My goal, then as now, is to carry on, extend, and amplify the work of the great documentary photographer Dorothea Lange, only in color, sometimes assisted by strobe lights, perhaps with a harder edge. The scenes I recorded then were no different than those you find along the border today.

Looking at my old Kodachrome slides after seeing John Moore's fine work on the border, Undocumented: Immigration and the Militarization of the United States-Mexico Border, I saw the same story that I had published in local magazines. Then, as now, the country was in the throes of an argument over immigration policy. Could such pictures shift the conversation and humanize a story increasingly reduced to clichés? What happened in 1988 helps place the debate over immigration in the larger context of the United States as a land populated by people who aspired to the American Dream.

Mexican immigrants were chasing the dream because agriculture was screaming for labor. Old braceros who had “jumped” and settled were growing old. Children growing up in families of farmworkers saw their parents getting up at 4 a.m, riding buses to the fields at 5 a.m., and coming home at twilight too tired to talk. It was not the life for them, and increasingly they looked for work outside of agriculture – anywhere, anything, construction, truck driving – was better than crawling like a bug while cutting lettuce. And yet, if you walked the streets of Mexicali in 1986, you bumped into thousands of men who saw opportunity in labor requiring them to stoop over in the shape of a question mark while hoeing a cotton field under the blazing sun.

Inside dark cafes, at tables far away from the harsh Mexicali afternoon sunlight, newly arrived immigrants sipped Carta Blanca or Dos Equis, then laid their lives on the tables in the hope of being admitted under provisions of Special Agricultural Workers program (SAWS) of the Immigration and Reform Control Act. Enacted to maintain the labor surplus that farmers demanded, as well as to provide a safety valve on a porous border bulging at the seams, the SAW drew thousands of immigrants north in search of one, desperate, last-ditch effort to squeeze into the United States. Some called the SAW program "super amnesty" for agriculture.

As thousands of men headed to the Calexico customs house, just 10 yards from the border fence, a giant bottleneck developed. Even on double shifts, the small, overworked, understaffed group of 40 clerks, investigators, and other personnel assigned from throughout the United States were only able to process 450-to 500 applicants per day -- 750 at the very most. In the tunnel behind the Customs House I met one of SAW aspirant, Jose Martinez. His ordeal had begun two months earlier in Mexico City, where, despite his competence as a brick mason and ornamental wrought iron worker, he could not find a job. So Jose did what he had first done legally as a bracero in 1955, and later illegally as an undocumented worker starting in 1965 -- he headed north, intending to cross the border, work for a while, save money, and return home in the winter.

On a hot afternoon in early March, shortly after arriving in Mexicali, Jose suddenly changed his plans. He was walking to Chapultapec Park, about five blocks east of the international port of entry, when he passed Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Cathedral. Out of the corner of one eye he glimpsed a dozen large glass containers filled with chipped ice and various fruit-juice drinks, tea, and milk-rice drinks. Set up in a side alley leading to a courtyard beside the cathedral, the containers were encircled by campesinos who dipped out the drinks using huge ladles. J

As Jose listened and asked a few more questions, he quickly understood that there were two amnesty programs established by the Immigration Reform and Control Act. One, beginning May 5, 1987, and ending May 4, 1988, was for people able to prove continuous residence since January 1, 1982. The other program – the SAWS program – beginning June 1, 1987, and ending November 30, 1988, was for people who just like Jose who had been coming to work in perishable crops over the years but lacked continuous residence. After lunch, Jose laid down on a bench in the shade of the courtyard. The food and his own exhaustion made him drowsy and he slept for the first time in several days. But his mind remained fixed on his discovery. I

In the tunnel behind the Customs House I met one of SAW aspirant, Jose Martinez. His ordeal had begun two months earlier in Mexico City, where, despite his competence as a brick mason and ornamental wrought iron worker, he could not find a job. So Jose did what he had first done legally as a bracero in 1955, and later illegally as an undocumented worker starting in 1965 -- he headed north, intending to cross the border, work for a while, save money, and return home in the winter.

Walking the streets of Mexicali with their knapsacks and bags full of spare clothing, the SAW applicants were easy to spot. And with their pockets stuffed full of cash to pay SAW fees, they were easy targets for gangs, crooked taxi drivers, and criminals who engaged in a frenzy of robbery (and sometimes worse.) As a result, only the very recently arrived SAW applicants did not make sure to move about only in groups. “It was a mess,” said Connie Caldwell,l deputy legalization officer in the Calexico INS office. “Each day there’d be thousands of Mexicans lined up along the barbed wire border fence, out in the sun all day long, without water or food, waiting to get through the little gate leading to the customs building. They stayed there 24 hours a day so that they wouldn’t lose their place in line.”

