Mexico/USA border: On the way with the border guards from El Paso

Thousands of people try to get across the border from Mexico to the United States every day. Most recently, there were more than two million arrests within a year – most around El Paso in Texas.

Border police officer Orlando Marrero accelerates. And he briefly turns on the blue light. “It’s starting. Someone wants to run away,” says the border policeman. The man to whom this applies runs a little further – and then realizes: there is no escape. Marrero brakes the SUV, jumps out of the car with two colleagues and calls out in Spanish: “On the ground. On the ground.”

The border police checked the man to see if he was carrying a weapon. They explain to him that he has to put his cell phone, wallet and everything else he has with him in a clear plastic bag, including his belt and shoelaces – for security reasons. Even with shoelaces, migrants are said to have tried to attack border officials or do something to themselves.

“I want to work – so I can live”

But this man, in his late 30s, is very peaceful: “I’m from Oaxaca, Mexico. My name is Epifanio. I traveled from Oaxaca for three days, mainly by bus, then crossed the border on foot. It’s the second time that I try – and that they catch me.”

So once the border police deported him back to Mexico. And what is his goal? “I want to work,” explains the man. “Anywhere in the USA, no matter in which state. So that I can live. And so that my family can live. We are poor in Oaxaca, it’s difficult there. But it’s not easy here either.”

It’s a perfectly normal morning on the US-Mexico border, a few miles west of the city of El Paso, Texas. The border fence made of rust-brown, solid metal bars is up to nine meters high here.

Police officer: “Each case is evaluated individually”

As we continue our journey through the desert-like landscape, Marrero has this to say about the Epifanio case: “Each case is assessed individually. We first have to enter its data into our computer system. Only after the comparison do we know: Has it been picked up before, maybe even several times? Has Does he have a criminal background? Is there an application for asylum? Only then can we place him in the correct immigration procedure.”

In the area around El Paso alone, up to two thousand migrants try to cross the border every day. Many have walked months from countries like Venezuela, often paying traffickers the equivalent of several thousand euros.

The US border guards immediately deport most migrants back to Mexico – currently still due to a regulation from the time of the corona pandemic, introduced by former US President Donald Trump and initially retained by Joe Biden. The regulation is due to expire in May, when US President Biden wants to tighten the right to asylum elsewhere. Nevertheless, the Republicans accuse Biden of not acting hard enough and thus causing chaos at the border.

“Of course I have sympathy”

Over the radio, the border police receive information about a possible new group of illegal migrants. The crew of a helicopter claims to have recognized about six suspects at dawn.

The group probably used one of the many gaps in the border fence or scaled the fence with improvised ladders, says border police officer Richard Barragan. Nevertheless, the fence offers a certain protection, he says, also against the brutal human trafficking cartels.

And what does he think of the migrants who pick them up every day? Does he have compassion? “Oh, absolutely! I’m a citizen of this area. I may be a border patrol officer by trade, but of course I have compassion. I could have been born in another country myself and not in the United States. There are a lot of border patrol officers who come with two come to work with packed lunches or three with bottles of water in the back seat because they know they’re going to run into these people. It could be your brother, your sister, your mother, your uncle, or whoever. And that’s the tragic part our work – day in, day out.”

Once again, the helicopter flies over the border guards, who know that tomorrow and the day after they will encounter illegal migrants, and the highly emotional debate about immigration in the United States will continue.