AGUA ZARCA, Sonora, Mexico -- Taut ropes hold down a blue tarp over boxes and suitcases overflowing from the bed of Jorge Tapia Espinoza's small white pickup. In the cab, a quinceanera dress hangs between the driver and passenger seats. Tapia, 37, of Los Angeles, is at about the midpoint of his annual journey home for the holidays to the central state of Puebla, Mexico. Born in Mexico, he has been living in the United States for 20 years. Since he acquired his green card four years ago, he's made a tradition of heading home to celebrate Christmas, New Year's and Three Kings Day. He is one of 65,000 people that Mexican officials expect to pass through Nogales on their way to hometowns in such states as Jalisco, Puebla and Michoacan during the holidays as part of Programa Paisano, an annual government-run program created in 1989 designed to clamp down on corrupt public officials and to ease the journey for travelers by expediting the issuance of travel documents. This year, in addition to the annual Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve fiestas with family, Tapia and his family will celebrate his daughter's 15th birthday with a quinceanera. His wife and their three children flew last weekend from L.A. to Mexico City and took a bus to the city of Azactingo, but Tapia decided to drive so he would have room for all the gifts and luggage. He's at a temporary rest area set up about 11 miles south of Nogales by Mexican Migration officials. A formation of red tents houses makeshift immigration, auto insurance and money exchange offices and booths with tacos, burritos and soda. There are portable restrooms in the parking lot. It is one of the ways the Mexican government tries to make travelers' passage through Nogales painless and swift. The busiest days traditionally are the weekend before Christmas, but there is usually a steady flow of travelers by now, said Jesus Alberto Lopez Quiroz of the Paisano Program for Sonora and an official with the Instituto Nacional de Migracion, Mexico's Migration Institute. "Other years, at this date, it was full here," Lopez said.The number of people who have come through Nogales in the Paisano Program during the holidays has declined each of the past three years, Lopez said. In 2006, 43,500 people traveled south in the Paisano Program, a 30 percent decrease from the 61,981 in 2005 and a 69 percent decrease from the 141,412 people in 2004, numbers from the Nogales office of the Mexican Migration Institute show. So far this season, it's been even quieter than last year, Lopez said. Ismael and Laura Reyes, of Stockton, Calif., who have been traveling to Mexico to visit family in Morelia, Michoacan, for the past four years, noticed the drop in traffic. In 2006, they came through Nogales on the same day and waited about 45 minutes in line to get their visas and vehicle permit. This year, they waited about five minutes. "Today is better than past years," said Laura Reyes, who has lived in Stockton for 32 years. "There are fewer people and it's faster." They've heard that some people prefer to cross in Texas because they would rather spend more time traveling on U.S. highways than those in Mexico, where some people are stopped for bribes or robbed. That's what happened to Tapia in October of this year when he crossed through McAllen, Texas, and traveled south through Veracruz. There, a transito, or highway police officer, stopped him and forced him to give him a bribe of 400 pesos, or about $37, he said. From now on, he's going to travel exclusively through Nogales, he said. Tapia said another reason for the drop in traffic could be the expensive tollbooths on Mexican highways. By the time he reaches his hometown of Azactingo, in Puebla, he will have paid nearly $350 in toll fees, he said."The big corruption of the Paisano Program are the casetas," or toll booths, said Lopez, the Mexican Migration official. But the festive atmosphere of the holidays in Mexico and that irreplaceable feeling of being with family makes it worth it, Tapia said. Plus, it leaves a little something for the Mexican economy. "I'd rather come here and spend money at home," said Tapia, who works in maintenance at Universal Studios.Contact Brady McCombs at bmccombs(at)azstarnet.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com
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