Mediaboss Marketing

Two Cuban nationals fall to their knees in silent prayer as two more scale the 30-foot-high U.S.-Mexico border fence in San Luis, Ariz. They tell me political and economic nightmares in Cuba have steadily wiped out any hope of a secure and rewarding life there. They dream of relatives, a good job and living happily ever after in Miami and Houston if they can qualify for asylum in America.

That was late last month. What happened next was something Ive rarely seen in more than 40 years of photojournalism along the border.

Over the past eight presidential administrations, what much of my photography revealed was that once an undocumented immigrant leaped onto U.S. soil, he or she sprinted full speed in pursuit of what they hoped would be a better life. In 1979, when I began my long-range, newspaper documentary about causes and consequences of undocumented immigration, I saw out-of-control anarchy along the border between the Tijuana River Estuary and Otay Mountain. Year after year, millions of people successfully made their way to el otro lado the other side and ran head over heels away from the U.S. Border Patrol. Now 42 years later, I find the never-ending story of migration for survival is essentially unchanged save for one significant difference.

Unauthorized immigrants are now running head over heels toward the Border Patrol in a most unlikely pattern of controlled anarchy.

A group of Brazilian nationals walk quickly along the U.S-Mexico border fence south of Yuma. The fence here is inside the U.S. but theyre headed for gate just ahead where they will wait for the U.S. Border Patrol and ask for asylum.

(Don Bartletti)

U.S. Border Patrol apprehension statistics show that from the 1970s to the 1990s, the San Diego sector was the portal through which more people illegally passed than across any political boundary in the world. In the ensuing decades, the San Diego-Tijuana boundary has morphed into the least likely sector to be breached along the 1,500-mile frontier with Mexico. Consequently, thousands of Central American migrants who arrived in the infamous caravans in 2018, and later in smaller groups, are camping against the Tijuana side of the fence and in shelters and rooming houses in anticipation of asylum hearings.

Now a new route has opened up. Hundreds of people a day are getting off the bus at the Mexico border town of San Luis Rio Colorado, 20 miles south of Yuma, Ariz., where unauthorized access to the United States is a slam dunk; its so easy it makes a mockery of former President Donald Trumps new 30-foot-high border fence.

The number of apprehensions has risen so quickly in recent months that Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey declared a formal state of emergency on April 20. He wanted up to 250 National Guard members to help support other law enforcement agencies at the border. I didnt see any soldiers or Humvees, but there were Yuma County sheriffs deputies assisting women and children into the paddy wagon.

On this ragged corner of Arizona, I contend its unlikely that any electronic fence, steel fence or phalanx of law enforcement officials will halt a migration thats as old as humanity and as unstoppable as the wind. This isnt my moral or political rant. Its brutal pragmatism.

The shadow of the U.S.-Mexico border fence shines on the Colorado River levee where a group of Cuban and Venezuelan nationals surrender to U.S. Border Patrol agents. All said that political and economic conditions in their home countries forced them to flee and they wanted to apply for asylum in the U.S.

(Don Bartletti)

Casual conversation with Border Patrol officers hinted that their mission in San Luis has gone from stopping unauthorized entry to providing private transportation, shelter and meals for every man, woman and child who breezed into Arizona on the prevailing south wind. One Border Patrol agent quipped, I got into this business for law enforcement. Now Im a babysitter.

The southwest boundary of Arizona is in the middle of the Colorado River, but the new fence sits on the riverbank about a hundred yards or more inside the state. I presume its location is a compromise to an engineering challenge of putting up a fence in a river bottom. The same conundrum exists along the Rio Grande in Texas; however, in Arizona, a migrant doesnt need an expensive smuggler with a boat, as the tail end of the mighty Colorado River is all but bone-dry this time of the year.

Three children from the DeCarvalho family peer through the 30-ft-high U.S.-Mexico border fence. The Brazilian family of 6 walked through an unsecured gap in the U.S. the border at San Luis Rio Colorado, Mexico and trekked 2-miles before surrendering here to the U.S. Border Patrol.

(Don Bartletti)

The fence location created a virtual back door in the sand between Sonora, Mexico, and Arizona. And its wide open, 24/7. There are surveillance towers at regular intervals that give the Border Patrol a clear view of everything that moves, but video evidence of newcomers is little more than an alert to dispatch yet another pickup truck, Sprinter van or bus.

