Life at the San Ysidro Border

Late the other night I crossed into the U.S. via the San Ysidro Border just south of San Diego. Supposedly it’s the busiest border crossing in the world. Most of those crossing supply Southern California with cheap, productive labor. The wait can easily be an hour or two—and at real bad times, three to four. I’m fortunate to have a fast pass, which propelled me through in just fifteen minutes—or so I thought. Woops, random inspection. So I was sent to “Secondary” for a thorough search.

The U.S. Customs Agent took his sweet time to get me through as he pigeon-pecked his keyboard. As I settled further down into my seat, an old Dodge Caravan drove slowly out in front of me. The passenger door was open with the dangling leg of an officer inside. Hmm, this is strange. I noticed the driver was also wearing the navy blue uniform. The minivan came to an easy, slow stop just to my right. Both officers stepped out—nonchalant. The passenger officer lightly chuckled in a bored disbelief, “Thirteen.” I perked up slightly, eyes glued to the scene. He opened up the back hatch and said, “Get out.” Immediately under nothing more than one layer of jackets, bodies began to sit up and scoot their way toward the back bumper. One after the other until thirteen individuals were sitting on the curb next to the van. No handcuffs, no rush of officers, and no talk. All of the caught individuals sat relatively unphased. For both the immigration officers and illegal crossers, the whole event seemed mundane and unimportant.

I’m not going to step over to either side of the political isle on this—but it is undeniable that many hundreds of people enter into the United States per day without documentation. I talked with a buddy of mine last week who is in the Mexican military. His troop is patrolling an area of heavy drug trafficking in Sonora. They don’t mess with people trafficking. “How could I stop one of my countrymen?”—he said. “But Ben, they cross in continual masses!”—he exclaimed, almost in amazement of his own finding. “Unbelievable…tons of them…every night…right into Arizona.”

This is not a political blog. We write about missions. But at times it gets all mixed up together. Working in Tijuana, one constantly confronts the issues of immigration. The ebb and flow of people between the two countries creates tremendous effects—socially, economically, politically, religiously, and familially.

Every ministry here is affected. Poor, desperate people arrive at the border from the south—receive help from one or more ministry organizations—get put into programs—and then the next thing you know they’re in north Hollywood, Chicago, or wherever else they found a contact for work, making more than I bring in.

I’m sure there are many other places around the world with similar situations, but it seems excessive here—to the point of becoming a norm. No one seems alarmed by the continual hop to the States. If all those who desire a better life through hard work head north, I often wonder what will be left of Mexico. If a Mexican is lazy and honest, they will inevitably become or remain extremely poor. Only the corrupt will become rich. Meanwhile the entire middle-class is somewhere else?

Where lies the ministry? Where’s its focus?

This entry was posted on Friday, November 9th, 2007 at 3:17 pm and is filed under Missionary Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.