ustxtxb_obs_2001_12_21_50_00010-00000_000.pdf

Top and center: APPNES, an “alternative” maquiladora, where all the workers are disabled. Due to the economic crisis, the organization now has work for just 12 of its 90 employees and owes $2,000 in back rent. APPNES Director Lucy Gomez, a psychologist who founded APPNES in 1992, has voluntarily given up her salary to keep the program alive. Bottom: Esther Chavez Cano, director of Casa Amiga in Ciudad Juarez, continues to press officials to solve the cases of over 260 young women murdered since 1993. be working alongside the Border Patrol at major points of entry. All talk of “legalization,””amnesty,” or even a new “guest-worker” programthe subject of much of Fox’s U.S. policy initiatives during his first year in office and the buzzwords during his state visit to Washington in early Septemberhad faded. They were replaced by talk of “intelligence sharing” and a “security perimeter” for North America. Mexico seemed to have slipped far from the radar screen in Washington, reappearing ever so briefly in reports about talks between the new U.S. Homeland Security chief, Tom Ridge, and Mexico’s National Security Adviser, Adolfo Aguilar Zinser. “They have no idea how to fix what happened, and they’re trying to control people who have nothing to do with it,” complained Jose Magafia, the owner of Al Rio, a downtown El Paso store that caters to Mexican shoppers. With an 80-percent decline in sales, Magana has had to lay off several employees. Nevertheless, on the day that I visited, he was trying to be upbeat. “We have to do what the President says and get back to normal,” he told me. He and other store owners were aggressively courting customers with ads in Juarez newspapers. Meanwhile, the business chambers in 10 THE TEXAS 00S