After lunch, Jose laid down on a bench in the shade of the courtyard. The food and his own exhaustion made him drowsy and he slept for the first time in several days. But his mind remained fixed on his discovery. In a dream, he analyzed his situation. If he applied for a SAW entry permit he would need someone to fill out the forms. The Catholic Church would do that for $20. He could pay that. And besides, he had seen other campesinos take up collections for poor immigrants, unable to pay. He knew that if he could not find the $20, the church would probably waive the fee. He had only $65 in his billfold. To get the necessary cash for the SAW program, Jose would have to return home and borrow the money. So that evening, Jose took a bus back to Mexico City. Three weeks later he was back in Mexicali with a money belt and bills hidden in his boots. By then, however, the situation among Mexicali’s SAW applicants had taken a turn for the worse.

To prevent a riotous rush on the border, Mexican immigration officials in mid-March had moved the ever-expanding line down into the pedestrian tunnel beneath the international port of entry. All SAW applicants were required to appear in person in the tunnel and there obtain a large manila envelope with a date for crossing and a number in the line for that day. As of May 3, a person applying for a crossing “reservation,” as it was called, and who did not pay a $200 “mordida” to obtain more favorable date, had to wait about 45 days before proceeding to the old Calexico customs building for INS processing.

Wasting little time, Jose was at the cathedral, along with 150-200 other men, at 5 a.m. Given Number 125, he took a seat on a bench in the courtyard and waited until about 11 a.m. when his number was called and he moved inside a small office. There a staff of about 30 volunteers from the church congregation assisted each applicant. After about 45 minutes, Jose was taken outside, photographed, and then escorted to another building, where a staff of typists neatly typed his applications and attached his photos in the appropriate places. The next morning Jose walked several blocks north to the international port of entry, went down in the pedestrian tunnel, and registered for his appointment. He drew number 577. Jose would have to wait almost three weeks.

On May 5, Jose descended into the pedestrian tunnel beneath Lopez Matcos Boulivard. More than 600 men and women assigned to cross that day waited for immigration officials to begin calling out a series of numbers. Men stepped forward, presented their envelopes, moved through turnstiles, and took their places in a line along one side of the tunnel. These men, however, were not scheduled to cross until 160 immigrants left over from the previous day had through. The extra 160 people stacked in front of Jose meant that he probably would not cross as expected. And since it was Saturday and the SAW program did not operate on Sunday, Jose would probably have to wait another two days before crossing. About 10 a.m. the last of the previous day’s applicants were called to stand in line. Every 20 or 30 minutes immigration officials signaled another group of 150-20 applicants to move forward. About 2:30 p.m Jose’s took his place in line.

Finally, at about 4:15 p.m., Jose and a group of 30 other men and several women crossed through the gate onto the U.S. side of the border. An INS officer then took charge of them, lined them up in front of the border fence, and told them to raise their right arms and swear to tell the truth. He then marched them single file 100 yards east along the border fence, lined them up again, and began marching them single file through the back door of the old customs building. As they passed into the INS processing center I photographed the aspirants with my studio lights as they stood with their documents in front of a painted canvas. Jose spent an hour or so inside the customs building, moving from chair to chair, waiting, standing at long tables as people checked his documents. Eventually, he was sent to an adjudicator, who had his own little cubicle and desk. The job of the adjudicator was to weed out impostors – nonagricultural workers, of which there were many (including several women dressed in their best clothes, with painted fingernails) – trying to slip through the last legal loophole in the immigration law.

This particular adjudicator’s name was Willie. He did not want his last name used. He said that the SAW program seemed to be attracting thousands of people who had never in their lives even come close to farm work. “You just look at their hands and their faces,” he said. “You could tell a lot that way. And if you are still uncertain, you ask them if they had ever picked strawberries and cherries. If they say ‘yes,’ you ask which ones grew on trees, which grew on patches.” Willie took one look at Jose and was satisfied that he was an authentic field worker. He waived the 58-year-old man through. Jose then quickly paid his $185 fee and received an I-94 entry permit allowing him to stay in the United states for 90 days. Ironically, to use that pass, Jose had to return to Mexico and then reenter the United States within 24 hours, at any regular crossing facility.

Back at the cathedral, Jose hugged Father Gutierrez, pastor of the church, and then headed back to the port of entry. He came into the United States legally for the first time in 24 years at 7 p.m. that evening. Broke, he asked me to buy him a bus ticket to Anaheim, where his son lived. From there he would head north. He had friends in the San Joaquin Valley farm town of Huron, but wasn’t sure exactly where that was located. I gave Jose some cash, and while driving him from Calexico to the El Centro bus depot, asked about his feelings at this moment.

Jose had been coming to the United Sates for 33 years. But he wasn’t so sure that he could qualify, since he had not been in the country in 1985 and 1986 as required to qualify for the SAWS program. And so, ironically, this old bracero – who by any normal standard should have been at the top of the list for any agricultural worker amnesty program – might not even qualify under the law. Jose might be making his last trip to the United States. Was he bitter? “I think it’s very funny,” he said. “I still pay a coyote. Only this coyote is in an office now. And he charges less.”