The New York Times: Run! Hide! The Illegal Border Crossing Experience

Get this, in last weekend’s Travel section of the New York Times, Patrick O’Gilfoil Healy wrote this “Heads Up” travel tip: Run! Hide! The Illegal Border Crossing Experience.

I’m pretty sure that Patrick Healy is not from Mexico or Hispanic, but we can’t be sure he is an illegal alien. Here’s what he says:

CLAD in black clothes and moonlight, our guide Poncho adjusted his ski mask and faced us to speak. The desert has claimed many lives, he said, but tonight we would make it across the border. The night was crisp and clear in the central Mexican highlands, the moon illuminating mesquite trees, cactus and pastures. Our group of 13 was about to set out on one of Mexico’s more bizarre tourist attractions: a make-believe trip illegally crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico into the United States.

The four-hour caminata nocturna — nighttime hike — traverses desert, hills, brambles and riverbeds in the Parque EcoAlberto, an eco-park communally owned by the Hñahñu Indians who live on some 3,000 acres of land in the state of Hidalgo, about three hours northwest of Mexico City (and roughly 700 miles from the border).Organizers say they opened the park about two and a half years ago, with financing from the Mexican government, and began the caminata as a way to offer tourists a taste of life as an illegal immigrant.

Notice how the left makes Illegal Aliens into “immigrants”. Hog wash — they are illegals and law breakers !

“Being an immigrant isn’t a source of pride,” said Poncho, whose real name is Alfonso Martinez. “We abandon the family, the language, the earth. We lose our sense of community. The idea here is to raise people’s consciousness about what immigrants [meaning: Illegal Alien Law Breakers] go through.” Park guides say about 3,000 tourists — mostly Mexican — have hiked the caminata since it began in July 2004. Guides say the mock border-crossing is the park’s main draw.

After unfurling the Mexican flag and singing the national anthem, the guides organized us, telling us to walk in a file, strongest in back, weakest and slowest in front.

“In the night, everyone is equal,” Poncho said. “Here, everyone wins, not just the fastest or smartest. If we make it, we all make it; if they catch one, they catch us all.”

They advised us to be brave, to remember our ancestors and to hit the ground if we heard gunshots.

We’d been walking down a gravel road for 10 minutes when people started shouting and tearing off into the dark. “Vamos rápido!” they shouted. “Vamos corriendo! Hasta el puente! Apúrense!” (“Let’s get moving! To the bridge! Get going!”) Behind us, headlights and the police drew nearer.

“Run!” Mr. Santiago shouted, frantically directing us toward a concrete bridge at the bottom of the sloping road. “Shut off that light, they’re coming. Fast, fast. Damn it, shut off that light!”

Sirens whooped. We scrambled down a hill of loose dirt, tripping and stumbling over rocks and gouges in the ground. We ended up in a mire along the Tula River, ankle-deep in mud and water.

Poncho shooed us into a thicket of bush. We’d nearly been discovered by the Border Patrol. We hid as men with flashlights roamed the field in front of us, taunting us in Spanish and accented English.

“Come here, guys,” they said. “Ya sé que están escondidos. We know you’re hiding. We’re going to send you back to Mexico.”

“Escuchen!” said another, telling us to listen up. “No van a cruzar el rio. You’re not going to get across the river.”

Suddenly, someone from our group darted from the bushes and past the guards. “Stop! Stop!” yelled the guards, and fired a half-dozen shots (blanks, of course). “Where you running, huh?”

When the smell of gunfire dissipated, we sneaked away, crossing cornfields, passing drowsy mules and slipping under barbed-wire fences. Brown moths darted in and out of the flashlight beams, and the guides philosophized about the significance of the hike, the empathy it aims to teach.

The significance is that our borders are wide open and the left wants as many illegals from Mexico to have a free ride. The government and the newly elected Democrats feel the same — prosecuting and jailing our Border Patrol for defending our border from illegal aliens and drug smugglers!

More on Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos later.

Posted: 1347PST 02/08/07
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