I simulated the illegal crossing of the mexico / u.s. border

Francisco Escamilla

Caroline Lévesque

Sunday, 15 October 2017 09:00

UPDATE
Sunday, 15 October 2017 09:00

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I have lived the last six months as an independent journalist in Mexico city. There, I was told about a simulation that is held at night, every Saturday, in a pueblo (village) lost in the mountains of the State of Hidalgo. The idea is to recreate the crossing of the mexico / u.s. border, a border that pass through each year, hundreds of thousands of irregular migrants are attracted by the “american dream”. The experiment reproduces the same physical conditions of dangerousness that is the reality.

Is it that the activity is a physical preparation for the Mexicans in order to possibly better manage the risks of moving to the foot of the border? Where is this attraction which, in a certain way, is a form of tourism far?

This is what I wanted to see the village of El Alberto, about two hours north of Mexico city. I was told that the test would be physical, and that I risked crossing snakes, spiders, dead animals, and cactus. I was going to even cross a river by swimming.

My photographer and I found ourselves on a site where stands a family water park. The parc Eco Alberto, people bathe on the day and play to illegal migrants at night.

Francisco Escamilla

Deserted Village

The economic situation of the indigenous community of El Alberto was so difficult that more than half of its inhabitants have deserted to cross the border on foot, some 900 kilometres to the north, in the hope of a better future. This problem has prompted the village to create, in 2004, a park and recreational tourism and to add to it an immersive experience. The objective : to sensitize the mexican population to the physical hazards of this crossing at night.

According to the United States Border Patrol, more than 415 800 people from all over Latin America were arrested at the u.s. border, in 2016. Of this number, more than one-third were Mexican. And each year, hundreds of people leave their life.

Francisco Escamilla

Coyote hooded

The course of three hours is inspired by the experiences of the employees of the park revenue to the fold by themselves or after having been expelled from the United States. Each of them takes a role in this simulation : police officers, members of a drug cartel or traffickers.

At 21h, a hooded man separates us into two groups: the vulnerable, that is to say, families with children, and the non-vulnerable, either my group. It has the role of a coyote, that is to say of a man whose business is to guide the migrants in exchange for money. From this moment on, our life depends on him and his cronies. “You’re going to live less than 5% of that endured by the true migrant in this situation,” we cree-t-he. He knows what he’s talking about, having already crossed this dangerous area.

Our group is made up of about thirty people, all young Mexican in search of thrills. I’m talking with one of them. He says he’s doing this walk for fun and that he can afford it “because it is part of the middle class”. I was not expecting this kind of answer, honest, indeed, but little empathy.

The walk begins suddenly we hear the sirens of “patrols in the u.s.” in the distance. The coyote cries out to us to run quickly and then we launch flat in a ditch, the time that the “police officers” pass by.

You can’t see anything and stumble

We then take a path that has nothing to do with beaten-path. I do not see anything, and walking into holes, tripping over rocks and thorny branches me slap the face. My eyes adjust slowly to the darkness, but I am the one delaying the group. In front of me, there was nobody, and behind, the people stick together. The smuggler to me screams to move forward more quickly. I’m active at the risk of me twist an ankle with every step.

We passed over a wooden bridge chambranlant and dotted with holes over a river wave. Already, the sense of security no longer exists. We need to climb a hill in us creating a path between the cacti. I’m starting to get hot, and there is still more than two and a half hour walk to “the border”.

Francisco Escamilla

In front of me, a woman warns us of the obstacles : “there are rocks! Be careful, there are thorns! Here, there is a hole!” Solidarity is beginning to emerge among the participants, who give themselves the hand or hold her by the shoulders.

The tunnel

After you have crawled under a barbed-wire fence and crossed a muddy pond that has filled my shoes, the coyote urges us to enter abruptly into a tunnel, and this, despite the reluctance of some.

On the inside, I don’t know if my eyes are closed or open. There is no difference. My only compass remains of the walls of the structure in which the diameter appears to be shrinking. I advance, the back arched and the knees bent. I think of all the spiders that need to find refuge in these places, what motivates me to get out of this place suffocating, anxiety-provoking, and the length of which is unknown to me. It is a true test of psychological. I feel vulnerable, in the middle of the night, in this narrow tunnel. After a few minutes, you should hear the echoes of people talking, I get out.

Francisco Escamilla

Cartels

Continuing our road, we hear gunshots. Members of a fake drug cartel tell us that we lie on the ground. They are pointing their fake guns at the head of some people in the group with the intention of “taking” the little money they could carry. It saves me, not without me expand forcibly on a bed of thorns I scratched his legs and hands. Twice, we are intercepted by the narcos. Even if they are excellent actors, aggressive, verbally and physically, I am incapable of being frightened, having always in mind that I live in a work of fiction. Even the participants, lying on the ground, laughing nervously at the muscular intervention.

After more than two hours of walking on this hilly terrain, our coyote asks us to make a choice: cross a mountain, a longer path, or a river walk. We choose unanimously the river, to finish more quickly.

Once again, we hear the sirens of an american patrol in the distance. With a voice, an “agent,” we said, in English, that he knows we are here. Exhausted, physically, of the people in our group relate to the authorities, who cuff her and question them for long minutes, and finally the board, in order to bring in “mexican territory”.

Francisco Escamilla

Once the patrol in the distance, our ferryman hooded gives us a piece of fabric for us to cover our eyes, before we make it up in the trunk of two pick-ups waiting for us. In my vehicle, all clinging to the arm of the other to find the balance. We let ourselves carry, helpless. “Since the beginning, I feel like if I don valais nothing…”, said a participant, laughing nervously. Awareness is its effect.

Lights in memory of the lives lost

Once arrived in front of the river, we were told to remove our banner for the crossing. It is the total silence. All of them look in awe, the mountain behind the river. Nearly a hundred of fires invading, illuminating a bright red in the darkness of the night, in memory of the lives lost to the mexico / u.s. border. The show is impressive, poetic, surreal, and people started spontaneously to applaud. We understand that this is the end of the course and that we will not have to cross the river.

Francisco Escamilla

“We are Mexicans, we are Latin-Americans, we are strong!, we shout the coyote. If you know of families who dream of going to the United States by crossing on foot in search of a better life, you now know the experience of migrants and can talk about it. If we want to improve our conditions, we can do it here, in our own country.” It is a little of what has made the community of El Alberto in the past decade with its park. This facility has become a means of retention of the population and enhances the local economy.

The coyote was right: we have lived, that night, that a very small percentage of a crossing real. I have never felt the fear of being stolen, abused or even killed by members of drug cartels. I haven’t felt the sadness of leaving everything behind or even the anguish caused by the possibility of finding a future on the other side.

Francisco Escamilla