexican border town where the bikes are sold for $30 in a dusty, vacant lot a few blocks from the chest-high, three-rail fence that marks the U.S. border. The fence has prevented vehicles from driving across into the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, but migrants can easily toss a bike over and slip through the rails.

From there, it's a brutal ride over Organ Pipe's hard-packed terrain. Though the park prohibits off-road biking, sets of fresh mountain-bike tracks can be seen running down its foot trails, and the National Park Service often finds abandoned bikes with crumpled wheels and water bottles hanging off the handlebars.

Fred Patton, the park's chief ranger, says "hundreds and hundreds and hundreds" of migrants bike through the park. No count is kept and he can't be precise, but he provides pictures of abandoned bikes. "It's a relatively common means of transport," he said.

The aid group Humane Borders, which combs the Arizona desert for migrants needing help, says it often stumbles across abandoned bikes, their tires flat.

Many migrants simply ditch the bikes when they get to a prearranged meeting point, where a smuggler is waiting with a vehicle to whisk them away to a nearby city.

Some 500 deaths were reported last year of migrants who succumbed to heat and thirst while trying to cross the desert on foot. No evidence has turned up cyclists suffering the same fate.

The off-road course proved too grueling for Alejandra Valenzuela, 27, who fell behind with another woman.