Helpful Score: 1
"Five men stumbled out of the mountain pass so sunstruck they didn't know their own names, couldn't remember where they'd come from, had forgotten how long they'd been lost. One of them wandered back up a peak. One of them was barefoot. They were burned nearly black, their lips huge and cracking, what paltry drool still available to them spuming from their mouths in a salty foam as they walked. Their eyes were cloudy with dust, almost too dry to blink up a tear. Their hair was hard and stiffened by old sweat, standing in crowns from their scalps, old because their bodies were no longer sweating. They were drunk from having their brains baked in the pan, they were seeing God and Devils, and they were dizzy from drinking their own urine, the poisons clogging their systems."
This first paragraph really sets the tone for this mesmerizing account of a specific horrific incident that occurred on the U.S./Mexican border in 2001. Urrea writes about what happened to a group of men who attempted to cross the border into the desert of southern Arizona through the deadliest region of the continent known as "the Devil's Highway." He tells the story of the group and their origins, most of who had been recruited by an unethical man in Veracruz, Mexico, who promised them a new start in El Norte. The men had to borrow to pay extravagant amounts to ride a bus through Mexico City and on to the far north border towns where they were dumped and left in the hands of the "coyotes" to get them across the border. But one of the guias (guides) who was to take them through the desert didn't show up which left a very inexperienced guia to show them across. The group was lost in the desert with temperatures soaring to over 105 degrees and out of a group of 26, 14 perished. This incident brought national attention to the plight of immigrants at the border.
Urrea tells the story from both the immigrants side who were known as pollos to their guides and from the point of view of the Border Patrol (BP) and agents who ended up finding the survivors and taking them to be cared for at local hospitals. The immigrants were basically duped into going north for a new life but the BP did do all that they could to help them when they were found stranded in the desert. Later they also took steps to help others by installing signal towers along the way that they could use for guidance.
Urrea really makes a case for opening the border and doing more to help people who want to come to America for a better life. He cites several studies that show that illegal immigrants actually add to our economy through their payment of Federal, State, and local taxes. The Mexican consul on the case also pointed out that the costs to hospitalize the survivors and to take care of the dead victims was very costly. She asks "what if somebody had simply invested that amount of money in their villages to begin with?" Included in this edition is an afterword written by Urrea ten years after the books original publication. He points out that border conditions haven't gotten any better and there are even more horrendous acts happening along the border related to drug cartels and human trafficking. This afterword was written before Trump came into office and his border policies have been even more hardline.
So what's the solution? Urrea thinks there must be one but is not sure what it is. A few days ago, the Supreme Court did uphold Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) which is a United States immigration policy that allows some individuals with unlawful presence in the United States after being brought to the country as children to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and become eligible for a work permit. So there is some light on the subject but this is a problem that will not go away any time soon.
This first paragraph really sets the tone for this mesmerizing account of a specific horrific incident that occurred on the U.S./Mexican border in 2001. Urrea writes about what happened to a group of men who attempted to cross the border into the desert of southern Arizona through the deadliest region of the continent known as "the Devil's Highway." He tells the story of the group and their origins, most of who had been recruited by an unethical man in Veracruz, Mexico, who promised them a new start in El Norte. The men had to borrow to pay extravagant amounts to ride a bus through Mexico City and on to the far north border towns where they were dumped and left in the hands of the "coyotes" to get them across the border. But one of the guias (guides) who was to take them through the desert didn't show up which left a very inexperienced guia to show them across. The group was lost in the desert with temperatures soaring to over 105 degrees and out of a group of 26, 14 perished. This incident brought national attention to the plight of immigrants at the border.
Urrea tells the story from both the immigrants side who were known as pollos to their guides and from the point of view of the Border Patrol (BP) and agents who ended up finding the survivors and taking them to be cared for at local hospitals. The immigrants were basically duped into going north for a new life but the BP did do all that they could to help them when they were found stranded in the desert. Later they also took steps to help others by installing signal towers along the way that they could use for guidance.
Urrea really makes a case for opening the border and doing more to help people who want to come to America for a better life. He cites several studies that show that illegal immigrants actually add to our economy through their payment of Federal, State, and local taxes. The Mexican consul on the case also pointed out that the costs to hospitalize the survivors and to take care of the dead victims was very costly. She asks "what if somebody had simply invested that amount of money in their villages to begin with?" Included in this edition is an afterword written by Urrea ten years after the books original publication. He points out that border conditions haven't gotten any better and there are even more horrendous acts happening along the border related to drug cartels and human trafficking. This afterword was written before Trump came into office and his border policies have been even more hardline.
So what's the solution? Urrea thinks there must be one but is not sure what it is. A few days ago, the Supreme Court did uphold Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) which is a United States immigration policy that allows some individuals with unlawful presence in the United States after being brought to the country as children to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and become eligible for a work permit. So there is some light on the subject but this is a problem that will not go away any time soon.
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