Our border is safe from ´Terrorists

So I got a call late last night from Moises. He had spent the weekend on Orcas Island with his boss and cousin/coworker Juan, working on a house. All went well, until Moises and Juan came back to Anacortes on the ferry. Everyone getting off the ferry was stopped, and you guessed it, it was Border Control. Juan was taken into custody. We don´t know how long he will be there, or where he is at, or where they will take him. Moises is beside himself. He wishes he had thought about it, and had Juan hide in the back of the truck. His boss will probably get fined too -although he didnt know that Juan is illegal. Moises is also worried about his residence being in trouble since he has helped Juan. Hopefully, Juan will not say where he has been living, and he will be okay.

Juan or Juanillo as they call him, is a really nice kid. He is 22 and they oldest of 8 or 10 children. He has been working with Moises for almost 2 years now. Making 10 dollars an hour, he has been able to support his entire family, plus save for himself and his future. He paid taxes, medicare, and social security on each check. When he gets back home, he will probably find a job working about 60 hours a week and making around 120 dollars. It is enought to scrape by on here. The food prices have gone up dramatically here too, and other necesities cost about the same as at home.

This isn´t a political rant of mine. It is just basic facts.I know that Juan broke the ´law´by crossing the imaginary border that we put on our countries. That is how it works. I wrote a really good research paper winter quarter, which I thought was as unbiased as I could possibly be, looking at all the options and the positives and negatives of the immigration issue.

I have been a little preoccupied lately with poverty here. I know they are lucky here, it could be like Africa where people are starving and living with an AIDS pandemic, but I haven´t been there and actually seen it. It would probably be too hard for me. Everyone here is doing well and happy. It is just hard sometimes to see how hard people work, and what they have to show for it. I have 4 sister in laws here. Delia, Leticia, Martha, and Maricela. None of their husbands have ever left to go to the US. A lot of the time though, in order to make better pay (200 or so a week) they will leave for work in other parts of Mexico. They go for months at a time, but it is nice for the families to have some extra money. Right now, all are working near home, so things are tight. Leticia´s family eats black bean soup almost every day for lunch and dinner. They come over often to eat with us, since right now my mother in law is getting 400 dollars a month to live on from her other two sons, Aaron and Antonio. I buy bread or fruits and vegetables and always have it available to the kids when they come over. If I go to visit, I make sure that I bring something extra along with me. It is interesting for me to be ´rich´here, because at home, I scrape by on 400 dollars a month plus 300 in food stamps.