USBP: please spend my money
like you had to work for it

By María Eugenia Guerra

Let me first apologize to the United States Border Patrol and public information officer Mike Herrera III if I hurt their collective feelings with what I am about to write. That is not my intent, but as a taxpayer I take issue with the piece "A Sanctuary of Hope" that appeared in a four-color feelgood magazine Laredo Sector Border Watch.
"Laredo Sector Invites Media to Visit An Immigrant Sanctuary" the cover entices. I am reminded that I was personally invited to this outing that took local and San Antonio media to a cave to which Herrera refers as "this safe haven that has lasted the test of time." I'm not sure how you "last" the test of time, but let's move along here.
Herrera waxes humanitarian on behalf of the agency that is charged with plucking immigrants off the landscape (one pluck, one bean counted, more jet skis and ATVs for agents), noting, "Even though no one knows how long this sanctuary cave has existed, photos of La Virgen de Guadalupe, Jesus Cristo, la Virgen María and other religious Saints and sacred candles occupy the locale as a sign of many prayers asking for safe passage and a better quality of life in a new country."
What are sacred candles? Where do you get them? How does Herrera divine they are sacred? Immigrants who have just swum across the Río Grande and must traverse the fiery Chihuahuan Desert knowing someone may be in close pursuit carry candles with them? Me. I would pack water before I packed candles. The candles in the picture are American candles manufactured by the Root Candle Company. You can buy them at HEB. How did they get into a cave "about a mile from the Río Grande in an area of harsh, rugged terrain where the heat, lack of water and food and solitude have challenged the endurance of its travelers through generations." There's a lack of solitude on the Chihuahuan Desert?
Immigrants swam the river, went to HEB for candles, and returned to the cave? I've no doubt the faded religious cards, scapulars, and photos Herrera describes are part of the site. The candles are a stretch.
According to Herrera, "The immigrants seem to know the trail to the cave, which provides them an opportunity to rest, eat, and pray so that their dreams can become a reality." Subtext: The USBP feels their pain, understands the dreams of the immigrants, so much so that "they prefer to make apprehensions miles away from the location."
Yeah, otherwise that would be unsporting like shooting fish in a barrel or waiting for immigrants in the parking lot outside the HEB in the south part of town.
There are many good, hardworking individuals, men and women, in the service of the United States Border Patrol. I have no issue with you who save lives and treat others compassionately, you who risk your own lives. But you can't do it all.
Your mission and your mandate are too big. You are neither stanching the flow of immigrants nor are you stopping the multi- billion dollar trade of smuggled drugs that pour through this port. The border is a sieve and the War on Drugs is a bust. As long as Americans consume drugs, there will be a demand for them and traffickers only too happy to supply that demand.
The root of those problems, and their solutions, lie in immigration and drug policies decided thousands of miles from the border.
And speaking as a journalist, don't you have to clear published material through some kind of quality-assuring filter? If you are going to spend my money on this kind of printed material could you raise the bar a little?