NO BORDERS CAMP - Interview with a Cop
author: by Kim Sky
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As the Border Camp was being set up, when the various police forces and border patrol were situated along the canal, along the border-gate, and spread out all over the place; the borders to the no-borders-camp were established with tamarisk-branches, bicycles and water-cans - both groups were busy setting up: the protestors setting up tents, cooking facilities, etc.; the Border-Patrol installing Stadium Lights, in total five. All was calm on all fronts, evening falling -- I had a conversation with a Cop. We were standing on the road bordering the camp in front of the guardrail, the border between the police and the Border Patrol, observing the activities.
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ME: Evening.
COP: What do you think these people are doing?
ME: Looks like they're going to have a party?
COP: What?
ME: You know, feel the solidarity of being together along the fence -- as if there were no border. [Music could be heard from the Mexican side, protestors had climbed ladders they'd brought to lean against the fence, hanging out with the Mexicans. No police in Mexico at all! Kitchens, a DJ, tents etc. were up, or coming up.]
COP: Makes a face - okay . . .
ME: These kids are idealistic. They're very excited about doing something to create a better world. I came along to help anyone out with a ride. I thought it'd be a good idea to have a car for the long march they went on, some five miles in 90 degrees heat -- it's hot, it's the desert! Right now I'm waiting for some people.
I'd kind of run into a wall in my ability to understand what living near the border was like, no one I'd talked with was able to give me an example, the closest I'd gotten was, "my girlfriend has an apartment near the border", STOP, "no I can't tell you anything." -- " We're used to it." I explained my problem to the Cop and he turned out to be a good storyteller.
ME: I've been running around Calexico interviewing anyone in the streets and one of the things that has me confused is that every single person I talk to tells me, "We're used to it, it happens all the time - the border patrol/ police chases going through everyone's yards". Okay, this sounds alarming. After my first couple of interviews, I've asked everyone that I talk tell me a story, is there a way that you can explain what this is like for people that do not live here?
COP: Okay, for example, there was a gang of some ten to fifteen homeless kids living in Mexicali, every few days, they would hop the fence, [well guarded thirty-foot high metal-fence], come over here and break into peoples cars, break all the shop windows [calexico, has an old fashioned, Orson Wells "Touch of Evil" type town just next to the border crossing that caters to Mexicans only. Some 70,000 Mexicans walk and drive across the border a day to buy clothes, food and electronic goods, many of them buy things to re-sell on the Mexican side. Many of these things are grown or manufactured on the Mexican side of the border, and some of these goods are in fact made in Mexicali.] These kids were reeking havoc. One day, we were chasing a couple of these kids back toward Mexico over five blocks. We were in hot pursuit through a residential neighborhood. One policeman ran into a close-line and fell flat on his back, it was especially difficult because he weighed some 250 pounds. I almost caught this one kid when he ran straight up to the fence [a thirty foot, metal and metal-screen fence, not much to grab on to] the boy just hit the fence and in two quick leaps he was up and over.
COP: Another time I remember that we were chasing somebody, we drove into a neighborhood and noticed a man with a weed-whacker pointing with his eyes to a man near him. We were confused, the man keep making these funny expressions, pointing with his eyes again and again, when we finally realized that the fellow next to him was pushing a lawnmower that was not running.
COP: So the way it works is that if we are in pursuit and we see someone opening a door to someone's house, we legally have the right to follow them in. And what the people usually do when we open the door is they just point them out, and we take them away. We cannot just randomly open someone's door.
ME: Everyone is fine with this?
COP: There are a few people in town where don't allow us in.
To give a description of where the no-borders-camp is located. The area is some four miles east of Calexico, a road runs some thirty feet from the border fence, this no-man's land is nicely groomed, just dirt, the border-patrol drag the dirt to keep it clean, some say this is done so they can see foot prints. This area is flat, and on the other side of the road empty fields for farming. Somewhere along this fence, it's construction changes, where the height of the fence drops down to twenty feet. Four miles out, the fence makes a curve toward the canal and ends into a farmer's type gate that sits between the fence and the canal. The road makes a sharp curve away from the border, continues over a small bridge over the canal, wraps back around to the east, and then runs north. There are a bunch of electric lines, telephone poles, some kind of zapper-pole [I don't know what it does exactly, and fields for as far as the eye can see], and a kind of large corner of land between the road and border fence. It is at this point that the canal creates the border between the U.S. and Mexico. The city of Mexicali is just there -- the Mexicans in this region enjoy the benefits of living next to the cleanest water source in all of Mexicali. They wash their clothes, fish, swim and bath there.
ME: And so what's happening here.
COP: This camp is located right in the middle of the smuggling lane. This is the is where most of the smuggling takes place. There are so many people crossing here that we cannot possibly arrest them all.
ME: And by smuggling you mean?
COP: Drug smuggling and people smuggling. Whenever there is a large border-patrol presence here the smugglers usually start throwing rocks over the wall. So this is going to be disrupting their business and we're worried that they may come here and try to do something. We're afraid that they'll start throwing rocks at the people here. We just want to make sure that everyone here is safe.
ME: The people smuggling?
COP: Either people jump the fence just when a car is driving by to pick them up. If they get caught, and we're chasing them down this road at high speeds, they drive straight into the land where the camp is, jump out of their car and run back to the Mexican side to escape arrest. Or, they'll swim across the canal.
ME: Looks like it's difficult to get out of the canal?
COP: They will have people waiting on the other side to pick them up -- lot's of people drown here. The canal is about twelve feet deep.
Other things I've discovered: According to a piece of literature [No Borders Camp Site Seeing Guide  http://deletetheborder.org/files/NoBC_site_seeing.pdf] the demographics for the town of Calexico are 95% Mexican - I mentioned this in an interview with a representative of a local humanitarian organization and he said, oh no, that's not true, Calexico is 99% Mexican, not only that, even though most the people here speak both English and Spanish, their language of choice is Spanish. In El Centro the language of choice is English [some 80% Mexican].
As far as Rights go - a Border Patrol leader mentioned to me that the protestors have every right to be there. Interesting? When all the campgrounds in the U.S. become more expensive than a hotel. At least we know where we can find a nice free campsite, eh?
It seems that all the police here are of Mexican/Latin decent, and they seem to embrace a very Latin perspective toward their job. Plus the fact that living and working in this region brings with it a feeling that they've seen it all. Thus far they seem perplexed by this protest event, but, as long as no one is doing anything crazy, they're willing to live with it. No one is staying here forever, folk will be retuning home soon enough.
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