I spent four days in San Luis during April and May of this year. As was the case over my long career with the San Diego Union and Los Angeles Times, I didnt carry an agenda or a political opinion. I came as an observer with my camera as witness. What I focused on this time was unlike anything Id seen over the past decades of documenting the southern frontier of the United States.

I got a tip from a veteran photojournalist friend, Jimmy Dorantes, who was born a few yards from the fence in Calexico, and who has spent as long as I have reporting on the borderland. We stood on the river levee and waited for migrants to arrive. Behind us, a field of verdant alfalfa was abloom with tiny purple flowers. In front of us was 30-foot stalks of rust-colored steel topped with coiled razor wire.

A group of Cuban and Venezuelan nationals walk towards U.S. Border Patrol agents at the border fence in San Luis, Arizona south of Yuma. All surrendered peacefully and voiced that they wanted to apply for asylum in the U.S.

(Don Bartletti)

Without exaggeration, the elevated levee could have been a playhouse stage for the drama that was about to unfold. But this wasnt a performance. No one was pretending. Each person in the international ensemble would follow a life-changing script that no doubt had been rehearsed in their dreams many, many times.

Escape from the slow death from poverty in their failing countries would bring hundreds and hundreds to this place where none of the men, women or children would miss their cue.

Lots of people from South America told me their first flight out of the homeland was to Cancun, Mexico, with a second to Tijuana. Their arrival along the fence line in San Luis was in large part based on the timetables of buses making the 31/2-hour run from Tijuana. I found a used ticket in the dirt with a 9 a.m. departure from Tijuana that would have put the traveler in San Luis Rio Colorado under the broiling midday sun.

It was 94 degrees on Saturday, May 1, when 50 Brazilians, Venezuelans, Cubans and Haitians stepped through that open door and began the last leg of their long journey. The distance between the final two gates was a 2-mile walk on a gray gravel road threaded between the levee and the fence. Adults towed wheeled luggage and children of all ages.

U.S. Border Patrol agent R. Arriola records the data from the passport of one of 50 undocumented immigrants waiting in the shade of the border fence. They all illegally crossed from Mexico and trekked 2 miles along the fenceline that parallels the Colorado River and surrendered. Agent Arriola quipped, I got into this business for law enforcement. Now Im a baby sitter. The Border Patrol has been so overwhelmed with hundreds of undocumented immigrants people a day from throughout Latin American that Yuma County sheriffs and National Guard members are helping out.

(Don Bartletti)

One guy told me a smuggler helped him memorize the route. No te puedes perder. You cant miss it. Others learned it through social media and the continent-wide network of fellow travelers who emboldened them to attempt the journey on their own.

The Border Patrol refers to the end station as the 21st Street Gate. I call it the Zigzag Gate for its interruption in the sweeping fence line along the riverbank. Its a ginormous, hinged double door that spans the width of the levee, a landmark destined for migrant folklore as the Holy Grail or the gateway to Oz. Its the gate to a dream come true or a dreadful nightmare. Ive attended immigration court hearings, and not every plea for asylum had a fairy tale ending. A couple of grown men had watery eyes while scanning the horizon through the steel pickets.

Of the hundreds who huddled against the fence during my recent reporting, I saw only these four athletic Cubanos scale the fortress-sized barrier. However, someone who came before them may have snipped the coil of razor wire on top, tempting them to go off script for a spontaneous, once-in-a-lifetime final leap.

When they landed on the freedom side of the gate, they didnt bolt across the emerald-green field. They waited pensively for the U.S. Border Patrol van to roll up and whisk them toward an uncertain future. COVID-19 face masks absorbed the tears.

Minutes before being arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol, Venezuelan national Francisco Gonzalez, 59, buries his face in his grandsons infant onesie sent by his daughter in Memphis, Tennessee. The garment is printed with the message, I Just Arrived But Im Already the Boss. Gonzalez, his sister and daughter-in-law surrendered at the border fence in San Luis, Arizona south of Yuma. All said that political and economic conditions in Venezuela forced them to flee and they wanted to apply for asylum in the U.S.

(Don Bartletti)

Bartletti was awarded the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for his six-part Los Angeles Times photo essay Enriques Journey The Boy Left Behind. He has been a resident of North San Diego County for 60 years.

Follow this link:
Controlled anarchy on the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona - The San Diego Union-Tribune