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AN IMMIGRANT'S STORY
Editor’s note: The story below continues a first-person ac
count by an Athens resident of entering the United States
illegally from Mexico. Read Part 1, from last week’s issue,
at www.flagpole.com.
went back to the hotel in Agua
Prieta, where we ate in a little
restaurant, which accepted dol
lars and Mexican pesos. You could get plates of
food for 15 pesos or $1.50. I was talking with
a guy who had gone back to Mexico to have an
eye operation done for his son, because here in
the United States, no hospital wanted to do the
operation. He said his son had returned to the
United States with an uncle.
Back in the hotel, we didn't have much to
do... just wait and talk. I was bored, and so I
left the hotel and went out onto the sidewalk.
There were other people there killing time. Some
were talking, and some were just watching. There
was a tall, skinny man with us who was wearing
boots, jeans and a hat. He looked like a cowboy
or a coyote or something like that. He was talk
ing to a little girl. They were very friendly, and
they looked like they had known each other
for a long time. They were laughing and play
ing hand-games. She was not more than 13 or
14. When a car parked on the other side of the
street, she got scared, and started looking for a
place to hide. She said that it was her mom. Out
of the car came two men and a woman dressed
like a prostitute, with her face all made up. They
walked into the hotel, laughing and having fun.
I did not see the young girl after that small
incident. I did not think that it was very impor
tant... I just kept killing time until I got bored
and went back to the hotel room.
Nothing had changed since I'd left the ro^m.
People kept having conversations. It might have
continued all evening, but something broke the
monotony. The little girl I had seen outside came
into our hotel room,
and she looked very
disturbed. You could see
the desperation in her
face. She was totally
transformed from the time I had last seen her.
She said, "I need a can" (a soda can), and looked
all over the room and in the restroom, even in
the bathtub. People use cans as pipes to smoke
crack. It turned out that the girl was smoking
crack, and I understood what had happened ear
lier. I was full of anger, and I felt so powerless.
There are all these children living in towns like
these, who are easily susceptible to predators.
I did not fully understand, because I don't have
children, but even so...
AGAIN
That night we would try to jump again. I was
talking about the frustration I felt because we
ran far and thought that we'd made it, but they
still caught us. "There is no use," said a guy ly
ing in bed. "People spend weeks trying to cross.
Look at me. I've been here a month already and
I still can't make it. You have to have patience
to achieve your goals. Sometimes, [the coyotes]
bring two groups. They send one group first
in order to draw the migras, using them as a
distraction. Then they will have the path free
for the other group to come behind the first
one." The guy talking
was wearing different
clothes than he had
the night before. If
you leave your clothes
in the hotel room, you know you will never see
them again.
We went back to the border the same as the
night before (six people in a taxi), but there
were four more waiting there to go with us. We
walked all along a big, metallic wall for a few
minutes. I do not remember much else about this
area. Finally we found this narrow little tunnel
that crossed over to the other side of the wall,
but it was not wide enough to let us through.
At that point, the guide went and got a car
jack that had been hidden in the woods nearby.
They divided us into two groups, and they se
lected three of us and made us climb the wall
to the top. Then the guide told us, "You have
to jump over and run as fast as you can." He
ordered us to jump... but not one of us jumped.
He repeated, "Jump." The third time he himself
jumped to show us how. When he touched ground
on the other side, an officer with a big flashlight
came out from a small wooded area, trying to
catch him. The guide climbed back over and
jumped down to our side, and I moved away, very
scared. He was angry because we did not jump
when he told us to.
The whole group began to walk, and he
brought the jack with him. We walked for about
20 minutes, and then we found another hole. He
put down the jack again to lift the big wall, and
he crossed beneath the wall first and then came
back. We started to cross one by one. When it
was my turn, I was worried that the jack would
move a little and the wall would cut me in half,
but nothing happened, and we all crossed to
the other side and began to walk in the dark
of night. We walked for two to three hours very
quickly, until we got to a big market, like a Wal-
Mart or something. We crossed a parking lot, and
we faced a highway. We knew people die trying
to cross the highways, so now we were risking
our lives again. But nothing happened. We were
very lucky.
We got into the city again, but this time it
was different. We ran through the streets, and we
jumped a small fence and hid behind a tree (all
10 of us). I found it hard to believe the police
didn't see us, because they turned the lights on
us, and nothing stood between the police van
and us. It was hard to believe, but they didn't
see us. We waited for a little while, and then
“Look at me. I’ve been here a month
already and I still can’t make it.” •
10 FLAGPOLE.COM • SEPTEMBER 12, 2007
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