On the EDge: Whatever became of ‘love thy neighbor’?

April 30, 2018 Utah Channel 3

OPINION — The dog and pony show at the border in Calexico on Monday was really nothing more than another thumb in the eye for the Mexican people.

Vice President Mike Pence, accompanied by some border cops and Homeland Security officials, was there simply to hit the ceremonial nail on the head and try to place another brick in a fantasy wall that will never be built, just as his boss did last month.

Of course, last month the big cheese was so over the top in his enthusiasm for the racist, white power, nationalistic wall that he tweeted some photos with the caption “Great briefing this afternoon on the start of our Southern Border WALL!”

Except when the president tweeted his photos and message, the photos were of a portion of the wall that was started in 2009.

I’ve been through that Calexico border crossing a number of times.

In fact, I went through it again Sunday afternoon.

And if you are that terribly afraid of people of color, you can ease your fears because there is a rather sturdy barrier at that border crossing manned by a cadre of border cops, replete in their officialdom, heavy shades and attitude.

I doubt many of you have experienced a land border crossing in Calexico.

It goes something like this.

You drive through Mexicali and quickly get divvied up into a handful of lanes. Some of those lanes are for frequent fliers, the folks who live close to the border but prefer to live in Mexico because of quality of life issues ranging from affordability to cultural ease. It takes a special pass to use those lanes, but it does cut down your time in line a bit.

There is a lane for people requiring medical attention, who are brought through at a much more accelerated pace.

Then there are the lanes for the rest of us who don’t make the crossing that often.

Depending on the day of the week, the proximity to a major holiday and solunar charts, it could take you anywhere from a few minutes to several hours to cross from Mexico to the United States. The longest it has ever taken my wife and me was 3 ½ hours at San Ysidro. Shortest? An hour at Calexico. Even if you have one of those fancy passes like one of the “regulars” it doesn’t assure quick passage.

You see, that pass doesn’t mean a thing if you fail the border cop’s attitude test.

You never really know what that officer’s threshold for aggravation is on any particular day.

Perhaps he had an argument with his wife the night before.

Perhaps he had been chewed out that morning by his boss and was in a lousy mood.

Or perhaps he was just fed up with inhaling the fumes of idling cars and trucks in a poorly ventilated concrete cage and dealing with people understandably dismayed by their time in line.

I’ve made the border crossing in Calexico and San Ysidro, which is just above Tijuana, several times. I still am not quite sure why some people get detained and put through a secondary inspection and why others go through with a nod and smile. But if you get sent to secondary, it can be a living hell. You could sit there an hour or more just waiting for a border cop to inspect all of your bags and have the dogs sniff your vehicle for dope, weapons or other contraband.

There is, seemingly, neither rhyme nor reason.

I’ve known long-haired hippies who have breezed through with nary a word exchanged.

I’ve known guys with slick business haircuts, expensive vehicles and the frequent crossing pass get pulled into the secondary inspection lane almost every time they make the trip.

Mexican nationals travel those lines, and as long as they have the correct paperwork, they go through the same luck-of-the-draw exercise. I’ve seen them go through in nice cars or driving old beaters, traveling alone or with families, dressed nicely or in workingman’s clothes.

As far as undocumented immigration, it really doesn’t matter, because the thing is, as we are learning from Pew Research Center reports, most of the people in the U.S. illegally have been here a long, long time with 66 percent here 10 years or longer.

Most are employed in the service industry rather than as migrant agricultural workers. The thing is they came with legal visas. Most didn’t sneak over a wall, under a fence or by hiking across a barren desert. Most weren’t smuggled in the trunk of a car or in the back of a truck by an unscrupulous “coyote.”

In fact, the trend today is for them to fly in with a bright and shiny green card, which they use to find work, a home and to settle. That stereotype business? It’s just that. So you can have a 100-foot or 1,000-foot wall and guess what? It won’t make a difference. So how do you combat that?

Over the weekend about 100 Central American migrants encamped on the border in Tijuana, hoping to receive asylum in the United States. They came by foot, bus, train – any means available – seeking peace of mind and freedom from a dangerous lifestyle of murder, dealers and violence.

This isn’t Mexico knocking on our door, this is Central America, where the real danger lies, where life is pretty much an unending, horrifying loop from a Quentin Tarantino flick. These people are sleeping on the sidewalk on the Mexican side of the border, waiting for a chance to talk to a U.S. immigration officer about asylum.

But it is Mexico getting the jab on the chest and thumb in the eye.

It is Mexico that will pay for this pipedream, according to the president, vice president and others who have taken big, fat hits off of that pipe.

I’m telling you right now, that will never happen.

On July 1, Mexico will go to the polls and undoubtedly elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador as its new president. AMLO, as he is known to Mexican voters, has failed in a couple of previous runs for the presidency, but became the runaway favorite in the polls when he struck a position that was as anti-Trump as Trump is anti-Mexico.

AMLO is a source of pride to a Mexican population that has felt abandoned and dishonored by President Enrique Peña Nieto, the leader of a party that has been plagued by scandal and corruption to the point where his approval ratings have hovered between 12 and 20 percent during the past year and has cowered, for the most part, in the shade of Trump’s unhinged diatribes against Mexico.

So there is upheaval in the wind, dissatisfaction at its core and some provocateur throwing barbs and insults across the border will simply fan the flames of discontent.

I seem to recall a moral lesson once about loving thy neighbor.

I wonder whatever became of that.

No bad days!

Ed Kociela is an opinion columnist for St. George News. The opinions stated in this article are his own and may not be representative of St. George News.

Email: edkociela.mx@gmail.com

Twitter: @STGnews, @EdKociela