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Juarez, Mexico, is a place that stays in your mind long after you’ve left it. This week I wandered that city’s dusty streets carrying a hidden camera for Lisa Myers' investigative report on fraudulent documents. The goal was to capture people on tape who rent and sell American documents that allow people to cross the border without being caught.
El Paso means "the crossing" in Spanish and crossing to the U.S. is an obsession in Juarez. I would say hello in Spanish and shortly after people would offer to help me get to Texas. Several men tried to rent or sell me passports and visas, all American, they said, all authentic, all documents that could help me cross the "El Paso del Norte" bridge just steps away, or any of the four bridges which join Juarez and El Paso. My concealed camera rolled on the document dealers, some holding bundles of dollars, fresh from their latest visa deal. A few hundred can get you almost anything in Juarez -- an American passport, a social security card, even a birth certificate. For $1,200, one man offered to sell me the passport of someone who resembled me, complete with a Social Security card and work permit to match my new identity. Another man would give me the same three documents for just $900, but I would have to return the passport to his partner once I made it to the U.S, so he could bring it back to Mexico and “rent it” to someone else to cross, he explained.
The offers take place in open spaces, on the main avenue leading to the bridge, Avenida Juarez. All along the street, local police officers walk by, apparently patrolling. In my two days there I did not watch them arrest anyone, but vendors told me that occasionally they do.
Traffic seems to roll mostly in one direction through the streets of Juarez, towards El Paso. At all hours of the day and night cars are backed up on the bridge, some 9,200 cars per day according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency. It takes two or more hours to cross the 982-feet-long bridge.
As I lined up for my final car crossing, so did thousands who make that commute every workday. Some start at 5 a.m. to make sure they get to work by 8. The heat reached 100 degrees every day I was there, and in a place where you’re lucky if you can afford a fan, you couldn’t help but stare in awe at the El Paso skyline and imagine being in those air conditioned offices, just a few feet ahead. I was leaving behind the hungry-looking children playing musical instruments on the streets for tips, the old men begging to clean my car in exchange for cents, the young women selling sexual favors to the first Texan who drives by them, the homeless people living by the Rio Grande River.
Maybe I should have felt relief, but I felt guilty. Guilty that I could cross to the U.S. without any obstacles, that I had an American passport. I wondered if I would be willing to sit in that horrific traffic every day to go clean toilets or bedpans or garbage cans in El Paso. Did I do anything to deserve that American passport? No, I just got lucky. Leaving Juarez, I felt guilty that I happened to be born on the other side of that bridge.
Medal of Honor: Duane E. Dewey
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While you're feeling lucky remember that a band of people decided 200 years ago there was a better way to rule a country. It included a bill of rights for every citizen and establishing a constitution with the rule and practice of law. Although corruption exists in america the system is what has served us above President's consumed with power and theives who wish to take things from people who are better off than they are. In addition, they decided to learn english and go to school. Because working smarter instead of just harder benefits every individual. Those people went on to invent things like light bulbs, automobiles, computers and more. By the way...they also decided to go to war to defeat others who tried to act like the King George they left behind....including Adolph Hitler, the Russians, the North Koreans and terrorists who attack this ocuntry. The last time I checked...the defintiion of luck was where opportunity and preparation meet. Perhaps people could learn a skill that others want and then emigate to America legally? Then again, why not emulate the gang lords, police and people around you in Mexico...just look the other way when you break into America...because it's not like you're hurting anyone else...right?
Andy - Atlanta (Sent Jun 24, 2007 7:43:20 PM)
Yes, our citizenship and ethnic background are no more than an accident of our birth, but to feel guilty is just plain ridiculous. What you should feel is anger; our government needs to take a harder stance on immigrants and do more to help them within their own country, even if that means putting extreme pressure on their officials. It would be nice to open the floodgates and allow all the impoverished a shelter, but let's be realistic. With the amount of needy people outside the US (and there are plenty within) we simply don't have the space or the resources to help everyone; we certainly don't have the finances as our own deficit continues to grow.
Our borders need to close, but our arms need to reach out; we are a great nation that is technologically advanced and through our government officials should be able to make enough difference that people would choose to remain and thrive in their own country.
Ed Kruzel, El Paso, TX. (Sent Jun 23, 2007 12:45:33 PM)
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