The Year was 2022

The year was 2022.  The wall was finally finished.  It had been a battle to finish it.  There were critics and opponents.  But the project that needed to get done was finally completed.

It spanned from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico between two countries; Mexico and the United States.  There was 225km separating California from Mexico, ­­­­560km separating Arizona, 300km bordering New Mexico and over 2000km along the Texas border.

The fence was designed to keep people out.  Before the fence there was unmitigated migration.  Those who wanted to leave their country and seek a happier life in a more promising land would make arrangements and leave.  They would cross the desert in the more desolate and remote areas.  Crossing near the border towns had become too risky.  Security was much higher there.  Those who were lucky had contacts, friends or family where they were going.  They had a chance.  Those who were less fortunate tried going it alone with out aid and without help.  It was dangerous but worth the risk.  In the years just before the completion of the fence the government had become less compassionate.  The policy of deportation was abandoned and those caught were executed after a very speedy trial.  The system had abandoned leniency and mercy.  It was under those words that the government became week and lost control of the situation.  It became necessary to take harsh measures to protect and fortify.  The new watch-words were immediacy and  severity.

Before the fence had been completed the influx of people was destroying the country in which they sought refuge.  The economy could not support the jump in population, nor the competition for scarce resources.  There were too many people to be housed in legitimate homes.  Large slum area sprang up.  The food produced was not sufficient to feed all the hungry mouths that cried for it.  Crime had risen and the burden on law enforcement was a taxing burden on the government.  The new arrivals from across the border were not ill-intentioned, but they were not contributing to the system, they were draining it.

It was under all of these circumstances that the fence had finally been built.  It was large and imposing.  There were actually three parallel fences.  The first was a 3 meter chain-linked-barbed-wire fence topped with spirals of razor wire.  It hummed as electricity coursed through it with sufficient power to incapacitate most grown men. 

Those who could get past the first fence—and there were those clever enough to do it—were  faced with the next fence.  The second fence was a rubble pile.  It was composed of boulders, dirt, old concrete fragments, and metal scraps.  It was more of a hill that rose steeply on the north, fell steeply on the south and ran into the indeterminable distance both east and west.  Forty meters past this fence was a stone wall that was a modern desert cousin to the Great Wall of China. It was 8 meters tall and made of granite. The top of the wall was a road along which armored vehicles could drive.  Every 40 meters was a sentry with an automatic rifle.  Their charge was to neutralize any attempted breech of the wall.  The interpretation of neutralize always taken to mean a speedy consultation with the trigger finger.

*          *          *

It was night but everything was bright.  They could see the wall from where they crouched behind a low desert shrub.  They had crossed the desert and were tired, weary and running low on hope.  Their plan had never gotten as far as the wall itself.  They had hoped on divine providence when they arrived.  They hoped for a stroke of inspiration when the time came.  They also relied on the rumor that had circulated among those who said they knew what they were talking about.

There was a rumor that there was a flaw in the system.  They had been told that with luck they could beat the system.  Now was the time to see if it would really work.

One shadow crouching in the dark was a man, the other was a woman.  They were married.  Husband and wife.  They were without children.  They had children, but they had been taken.  Now they had no children.

“Well, it's now or never,” said the man as he looked to his wife through the darkness.  All he could make out was an outline of a face and the whites of two eyes.  He reached out and took her hand that had moved up to meet his.  They gave a mutual squeeze of reassurance, though neither was calmed by it.  They were both terrified and were only acting strong for the other.

“Okay,”  she whispered, “I love you.”

“Forever,” he said to her, which was his way of saying he lover her too.  He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead.  “It’s now or never.”

“Never,” said a man’s voice behind them.  He spoke in their language but with a heavy accent.  “I’m sorry…”  There was no pity or compassion in the voice.

Staccato blasts rang out in the dark night.  Rat-a-tatt-tatt.  Pause.  Rat-a-tatt-tatt.  Silence.

A uniformed officer stood over the two bodies that he had just mowed down.  The man and woman were dead.  Or would be in a matter of seconds.

The man felt the bullets enter his body with a detached attitude of observation.  I am going to die, he thought, so close, and not quite there.  He moaned, his last audible sound as a living creature.  He had one last thought before expiring.  So close to Mexico, he thought, and here I am dying on California soil, I can’t even die a free man.

“Perdóname señores,” said the man in the uniform as he lowered his gun.

*          *          *

The year was 2022.  Two dead bodies lay within sight of the wall that separated the United States and Mexico.  Their blood soaked into American soil.  The Mexican agents were not concerned that they were patrolling on American turf.  The trespassing was justified in their eyes.  It was part of the cost of keeping people out.

It wasn’t too long ago that the direction of migration was just the opposite.  But that all changed when the voice of the people was overruled by a vocal minority and by judges who thought they were above the popular vote.