Crossing the Wire

I have never shared the strong feelings that many have about border control. People are always spun up about all of the "illegal aliens" in our country, but I think this is an arrogant and rude way to approach the subject of immigration. We do need to help our own citizens find jobs, but the jobs that are done by the Mexican immigrants are jobs that most Americans would not do anyway.  These illegal immigrants are not thought of as people who are just trying to make a better living for themselves and their families. It seems that many think they are not people at all. 

I think the book did a great job of showing the problems and hardships that families in Mexico face, and why they come over here in the first place. It was important for us to see the situations that they live in, and why they are willing to make the dangerous journey to the US to work very hard jobs for very little money. It is also important to see that there are children who make this sacrifice for their families and that they are actually performing heroic acts and not just trying to "take jobs away from Americans". 

The struggle of traveling into the US was very hard to read. I could not imagine ever doing anything like Victor did. Just the distances that he walked alone are unbelievable, let alone the fact that he did not have any money or food. Victor's perseverance and the love he had for his family were admirable. I love my family very much, but I could never imagine being in a situation where I had to walk through unbearable conditions without food or water just to make sure that my family would have food to eat. I think it is important for us to be enlightened on the struggles that people go through just to get into the US. This makes it easier to sympathize with them and realize that they would not do this just for the fun journey and to say they have been to the States. If people struggle through those conditions, they have something that they are fighting for and are just doing the best they can.

I could not believe that after all of the hard work the two boys went through to finally make it to the States, Rico ended up leaving. He was able to persevere all the way from Mexico to Arizona, but did not want to stay around long enough to save up on some money before he went home.  I also could not believe how harsh the Mexican police were on their own people. They seemed to really not want to have people from other countries crossing into the US from Mexico. The police were so mean to Victor, and that kind of behavior from officials would have been recorded on someone’s phone and hit the media until something was done about it in the US.