The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border

This part begins with a brief introduction to the work of psychologist Carl Jung, who toward the end of his life after World War II wrote that the psyche of humanity was now separated between good and evil, and that everyone now suspected that the people around them were capable of kindness and horror. Governments, which he referred to as “the mass State” (163), were not interested in fostering goodwill and understanding between citizens, and this would lead us to continue to designate groups as “others,” leading to further war and conflict. Jung’s psychoanalytic theory focused on the dissociations between good and evil selves, as well as the conscious and unconscious mind, to have a better, more complete understanding of the whole person. Dreams could then be used to navigate a person’s unconscious impulses. He explicitly writes that dreaming of creatures like wolves symbolizes “the animal impulses of the unconscious” (165), elaborating to say, “You would like to split it off, you experience it as something alien—but it just becomes all the more dangerous. The urge of what had been split off to unite with you becomes all the stronger” (165).

Cantú’s personal narrative resumes early one morning as he opens the coffee counter at the shop where he works as he pursues his MFA in writing. He befriends a maintenance man from Oaxaca, Mexico, named José, and they spend the early morning hours keeping one another company before customers arrive. Cantú gets to know José as José tells him about his family, and Cantú shares his experiences as a graduate student. Though José knows Cantú served in the Border Patrol for several years, they do not discuss José’s immigration status.

One day José asks why Cantú left the Border Patrol if he made such good money there, and Cantú explains his desire to go back to school to become a writer. When questioned why he wished to become a writer, Cantú answers that he wishes to make sense of everything he has seen, to which José responds that he could write many books because he has seen a lot. Over time they discuss Mexican news and politics, including the capture of Mexican drug cartel kingpin El Chapo in 2014. José asks Cantú if he found drugs at the border, and Cantú says yes, but most of the people he arrested were merely trying to cross the border, a minor crime.

Their friendship grows over the next two years as the men talk to one another each day, often sharing some of the Oaxacan food that José’s wife packs for him. Cantú asks José about his home village back in Oaxaca, which he describes as poor but not overrun by cartels and violence, sharing a photo of his mother’s house that he finds on Google Earth.

Cantú flashes back to the first time he traveled to Mexico with his mother as a little boy. She tells him that she wanted him to know the border, “to see it as a place of power, a place of discovery” (174). Despite being newly separated from Cantú’s father, she was determined to travel as a single woman and found herself feeling at home despite being a tourist as she surrounded herself with mothers during their travels. She felt calm letting her son play among the ruins they visited, and she was happy to see him laughing and feeling safe.

One summer morning José does not arrive to work. The owner of the market, Diane, tells Cantú that José’s mother in Oaxaca is dying and that he is traveling there to visit her. Weeks pass, and José does not return. Cantú asks Diane if she has heard from him, and she says in confidence that José is struggling to cross back in to the United States because he is undocumented. Wracked with guilt, Cantú wishes he could have done something earlier to help and asks if Diane could give him José’s or his family’s contact information. She obliges but tells him that José is currently in the process of trying to cross the border. Cantú recalls the devastation he saw when migrants attempted to illegally cross in the summertime during the brutal heat.

Cantú calls José’s wife Lupe and introduces himself over the phone. She tells him that the Mexican consulate just called to say José was arrested two days ago by Border Patrol. Cantú calls his old coworker Morales in hope of locating José. Morales tells him when and where he can expect to find José. Cantú meets Lupe later that day outside a courthouse, with her three sons and their family pastor. During the court proceedings, 40 men are brought in to see the judge at the same time, many of whom require headphones for translation to understand what is happening. The judge informs the defendants that the maximum penalty for the charge of illegal entry into the country is six months in prison and a $5,000 fine. Cantú looks at the group of defendants, wondering if he encountered any of them during his time in the field. Cantú and Lupe search the crowd for José, eventually finding him as the judge works his way through each defendant, speaking with their court-appointed attorney. When José realizes they are there, his sons begin to cry and he appears to be in anguish. Cantú wonders if he did the right thing bringing José’s family here to see him in shackles.

