The 1993 North American Free Trade Act, or NAFTA, put an estimated 2 million Mexican farmers out of business. Food prices in Mexico went up, while wages, after adjusting for inflation, declined. 

The consequences of NAFTA and spiking unemployment from the peso currency crisis incentivized many Mexicans to head north to the U.S. in search of a better life.

But with more people seeking opportunity in the U.S., human smugglers known as coyotes saw a lucrative opportunity. One in which vulnerable migrants would be exploited for the sliver of hope they thought possible in Arizona.  

Those who made it to Arizona, however, were met with hostile state legislators intent on squandering any potential path to prosperity that may have existed for migrants. Those same legislators conflated migrants with exploitative smugglers. Latino citizens already living in Arizona beared the wrath of discriminatory legislation, racial profiling by police and racist behavior by peers.

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