On a hot and sunny Saturday morning, with the rental SUV carrying the TBG, Genetic Envelope and Maternal Unit, we set out from Green Valley (God's waiting room) on a day when temperatures would reach into the 90's. We headed South and West to the hamlet of Arivaca where we left the pavement for the gravel of the Ruby road, which leads to one of the best preserved ghost towns in Arizona, the former mining community of Ruby.
Aside from the caretaker and two Forest Service workers, we had the abandoned mining town to ourselves. We wandered the the buildings and adobe ruins until we could wander no more, including an unsuccessful search for the cemetery past the tailing piles. We retired to the shade of the old school house for lunch and lots of water. When we had our fill, we headed back out to the Ruby road, turning South and East towards I-19 North of Nogales.
The Ruby road is a maintained gravel road that more or less parallels the US-Mexico border, usually staying within 10 miles of less of the line between the two countries. Like most of the small rural roads in this area, it has a heavy Border Patrol presence. Within ten minutes of leaving Ruby, I saw a Border Patrol truck behind us. I pulled over to let him pass and after a cursory look at the occupants of our rental vehicle, he was on his way.
There are lots of check-points around Southern Arizona. When we visit there, we go through them all the time. We slow down, stop. The agent looks into our vehicle and sees that we are all non-Hispanic. Without any request for papers or identification they invariably wave us along with a smile and a "Have a good day, Sir". It all seems very weird and surreal. Ask anyone who lives around these parts and you will find out just what a touchstone the issue of border security is. Opinions vary significantly, but I have yet to meet someone who lives in Southern Arizona that doesn't have one that they hold strongly.
When the dust from the Border Patrol truck had settled, we continued on our way. The road South from Ruby runs through rugged desert mountains, beautiful and dry country with rocky draws and thorny scrub. Montana peak is on one's right hand as the road skirts along the West side of the "Sky Island" of the Atascosa Mountains. Dropping down into one lightly shaded draw, we came across the Border Patrol compound, a group of air-conditioned modular trailers in the middle of nowhere, including holding buildings with bars on the windows. We continued on.
As the road swung into a narrow draw a few kilometers past the Border Patrol camp, two figures emerged from the shade on the side of the road, the young man waving at us. They had a single neatly packed backpack sitting on the ground by the young woman's feet. My first thought was "Water, they need water". My son was in the front seat with me, the TBG and Maternal Unit in the back. I told them to get some water which they fished out of the back. I handed the young man our gallon jug, three-quarters full. This young man's English was much better than my Spanish. He was in his very early twenties at most, polite and well spoken. His companion was a young woman about the same age, very beautiful, with very frightened eyes and a loose bandage tied around one of her knees over her blue jeans. They were both Hispanic. While he and I were beginning to talk, the others rummaged up some food and some money for the travelers.
The young man told me that they were trying to get back to Mexico. It did not matter to me whether they were coming into the US or heading back to Mexico, they were obviously lost and needed help. We were almost twenty miles from I-19 and further to Nogales. The border was some eight miles due South over some very rugged territory, dry and dangerous. Blocking their way East, the shortest route to anything as the crow flies, was the high ridge of the Atascosa Mountains, a brutal climb on a good day, even if one had lots of water and food.
I explained to him, as best I could, where we were and how far they were from anywhere. I warned them that the Border Patrol was less than three kilometers behind us and could be on the road heading this way. At this, the young man asked if we could help them with a ride. He lifted his shirt and turned around, saying "We have nothing, no weapon". I never thought that he did. The young woman was crying, obviously scared, with her hands clasped in front of her saying "por favor, por favor.." As I turned to ask what the others thought, my Mom, who is a resident of Arizona, said there was no way we could give the couple a ride. She said that the Border Patrol would arrest us if we helped these two people.
I hasten to add, my Mom was the first person to hand the young man some money, found the food and did not hesitate to offer the jug of water. She is a good and caring person. There is also a real risk in giving a ride to two strangers met on a lonely road when one is traveling with one's own children and family. I never felt any risk, but one could easily argue, and rightly, that it existed, weighting the decision of what to do.
I explained to the man that we could not give them a ride. I apologized and told him that we could be arrested by the Border Patrol and again warned him that they might be along at anytime. He seemed resigned that we would not help them any further, but he thanked me for the water. The young woman was still crying. We pulled away. Before we rounded the other side of the draw, while they were still in sight, the Border Patrol pulled up and stopped. The young man walked over to the truck. That was the last I saw of them as we went around the bend and they disappeared.
I felt like a coward. At the same time events proved we had probably made the right decision. We would have been loading the folks into a rental SUV as the Border Patrol pulled up. There would have been some serious consequences.
Section 274 felonies under the federal Immigration and Nationality Act, INA 274A(a)(1)(A):
A person (including a group of persons, business, organization, or local government) commits a federal felony when she or he:
* assists an alien s/he should reasonably know is illegally in the U.S. or who lacks employment authorization, by transporting, sheltering, or assisting him or her to obtain employment, orWe continued our outing for the day, safe and secure in our SUV. The young couple were, of course, picked up by the Border Patrol and taken to the compound and then, most likely, to either Nogales or Tucson. Once processed as undocumented immigrants, they were probably put on one of the white buses with slit windows that are regularly seen heading South on I-19 toward Nogales and then across the border to Heroica Nogales on the Mexican side. I do not know for sure. But the young couple did not die in the desert.
* encourages that alien to remain in the U.S. by referring him or her to an employer or by acting as employer or agent for an employer in any way, or
* knowingly assists illegal aliens due to personal convictions.
I will try to relate the aftermath of this day in another blog, maybe tomorrow. I will try to tell you how proud I am of my son and my wife for the deep feelings they shared with me about how this meeting affected them both, how it strengthened their convictions. I will try to tell you why I respect my Mom for how she struggled with a very difficult situation. But now it is late and I am very tired.
As for me, after this day, anytime that the political issue of immigration and border security comes up it will do so accompanied by two very real human faces
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