José is granted a continuance and is given a follow-up hearing a week later. His court-appointed attorney advises that Lupe, who is also undocumented, not to show up at the courthouse for the follow-up hearing, but he says her sons, who are American citizens, can attend. Cantú accompanies José’s sons to the courthouse for the follow-up hearing, and as he watches them play in the halls he realizes how little he understood about the consequences of the paperwork he filled out as an agent and its implications within the legal system. The attorney informs Cantú that he asked for a continuance for José because he wanted him to have a chance to find a better immigration lawyer, which leads Diane to hire Elizabeth Green on behalf of José’s family. The attorney, unaware of Cantú’s previous employment as a Border Patrol agent, says he witnesses the human cost of border policies every day, and that the government officials he sees often dehumanize undocumented immigrants and objectify them. When they realize they both know Morales, the attorney attempts to say something generous about him but ultimately tells Cantú a story of a Border Patrol agent he represented who was framed by his coworkers because he wasn’t OK with brutality and considered too compassionate. At the trial, José pleads guilty to illegal entry.

After the hearing, the attorney tells Cantú that if José had not left the country to see his dying mother, he would have been protected by executive orders issued under President Barack Obama, which allowed provisional status and deferred deportation for the parents of US citizens. A court official exits the courtroom. He says a few kind words to José’s sons and gives them a US Marshall pin. The attorney says this is the first time he’s ever seen the man show compassion. In response, Cantú says more government officials may have generosity than the attorney realizes.

Cantú pivots back to his mother, who tells him that she was ashamed to be Mexican when she was a child. She was raised primarily by a white mother with German and Irish roots, and despite her hometown’s close proximity to Mexico, she felt ashamed to be part Mexican, convinced that the stereotypes of being lazy or messy would be applied to her. When she did something good, she was told that it was her Irish or German side that was “good.” This created an internal struggle between her identities. When she eventually got to know her father, she felt ashamed of him and his working-class life. But as an adult working in the national parks, she realized how identity and culture can be tied in with landscape and geography. During her tenure as a park ranger, she confided in a coworker about her struggles, and he told her that this is common among second-generation immigrants as they form their identities, with one foot in the culture of the past and another in American culture. This eventually influenced the way she raised Cantú. She wanted him to feel pride and strength in his heritage.

At a meeting with Elizabeth Green, Diane, Lupe, and Lupe’s pastor, Cantú acts as a translator for Lupe. Elizabeth informs them that while José’s situation is quite common, it is uncommon to have so many people willing to vouch for an undocumented immigrant. She makes clear that there is no chance he will be granted legal status in the United States. Asked if José might have experience with persecution in Mexico and therefore be eligible for asylum, Lupe answers that he has not experienced any personal threats against him by drug cartel members. Because he was deported in 1996 as well, this does not help his case. Elizabeth clarifies that it is highly unlikely he will be granted asylum, but it could at least prolong his deportation. The other option she lays out is deferred deportation. If they can appeal for long enough, it will buy them some time before José is sent back to Mexico. After they review the options, Elizabeth informs them that immigration decisions don’t happen in court, so they won’t be speaking to a judge. The decision is made behind closed doors, and they may not know José is deported until it has already happened. Like the criminal proceedings, the boys can visit their father in the detention center, but it is not safe for Lupe, given her undocumented status.

Cantú takes José’s son Diego to see José at the detention center. They get to know one another during the hour drive there. When they arrive at the detention center, they are informed that the block where José is being held won’t have visitation for a few more hours, but a riot breaks out and visitation is closed. Cantú and Diego leave without seeing José.

As José’s case moves forward, Cantú continues to assist Lupe as she works with Elizabeth Green, helping her to organize the paperwork she needs to file. Cantú and Lupe run into an old coworker of José’s who tells Lupe that Cantú used to be a Border Patrol agent. Cantú considers what redemption for all the arrests he made as an agent might look like for him.

The second time Cantú takes Diego to see his father, his brother José Junior comes along, and the two boys playfully bicker with one another as Cantú drives. They make their way through the bureaucratic check-in process at the detention center. José Junior admits that he is nervous to see his father in jail. The boys are granted 45 minutes to visit their father, who they speak to using a phone through plexiglass.

Lupe delivers a packet of letters to Cantú that friends, family, former coworkers, and others have written on his behalf to help his case. Cantú brings them to the lawyer, but before he hands them over, he reads the moving and heartfelt testimonies of those who know and love José.

