Dispatches From the Border, Part 1

[0] 1 .3 miles, and then we're going to test two -wheel drive X -trail.

[1] Asim, when we took off last week for this trip, what was your thinking around it?

[2] I'm going to get stuck in the sand, Mayor.

[3] So, last week, amid the government shut down, this crisis being discussed along the border, the idea of $5 billion to build a wall, I just wanted to get to the border and see it.

[4] I thought, what if we just drive the entire border?

[5] from one side to the other in search of just what we find.

[6] Almost treat it like a character, trying to understand its nature.

[7] Okay, right now we are on the eastern edge of Texas.

[8] Boca Chica Beach, it is where Texas comes to an end, and if you drive south along the beach, you'll get to where the Rio Grande feeds into the Gulf of Mexico, which is the end of the border.

[9] And to do that, you have to pick one.

[10] an end to start on and we essentially decided to start on the easternmost edge at Boca Chica State Park.

[11] A couple of fishermen.

[12] This is where, is this where the Rio Grande dumps in?

[13] As we were driving, we were looking for some kind of designation that we'd reach the border, that we'd reach the end of the United States.

[14] Oh, this is the border, this is the river.

[15] Where there?

[16] I think...

[17] Because if you look here...

[18] But there's kind of nothing marking it.

[19] Generally, yeah, this is where the Rio Grande feeds in.

[20] Yeah, this is it.

[21] It's actually stunning.

[22] It's open, sand, relatively barren.

[23] But the strangest thing is there's no beginning of the border.

[24] There's no checkpoint.

[25] So basically to cross, you just have to forward the Rio Grande, which is, you know, like 40 feet across maybe.

[26] Sort of surreal that with all this talk about border security, the very beginning of the border is nothing more than, you know, glorified stream.

[27] So we stuff my audio equipment.

[28] in a dry bag, and we weighed out.

[29] I put one foot into the water, and I basically step in, sort of expecting there to be a sandy floor right under me, and it was a lot deeper than I thought it was going to be, and I sort of just plunged all the way in, suddenly start getting sucked down the river.

[30] Immediately you feel the pull of the current, and it starts to drag you quickly out towards the ocean.

[31] So I started swimming as fast as I could, and then after maybe 30 seconds, I wound up on the other side.

[32] Okay, we are officially on the Mexico side of the border.

[33] We wound up getting a little bit swept out because it was deeper than we thought at first.

[34] And now we're walking around in Mexico.

[35] So technically, was this an illegal border crossing?

[36] Yeah, I think so.

[37] I mean, I don't know.

[38] I didn't.

[39] So, yeah, I assume I crossed the league.

[40] legally.

[41] It's a few different fishermen hanging out.

[42] So on the other side, kind of walked around, sort of surveyed the area.

[43] And I noticed this super sketchy looking van.

[44] It was one of those old vans your friend's mom had in high school with like the curtains on the windows and like big plush velvet seats.

[45] But this thing was like super rusted out and corroded.

[46] And I thought, that's way too obvious.

[47] There's no way that that's like some narco or smugglers fan sitting here.

[48] It's just like Central Castings idea of what a smuggler would be driving.

[49] But it pulled up, and even before anybody got out, I looked at the driver, and I could just tell.

[50] And another guy jumped out of the car, and he asked us, Who crossed you?

[51] What do you think he meant when he said, who crossed you?

[52] I think he meant to ask, like, on whose permission are you crossing?

[53] Why are you here?

[54] This was an area he clearly felt belonged to him and the people he was with.

[55] and us crossing into it was crossing into their space potentially conflicting with their interests.

[56] And he wanted to know on whose authority had we done that?

[57] Were we associated with somebody?

[58] Did we have permission?

[59] And otherwise, just to let us know, like, no, you can't be here.

[60] And then we swam back across.

[61] It was time to go.

[62] Yeah, it was time to go.

[63] It was interesting.

[64] All this time, we're looking for some sign of the border, some presence that is going to be monitoring, during us and it turned out there was.

[65] It just wasn't who he thought it was going to be.

[66] And I'm still not exactly sure who they are.

[67] What I do know is they were not the Mexican authorities.

[68] They were not the U .S. authorities.

[69] But they definitely felt like authorities.

[70] I'm just going to get in WIC because we don't know.

[71] These guys, I mean, I'm sure we'll have people on this side, you know.

[72] I won't continue to kind of scope aside.

