By Michael Grass

ALTAR, Mexico In this forgotten corner of the continent, saguaro cacti, prickly pear and rocky desert soil fill the thousands of square miles of desolate frontier south of the Arizona border. Heading across the Sonoran desert on the only paved two-lane highway connecting central Mexico with Tijuana and southern California, it is hard to not notice the number of empty buses headed away from Altar, going south.

When you arrive in the town, hundreds of people mostly men lounge around on the central plaza, outside the small town"s cathedral. Then another bus pulls up and 20 or so people disembark. But this sleepy desert town is not their final destination, and is merely a jumping off point on the journey north toward the United States.

While it is not located on any border, Altar is emerging as the most important migratory nexus in North America. From here, thousands of Latin American migrants per month begin a three-night trek across the desert frontier to jobs in the U.S.

But the number of people passing through this town continues to rise and the journey is becoming increasingly dangerous.

BEGINNING THE JOURNEY

Many people traveling to the U.S. via Altar have been through before. One of those last Thursday was a man named Ren, who came from the state of Hidalgo. Dressed in a grey shirt and blue jeans and wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap with a picture of Bugs Bunny, he said his final destination was Detroit for a job as a line worker in an auto manufacturing plant. He had worked there for three years, before returning to see his family for Christmas last year.

"I"m going to call the boss and if there is work, I"m going to see if he can lend me money to get up there," he said standing in the plaza.

When the words "University of Michigan" were uttered, his eyes lit up he had met a University linguist years ago in his home state studying Otami, an indigenous language.

Like many people passing through, Ren already has contacts at U.S. companies and businesses.

One man already has a job lined up at a caf at 57th Street and Broadway in Manhattan. Another man from Vera Cruz is on his way to North Carolina for a trucking job. And another man in a Michigan game hat is headed to Florida to see his family.

Altar is a place where migrants take a final look back at their old lives and then turn around and look north toward the future. But the coming days and months for these migrants are uncertain. According to church officials, since 1994, more than 2,000 people before them have died on the journey either because of the elements, thirst or abandonment by guides supposed to protect them.

And sadly, some have even fallen victim to American vigilantes who rove the desert hunting migrants like deer.

Father Luis Ren Castaeda Castro, who was sent to Altar in 1999 by the Archdiocese of Hermosillo to tend to needs of the migrants, said the trek across the desert is very dangerous and there are many people present in Altar or in the desert who pray on the vulnerabilities of those making the journey to the U.S.

Bandits will hide in the hills and rob groups of migrants. Water will run out. Thorny bushes will tear into skin.

The risks are all too present.

And the migrants know that, but it doesn"t stop them from going north.

WITH FAITH, DETERMINED TO GO NORTHWARD

Every Thursday, Father Ren and others at his church go into the plaza and bring those waiting for rides to the border into the cathedral for a special mass to prepare the travelers mentally and spiritually for their journey.

Above the altar, a banner reads: "In this church nobody is a foreigner this is the place where the migrants are recognized and received like brothers."

During last Thursday"s mass, Father Ren invited a man in a Green Bay Packers jacket to speak about his experience to the congregation which was spilling out of the large wooden double doors onto the plaza. He said he was from the town of Santo Domingo in the impoverished state of Chiapas. Through this man"s testimonial, it is easy to see why so many people leave their homes in search of money.

The man"s wife died 15 years ago and he was left to take care of his two children but times have been rough in Chiapas and he could only garner three pesos for a kilogram of coffee he was selling. He couldn"t make ends meet he had to go north.

The man said he had been through Altar recently he had been one of the few who had been caught by the U.S. Border Patrol. And like most migrants who are caught, the man simply gave it another shot. And the odds are in his favor for making it across the border.