Innertubes and Immigration

Today we took a break from removing salt cedar (Tamarisk). The team was split and my group drove an hour west to a do tire and innertube removal on refuge land. There were tons of tires scattered on the land. There used to be a tire dump but when the flood came last year it displaced the tires all over the refuge land. We also did innertube removal. I was confused about this at first but quickly caught on. We walked along the banks of the Rio Grande picking up trashed innertubes that had been used to cross the river to come into the US. While we were walking the banks we ran into two border patrol agents. They came to check us out because they said they heard us. We stopped to talk to them for a minute. Asked the procedures. They said that when they catch people on US soil they bring them to the station and document them. Then they either have the UDA (undocumented aliens) voluntarily go back to Mexico (which usually happens if they are compliant and they do not have a record) or they are officially deported which means they can never legally come to the country.

After we passed the BPAs, two of the people in our group stumbled upon two young men coming upon the shore. When they saw our people they got back in the water. One of our guys got the BPAs that had just passed by. The boys who tried to cross made it back to Mexico. They were shirtless and had a black trash bag. There were tons of trash bags along the shore. When they made it back to their side I felt a sense of relief. Good for them. One of them dove in the water to swim. The actual water is no man’s land. People cannot be touched unless they are actually on the banks of the US side. That was really a crazy thing to see. The wildlife tech that we were with said he thinks that about 1000 people cross the river on the refuge land everyday. He thinks a majority make it successfully.