We transferred to the bus that went to Houston in Harlingen, Texas. It was very crowded. In Harlingen began the first of a series of searches by the Department of Homeland Security Border Patrol. At this point I realized that apart from us there was only one other man —— a very large, very pale, strange looking man, wearing an undersized tee-shirt and a pair of very short, purple nylon shorts —— who did not look Mexican. The Border Patrol insisted that everyone (and by everyone, they invariably meant everyone who looked Mexican though by law they cannot say this) must present their papers. All of the people on the bus rapidly produced their documentation. For some it was very extensive, filled with fingerprints, photographs and pages of personal data and writing. The armed officers in their beige fatigues walked up and down the aisle asking to everyone:
“Are you a US citizen?” With some they would intently study their passports or visas or other documents; with us it seemed merely perfunctory. I was uncertain of the law, uncertain if this sort of behavior was within their rights and jurisdiction, though their presence seemed to signal that they had the law behind them. I didn’t feel like they were inviting me to ask them either. The passengers seemed tense, and for good reason —— if anything seemed out of order to the officers, the person in question would be immediately arrested and taken off to a camp somewhere out in the desert.
DOWNLOAD FRONTIER PDF HERE
