The magazine of the art-form of the photo-essay
“A free, really high quality photo-essay magazine. Fabulous!”
Stephen Fry. British actor, writer and film & documentary maker
June 2015 back issue
by Yannis Kontos
Hundreds of illegal immigrants lose their lives in the Arizona desert each year on a long and difficult journey in search
of the American dream.
Polaris photographer, Yannis Kontos, follows in the footsteps of thousands of illegal immigrants, mainly Mexicans,
making the long and difficult 80km journey through the desert in search of employment in the US. Almost 4,000
people cross the border daily and walk for more than three days, under extreme temperatures, to reach the nearest
American city. Yannis Kontos met hundreds of illegal immigrants in Altar and the border town of Sasabe, Mexico and
recorded extraordinary images from their preparation and the path they follow.
Yannis’ photo-essay highlights the operation that has been set up by human-traffickers that make thousands of dollars
by leading poor Mexicans through the desert. People who are familiar with the secret paths are called "Coyotes".
Some of them reveal the secrets of their circuit and how they have, so far, cheated the American authorities, many
times, by crossing small groups of illegal immigrants across the border.
Yannis Kontos then returns to the US where the authorities try to restrict the problem of illegal immigration. One of the
measures they have taken is to fence along the urban areas of the border. This pushes prospective immigrants out into
the desert. The result is that the area near Tucson, Arizona has turned into a ‘Valley of Death’ for more than 2,000
people who have lost their lives from dehydration, sunstroke and hypothermia over the past years.
There are approximately 6,000,000 Mexicans living illegally in the US. 75% of them have entered the country by
crossing the border.
Congress members in Washington continue to struggle with how to control illegal immigration across the U.S./Mexican
border, approving the construction of a 700 mile fence and considering a variety of proposals including denying
citizenship to babies born in the United States to illegal immigrants and requiring the more than 7 million employers in
the U.S. to check the legal status of workers. In recent years, a surge of Latin-American immigrants have poured
through the United States' southwest border with Mexico. In the first 10 months of fiscal year 2005, some 135,000 non-
Mexican immigrants were apprehended - nearly three times as many as in all of 2003. For those Americans living near
it and for the border agents who patrol it as well as the immigrants who risk everything crossing it, the border remains a
dangerous and troubling locale.
A ‘No Entry’ sign hangs on the border fence separating the U.S. and Mexico, on a stretch of private property.
Immigrants arrive at Altar Square to meet their smugglers at dusk.
Immigrants peer out the window of a van while on route to a border crossing point. A peso symbol is drawn on the
van's window.
Immigrants sit in a van during the 2-hour journey from Altar to the border at Sasabe. on the left sits a woman brought
along by the smugglers to relax and entertain them.
A group of immigrants walk to the U.S. border at Puerta San Miguel.
Immigrants crawl under the barbed wire border fence, into Arizona.
Immigrants walk past the barbed wire border fence, into the United States at the crossing point of Puerta San Miguel.
A group of immigrants walk through the Arizona desert, shortly after crossing into the U.S.
A man peers out of the window of a restaurant, towards the border fence at Nogales, where crosses memorializing
immigrants killed while crossing the border hang.
A group of recently-arrested immigrants are led away after being spotted on the U.S. side of the border by members of
the Minutemen organization. A border patrol helicopter flies overhead.
U.S. border patrol agents speak with recently-arrested undocumented aliens in the Altar Valley.
U.S. border patrol agent Jim Hawkins, 34, enters a cell full of recently-arrested immigrants at a detention facility.
A recently-arrested immigrant peers out through the metal grating of a border patrol van.
Wearing a revolver, Carmen Mercer, a member of the Minutemen, lights a cigarette beside a van of recently-arrested
immigrants.
A memorial cross erected outside a humanitarian facility in Altar lists 903 dead immigrants.
