Mexican wives want the U.S. to send their husbands home

The women of Tecalpulco, Mexico have asked the U.S. government to enforce its immigration laws and force, even deport their husbands so they will come back home from working illegally in the United States.

They have created an English-language web page where they talk about their children who feel abandoned, and worry that the men have forsaken their families for other women and for the American lifestyle. The women run an artists' cooperative to sell traditional-style jewelry, including through the Internet, and make their personal pleas at www.artcamp.com.mx/venga/ a part of the coop's Web site.

'You said you were only going to Arizona to get money for our house, but now you have been away and did not come back when your sister got married,' one woman writes,’Don't you love me? You told me you love me.'

More than 10 million Mexican-born people, or nearly one out of every 10, was living in the United States as of 2005. Villages devoid of men between 20 and 50 are common in many parts of the country. The stories of single mothers struggling to raise their children are just as frequent.

Businesses and government officials on both sides of the border acknowledge a sort of grand bargain -- with illegal immigration the U.S. gets cheap labor, while Mexico has an outlet for its unemployed, who in turn send cash back home.