“Berliners, you have proved that no wall can forever contain the mighty power of freedom,” said Bill Clinton at the site of the former Berlin Wall in July 1994. A few months later, his administration built its own wall that separates Nogales, Sonora from Nogales, Arizona. I crossed that border on December 11 and walked for a mile along the U.S. side of the wall - an area that is completely militarized.
I passed a Border Patrol car that was parked at the crest of a hill on International Street, which runs along the border. The pavement ended and turned into a dusty dirt road. A Border Patrol truck was parked on the next hill. “Sir, do you need any assistance?” the agent asked me. “No, I’m just looking for a spot to take some photos of the wall,” I replied.
Another Border Patrol truck came driving down towards me as I was walking up the next hill. The agent asked what I was doing there and if another agent had come by to talk to me. “How much further are you going?” he asked, and I told him just to the top of the hill.
I took some photos up there and began walking back along a smaller road that winds along the hills and drops down to the main road by the wall. I came upon an unmarked truck parked beside the road and a man stepped out and walked towards me. He was dressed in a camouflage uniform and had an automatic rifle slung from his shoulder. “What are you doing here?” he asked, with his hands on the gun. I explained that I was taking photos of the wall and asked if he was with the National Guard. “Yes,” he replied.
I also asked if the road continued down to the main road and he confirmed that it did. He then scanned the hills and said, “Could you find another route out? We can’t have anyone in our sight.” I suggested that if I continued along that road, I would quickly be back on the main road and out of his sight after I got to the crest of the next hill. He didn’t want me going any further and he still had his hands on the rifle, so I turned around and walked back again on that same road.
A Border Patrol truck then drove alongside me and stopped. After the initial questions, we entered into a conversation about the border. Ruben told me that he had worked with the Border Patrol for 24 years.
“Why are so many people crossing?” he asked. “I think NAFTA (North America Free Trade Agreement) has something to do with it,” I responded. “U.S. agricultural corporations used NAFTA to flood Mexico with subsidized feed corn and more than two million Mexican farmers lost their land because they couldn’t compete. Also, the minimum wage on the other side of the wall is $4.70 a day and here it’s $7.25 an hour. A good wage, including production bonuses, in the assembly plants there is just $70 a week.”
Ruben also asked about a long-term solution. “I believe if farmers could stay on their land and workers were paid a decent wage, they wouldn’t feel the need to cross the border,” I said. He then confirmed that he had my name correct and continued driving down the hill alongside the wall.
Photos from the U.S. side of the wall:
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