Five men stumbled out of the mountain pass so sunstruck they didn’t know their own names, couldn’t remember where they’d come from, had forgotten how long they’d been lost.
The theme of the ravaging power of heat affecting those who dare to attempt to make it across the Devil’s Highway permeates throughout the text. This opening line effectively establishes that this location is the embodiment of desolation, desperation and danger.
In the 1880s, American railroad barons needed cheap skilled labor to help “tame our continent.” Mexico’s Chinese hordes could be hired for cheap, yet they could earn more in the United States than in Mexico, even at cut rates. Jobs opened, word went out, the illegals came north.
Most Americans would probably be surprised to learn that the first “immigration crisis” to come from Mexico was actually a “Chinese crisis.” But then the author establishes again and again that what most Americans actually do know about the issue of immigration across the southern border could fit on the head of pin written in invisible ink in Klingon. Not that such ignorance is anybody's fault; one can only know what they are taught, after all. This particular passage is an excellent example of the voluminous amount of historical fact and inside information about immigration into America that never seems to make into political speeches from either side nor 24-hour-news channel converge nor even all that many history books.
Illegal aliens, dying of thirst more often than not, are called “wets” by agents. “Five wets” might have slipped out. “Wets” are also called “tonks,” but the Border Patrol tries hard to keep that bon mot from civilians. It’s a nasty habit in the ranks. Only a fellow border cop could appreciate the humor of calling people a name based on the stark sound of a flashlight breaking over a human head.
Then again, there are other reasons why some aspects of the illegal immigration debate do not make the nightly news. The author reveal it is an ugly business on both sides. Both those on the side of trying to get immigrants into the country illegally and those charged with keeping them from doing so engage in behavior that does not exactly cry out for documentary exposure. The vast amount of reportage about “coyotes,” “polleros” and a smuggler calling himself “Mendez” reveal the dark side of the immigrants, but be prepared for the less publicized dark side of the Border Patrol charged with controlling the tide.
If you multiply $4.50 an hour by eight million workers, that would mean there are 36 million taxable dollars being accrued every hour by illegals getting tapped for some percentage by Uncle Sam. Those workers will not receive a refund.
The $4.50 figure was the average hourly wage paid immigrant labor at the time of publication. The rest is simple math as the author sets about proving (or disproving) certain bits of conventional wisdom regarding the economic drain of such labor upon America’s finances.