[73] Okay, let's get out here.

[74] Those guys got super scared.

[75] So, yeah, thus begins a trip from one end of the border to the other, the east end to the west end.

[76] We're starting in Brownsville slash Matamonos, and we're going to end in San Diego slash Tijuana, hopefully within the next week and a half.

[77] Let's do it.

[78] Yeah, yeah, let's do it.

[79] From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro.

[80] This is The Daily.

[81] Today.

[82] As the shutdown continues over the president's border wall, the Daily's.

[83] Annie Brown, joined reporter Osam Abed and photojournalist Meredith Kohut on their endeavor to drive the entire length of the southern border.

[84] Part one of that journey.

[85] It's Monday, January 14.

[86] So where we head?

[87] And right now we are driving for Brownsville, Texas, into Matamoros Tamolipas, which is in Mexico.

[88] Much longer line going the other way.

[89] So due to some of the president's policies.

[90] A lot of asylum seekers who would normally have crossed over and asked for asylum in the U .S. are being made to wait on the Mexican side.

[91] This has become one of the prongs of the crisis.

[92] One of the things that some people argue is the real crisis.

[93] So we wanted to go to the Mexican side to see the reality of these policies when you tighten them on the ground in Mexico with the people who were actually affected by the most.

[94] Okay, this does not look like the migrant shelter.

[95] Maybe you could describe what's going on here.

[96] So I think, periodically, especially as new migrants come in, they hire a group of people to come in and basically cut hair.

[97] So now you've got a crew of migrants lining up to get haircuts.

[98] From three ladies, they're actually doing a pretty good job.

[99] They're all getting the same haircut.

[100] They're all getting like a high and tight fade.

[101] It doesn't look at.

[102] What do you want to say?

[103] So we sit down and start chatting with a few of these guys.

[104] And I asked them, you know, so where are you guys from?

[105] Assuming they're going to tell me their country of origin.

[106] Almost all of them actually, like, oh, you know, North Carolina.

[107] Atlanta?

[108] And it turned out these guys had been in North Carolina more than half of their lives.

[109] My wife, my two daughters, and one of the guys I focused in on had a wife and children in North Carolina.

[110] He'd been working there for 15 years as an electrician.

[111] Electrician.

[112] I asked him, you know, what charges?

[113] I asked him, you know, what, how did they catch you, essentially?

[114] I'm not a driver license.

[115] That's the only charge you have.

[116] You don't have any other criminal record?

[117] It's almost always for driving without a proper license.

[118] Most of these guys were deported yesterday.

[119] Maybe go back soon to the USA.

[120] He said immigration, he said, maybe I got to get a lawyer, and the lawyer, he could take my charges off.

[121] And most of them talked about maybe hiring a lawyer or something else, and I kind of just asked the guy, well, what if that doesn't work?

[122] What if there is no way to get across legally?

[123] What are you going to do?

[124] And he looked at me and sort of offered this wry smile and said, well, we're Mexicans.

[125] We've been crossing legally forever.

[126] I'll just cross however I can.

[127] So we thank those guys.

[128] I don't know.

[129] And excused ourselves from the table and began looking around for people who were heading in the other direction.

[130] People who weren't purported, but we're rather looking to migrate into the United States.

[131] I'll start interviewing this guy.

[132] And I saw a young man, sort of a bookish -looking guy with square glasses and a round face, who had a baby on his lap.

[133] And I thought, well, that's potentially an interesting story.

[134] Where did you get on?

[135] I went over and asked him who he was and where he was.

[136] from, and he told me his name was Erd.

[137] He was from El Salvador, and that actually wasn't his child.

[138] He told me it was the child of one of the families that lived there.

[139] He just really got along with the kid.

[140] They'd spent a few days together now, and he basically was taking care of him while his parents were busy with other things.

[141] So I asked him why he was applying for asylum, and he said that he was being chased out of the country by the gangs.

[142] And I asked him how old he was.

[143] He said he was 23, and, you know, Salvador has a massive gang problem.

[144] And forced conscription happens.

[145] But it usually doesn't happen when you're 23.

[146] That's a bit old, that process.

[147] If the gangs are coming out to you, it's in your teens, it's much earlier.

[148] He's like, yeah, but they're still after me. And there was something strange there, so I asked him again, I was like, but...

[149] It's a little bit more young.

[150] Why did they leave you alone for all those years?

[151] And then suddenly, at age 23, decide to come after you and...