My family and I plunged into the heart of the Mexico-U.S. border “crisis” yesterday. We walked into Nogales, Sonora, Mexico and strolled back into Arizona five hours later, unscathed and unshaken. During what has long been a regular outing for us, I was unable to detect a crisis. A group of about 50 migrants seeking asylum sat huddled near the port of entry. This, sadly, has become for us an expected sight.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency officials were as usual relaxed. The young agent who checked our passports seemed bored. He didn’t even ask what we were bringing back with us and in less than a minute bid us a good day.
There is, of course, a humanitarian catastrophic situation at some border crossings. But media reports and politicians would have us believe that the entire 2,000-mile-long region is beset by chaos, as beleaguered officials struggle to handle a human tsunami.
That might be the situation sometime in the future, but at places like Nogales normalcy reigns.
Ricardo Chavira Chicano 