Not long after, Cantú learns that José lost his case and will be deported to Mexico that evening. Elizabeth Green says that was no reason given for why his case was denied. That night Lupe contacts Cantú, panicked because her youngest son now needs emergency surgery. She asks if Cantú could pass along her request to Green and contact José to let him know. Cantú reminds her she can’t contact José while he is being deported but that he’ll likely contact her once he arrives in Mexico.

Cantú calls his mother and despite telling her that he is OK, she says she can tell by the tone of his voice that he is not, that he sounds the same way he did when he worked for the Border Patrol. He tells his mother the news about José, describing the way he feels: “All these years, I told her, it’s like I’ve been circling beneath a giant, my gaze fixed upward, like I’m finally seeing the thing that crushes” (222).

Lupe lets Cantú know that José has arrived safely in Mexico but that he is already trying to find a way to cross the border again. Cantú wants to dissuade José and Lupe from attempting this once again, but he decides to stay out of it. Their sons visit José across the border accompanied by an uncle before he attempts to cross again. Lupe texts with updates about José’s illegal crossing, including news that he escaped from la migra but fell ill after his journey through the desert.

Cantú dreams that he is at work in the coffee shop with Diane and that they see José, gaunt and old, standing outside. When he runs outside to greet him, José says he’s been in the desert and has things he could tell him.

Diane and her family raise money for Lupe and the boys. She asks Cantú to deliver the cash in time for Christmas so Lupe can buy presents for the boys. Lupe tells him that José tried to cross yet again but was caught by Border Patrol and was seeking the help of a coyote to cross. They were afraid of what the coyote might do. This coyote had already called Lupe to ask for another $1,000 to finish José’s trip across the border. Two men collected the money from Lupe and told her they would bring José to her in the morning, but he never came home. When José called her after his latest deportation, he didn’t know anything about the threatening call asking for money. They decide to wait before he will attempt to cross again. Cantú wishes he was brave enough to smuggle José across himself.

On Christmas Eve that year, Cantú tells his mother that even though he left the Border Patrol four years earlier, he feels as though he never left: “It’s like I’m still a part of the thing that crushes” (229). His mother says it is OK if he is in pain, even if that pain isn’t his; she also says he needs to grieve what has happened to his friend. While José’s situation is not unique, his and his family’s life is unique and no longer abstract for Cantú. His mother recounts a time when she killed a wounded squirrel to try and put it out of its misery while serving as a park ranger. She says, “we learn violence by watching others, by seeing it enshrined in institutions. Then, without choosing it, it becomes normal to us, it even becomes part of who we are” (230-31). She tells Cantú that because he’s participated in the institutional violence, it will always be a part of him, but he can learn to live with it and make something good from the experience. Cantú shares his latest nightmare about José, and she reminds him that some cultures believe the soul travels while sleeping; perhaps José has something he wants to tell Cantú.

The narrative switches to José’s perspective and where he’s staying in Mexico before crossing the border. The atmosphere there is tense, and the narcos in town are suspicious of other mafias entering their turf. José says he and Lupe considered moving the boys to Mexico, but he fears the violent environment will derail his boys, who love their school and are doing well in the United States, where there are more opportunities. The Mexican government struggles with the narcos because of a lack of education, and the narcos threaten and destroy so many educational opportunities for Mexican youth. Disillusioned with the Mexican government’s ability to protect its people, José decides against moving his family to be with him. The United States at least has better education, opportunity, and safety.

José mentions that when he and Lupe were married, the pastor told them that their family’s unity needed to be their top priority. While the United States thinks deporting a parent back to Mexico will force the entire family to move back, José points out that any deported parent would just try to find a way to cross back over to be with their loved ones. This turns in to a vicious cycle, where the migrants who desire to be great American citizens are forced to commit a criminal act to be with their families. Despite his struggles, José remains grateful to the United States and what he achieved during his time as an undocumented immigrant, helping his mother buy a house in Oaxaca and giving his sons a better life. He admits it was foolish to cross the border to see his mother, and that each time he attempts to cross the border again it takes something from him; he’s even considering acting as a mule for the drug cartels due to desperation. Despite the dangers of the mafia, la migra, the harsh landscape and conditions, and the possibility of dying, going missing, or facing deportation once again, José must cross the border to see his family. It is essentially a suicide mission, one he is determined to survive.