Crossing the Desert

It’s late afternoon and I’m on the Amtrak bus headed home to Santa Maria and my wife and children whom I miss something awful. I left Tucson last night, 14 long hours ago, on the train. Last Friday, while in Tucson, I attended a trial during which a Federal Magistrate told Walt that she intends to give him 25 days in prison for littering. Walt will have to miss a month of divinity school, where he is training to become a Christian minister.

Walt was caught putting jugs of water in the desert for Mexicans walking for days, crossing our border illegally. Hundreds of young people, including women and children, die each year of dehydration, walking the desert trying to get to the jobs we offer them here. If you leave water for them in the desert so that they won’t die, you risk going to prison for littering. Three days after the trial, I joined a few people in the desert to put out gallon jugs of water. I didn’t get caught.

I am approaching Santa Maria now and looking out the window of the Amtrak bus I see the sprawling fields and the folks working there. They didn’t get caught either. They are the ones who made it. The ones we hire because they are so good at what they do, and because we don’t need to pay them too much, or provide them with medical insurance. The hospital will take care of them if there is a real emergency and then we can complain that they are sucking our resources dry as a desert.