-Caveat Lector- http://www.ocregister.com/news/16emigratecci4.shtml Mexico to give border crossers survival kits Critics say packages of medicine and food encourage illegal entry. May 16, 2001 By SAM QUINONES For the Register MEXICO CITY - If it can't stop emigration to the United States, the Mexican government thinks at least its people shouldn't die in the process. So starting next month, the government will distribute up to 200,000 survival kits to people planning to head north. The kits will contain medicine and information to prepare emigrants for what they face on the trip, which usually includes a trek through the remote deserts and mountains of Arizona or California because of increased U.S. border security. The packets will include anti-diarrheal medicine, adhesive bandages, aspirin, acetaminophen, medicine for snake and scorpion bites, powder to prevent dehydration, water, salt, dry meat, cans of tuna and granola. Women will receive 25 birth-control pills, men 25 condoms. AIDS is a small but growing problem in rural Mexico. It is spread mostly by men who contract the virus in the United States, then infect women back home. The program will train hundreds of volunteers - people who already make a yearly trek north - in first aid and emergency health care. The volunteers will be given surgery soap, sutures for sewing wounds, thermometers, gauze, cotton and other implements to attend to migrants' medical problems. The $2 million program, known as "Vete Sano, Regresa Sano" (Leave Healthy, Return Healthy), will begin June 15. It is funded by the Mexican government, which also is seeking funding from the California Endowment, a Woodland Hills-based health foundation. The endowment has set aside $50 million for programs that improve the health of California farm workers, part of that to be used in conjunction with the Mexican government. "The concept is fascinating and consistent with the kind of commitment this (money) would support," said Dr. Robert Ross, California Endowment president and a former San Diego County health director. "We are very committed to working with Mexican public-health officials." Officials from the endowment and the Mexican government met Tuesday in San Diego. Even without the endowment's support, the program will proceed but on a smaller scale, Mexican officials said. Training for volunteers is already under way. Rather than save lives, however, critics said the program will encourage illegal immigration. "Why don't they stop them from coming?" asked Barbara Coe of Huntington Beach, chairwoman of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform. "It's aiding and abetting lawbreakers." Among other things, the program will include tips on maintaining self-esteem and on Asian meditation techniques to combat depression, stress and anxiety in a country they have entered illegally and without speaking the language. "Those who've gone to the U.S. have told us of their experiences. This is what they've told us they need," said Dr. Angel Flores, chief of community action for the Mexican Institute of Social Security, which has a network of 3,000 rural health workers who will distribute the kits. Last year, at least 490 Mexicans died crossing the 1,952-mile border, according to the Mexican government. So far this year, emigrants crossing the border have been dying at a rate of about one a day, though officials say the toll rises in the summer. Gloria Chavez, spokeswoman for the San Diego sector of the U.S. Border Patrol, said that, while she was not familiar with the survival-kit plan, it sounds like a good idea. Since 1998, she said, U.S. Border Patrol agents have carried energy drinks, blankets and other emergency supplies to treat such ailments as dehydration and hypothermia among the border crossers. "Our mission is to prevent deaths," Chavez said. The packets and health workshops are to be presented to 369 of Mexico's poorest municipalities, mostly in Oaxaca, Michoacan, Zacatecas and Jalisco states. A committee of doctors and health workers formed by the government's newly established Office for Mexicans Abroad came up with the idea. Director Juan Hernandez acknowledged the kit might appear to encourage illegal immigration and thus be controversial. "We're not going to close our eyes," he said. "We have individuals with needs, and they are dying at the border." The survival kits have never been tried before. The biggest obstacle to their success could be the people they're intended to help. "This could help avoid many deaths. But if you ask emigrants, 70 percent of them don't see any risks," said Jorge Santibanez, president of El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, a state university in Tijuana, who helped design the program. "They're not conscious of the risks. So if the kit isn't accompanied with education on how to use it and why it's necessary, it won't be used." For many years, the Mexican government ignored the emigrants' plight. Emigrants complained of being ripped off by police when they returned home and treated like traitors by the government for leaving to make a living in the United States. The survival packets are the bluntest sign yet of a change in attitude under the administration of President Vicente Fox. "It reflects a reality that has rarely been reflected officially," Santibanez said. "Mexico avoided actions that could appear to be helping migrants leave. There was a kind of self-censorship: What will the U.S. say if we look like we're helping them leave? This self-censorship has disappeared. 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