February is the busy month on the US/Mexico border. The holidays are over, the weather is cool, days are longer, outside work will begin soon in much of the US. The number of people crossing or attempting to cross the border is at a peak.
La linea, la frontera, whatever you want to call it, the line, is a place of danger and opportunity. Prices for crossing have doubled and doubled again, they now begin at over $3,000 for a guided walk in the desert as above, and go up from there. A ride in a car through a checkpoint with a legal ID from someone else might well run twice that.
What prompted this post was a chart the front page this morning's roundup. Americans support requiring employers to verify that new hires are in the US legally by a 85/13 split. That's pretty heavy support even for a Gallup poll. We, (we Americans that is) also support a legal path to eventual citizenship for those who are here by similarly lopsided margins 72/25.
One thing for sure, the people streaming across are coming for work. With a required employment eligibility requirement illegal cross border traffic might slow considerably and many fewer people would be endangered by bandits and the desert. I'd hope that successful or not they all have a safe journey. It's not an easy crossing.