Using cardboard, packing foam, pallets and other cast-off items, they have settled in less than 100 meters from the Arizona border. Buses from the maquila industrial park ply the dirt roads of the shantytown, taking workers to and from their factory jobs. Kids play soccer in the street. Young men wash their battered Datsun sedans. Women spray water in front of their homes to reduce dust.
Teenage lovers walk down the sandy streets.
Life simply goes on. It wasn't supposed to be this way. In the early 1990s, German-born Hans Wohlfarth, president of Zollhaus Holding, joined Canadian, U.S., Mexican and Spanish investors in a plan to expand the industrial park and build suitable worker housing. The investment group hired some of Arizona's slickest and smartest business leaders to make it happen. One of the key players was former Arizona Department of Commerce director Rita Carrillo, who headed the agency under Governor Bruce Babbitt in 1986.