Immigration

“Somehow, this escape is never over”

Dealing with illegal immigrants from Mexico is one of the major controversial issues in this US election. Ines Pohl has asked around in Texas in the case of refugees, such as border guards.

Birds of prey circles over the fields. Elegant, and powerful. At any time, ready for the deadly attack. McAllen is a Paradise for ornithologists. Especially now in the spring. On hot summer days, the temperatures rise to over 40 degrees in the shade. “Then no one is out there who can avoid it somehow,” says Jose Cruz. He was born here, knows almost every turn of the Rio Grande, the natural border between Texas and Mexico. The river that divides not only Nations, but worlds.

Illegal immigration is one of the Top issues of this election campaign. 3144 kilometres long border between Mexico and the United States. The wall, to build Donald Trump to stop illegal immigration, lacking in any political debate in this election year.

Cruz has worked for many years in abroad, working for the United Nations borders guarded and controls are organized, in Kosovo and in Macedonia. Now he is back home, to protect his own people.

The Texas patrolling the Mexican border in the Private-order: Jose Cruz, and his colleague, Jerry Brumley

“The United States of America were founded by immigrants. I am not against immigration,” says Cruz. “But we need to find ways to be able to control who comes into our country.”

Too little staff, and outdated technology

“The official border control can’t afford it,” he says. She was understaffed and with completely outdated technology. Therefore, he has been working for three years for the private organization, ISA (International Security Agency) in McAllen. “We monitor the areas for which we are responsible, complete with photo and infrared technology. The works fully automatically and sends out signals when something is moving.”

The main clients of the company are currently farmers who have their lands in the border area. Protection you need, especially against drug cartels and Human traffickers that threaten not only verbal, when they will be disturbed in their shops. Actually, Cruz and his colleagues want to work for the state. “We get a lot of support for our ideas, but no money.” Politicians do not want to invest in useful technology, but in something you see. “Like this huge wall.”

Even if he supports Trump, in principle, it holds little of its plans. “Anything that reduces illegal immigration, is good. But that won’t stop. What we need is a digital fence. We need a complete soil monitoring.”

Cruz is not afraid of the
Immigrants from Mexico and Latin America. “If you are fleeing violence or war, it is okay if you stay here.” His biggest concern is that radical Islamists coming over the poorly secured border in the United States. “These are the really dangerous people. And would never let a fence stop them.”

Of Deadly Strip Of No Man’s Land

With an unmatched financial expense was built for the past decades, a border fence made of Iron. Rust soar high in the sky, between two and six meters. Above, small CCTV cameras are installed. “The need to discover the Refugees at an early stage. If you are on the fence, it’s too late.” Therefore, you need a Monitoring, the tracking widths of the refugees in the 20 mile no man’s land, this especially in the summer, often deadly strip, which lies between the Mexican border and the backup equipment in the United States.

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00:35

#What America: Jose Cruz

The deep blue of the sky reflected in the Rio Grande. Border guards Jose Cruz faces one of his mobile phones. A little later he reads the report of a local news channel: in the vicinity there was a shooting, no one was hurt. Again and again shots of the Mexican border in the direction of the United States to be fired. “These are not normal immigrants, are the cartels. Try to get the border patrol to intimidate and a free field for their operations.”

The father is always violent

Diego Mancha is seven, when his mother put him and his little sister in swimming lessons. The Situation at home is getting unbearable. Meanwhile, the father starts drinking as early as Thursday, often late into the Sunday evening. First he beats the mother, the two children. “Home” is the paternal parent’s house, with grandparents and aunts in Mexico City.

The mother tried to get a visitor visa for the United States, he has not understood at that time. In June 2002, the mother is suddenly standing with two suitcases in front of the school. For the first Time in his life, Diego gets on a plane. According To Monterrey. From there, take the Bus in the small border town of Piedras Negras, around 400 kilometres North of McAllen. It will take a long time until it will fly again.

Not an insurmountable obstacle: the U.S. border fence to Mexico

The maternal grandmother’s life in the world and the aunt for some time in the United States. You have a visa and can cross the border. “We met you. I did not understand why my mother gave you our two suitcases. Only a set of dry clothes for each of us she kept. I still remember this one last, long hug to my grandmother.”

Dry clothes in a plastic bag

They hide in a small abandoned house in the border area with two other women and a few children. It is a Saturday. The mother is arguing with strange men. Many years later, she explains to Diego that she had paid for fake papers. Here, no one wants to know anything about it. A man comes. A sharpens you, on the other side of the river to immediately move and leave the wet clothes. Then everything goes fast. He pushes you into the water. Diego Mancha, his sister, and a mother clinging desperately to the black tire that is on the grey water. The man swims in front, Mancha can’t remember how long they are in the water. The Unknown throws the plastic bag with the clothes to the other side, wait until you are on Land. Then he is gone.

“I didn’t care where he went. I was so impressed by a couple of white people playing football, just a few meters from the border. As a would not exist.” Until today, he remembers all of the many wet clothes lying around everywhere. “I wish that I had had my phone to take a photo. It was all so … bizarre.”

A little later they are sitting in a car. A woman is driving, the mother sitting in the front, Diego Mancha and his sister must lay on the rear seat, so that she sees no one outside.

You create it, without having to be controlled according to San Antonio, to the family. “My mother is very religious. She prays all the time for the Holy Mary of Guadalupe. Maybe it was just pure luck. Maybe you really helped.” For a Moment, his verschmitzes gives way to Laughter of the seriousness of the ancestors, the experience of this 22-Year-old, who is so boyish.

Brutal conditions in the Camps

Refugees that are caught are brought into the warehouse.As Kimberly Rivera, who fled with her two children from Honduras through Mexico into the United States. She tells in tears of the unworthy conditions, lack of supplies, brutal guards. “We were very thirsty and had not enough to drink. You have taken away everything. All of my private things. My children had to watch in camp, as people take their own lives.” After the recording, the Wait begins. It can take several years for a definitive ruling. The 27-Year-old has been in great fear that she might have to back tortured to Honduras, or murdered, as so many of your friends and family members.

Diego Mancha and his family make it unmolested to aunt and grandmother, who live in a relatively wealthy suburb of San Antonio. A lot of White, and hardly any Latinos. The aunt owns a quite successful cleaning.

Mancha, comes in a bilingual elementary school. He is small and wiry. You can see that he is a good runner. When Running, it does not hurt as quickly as in other sports. The mother has him taught early to take care of. The family has no health insurance.

He must swear not to tell anyone

It will be some years noted to he that something truly fundamental is different from his classmates. At the beginning, he thinks it’s just the money is missing. And that he can’t be at the school outings. Eventually, it takes his mother to the side, let him to the Saint Maria de Guadalupe swear that he will not tell anyone about this ever, that he has no papers. He, his sister and his mother are in the country illegally.

Mancha begins to understand that he is different. That his life has limits here in America.

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00:35

#What America: Jose Cruz

Over the years, it is becoming more and more difficult to explain to his school friends, why he never comes to Mexico. Why is he not having a license, not taking Jobs, although the family apparently belongs to the poorest in the neighborhood.

Diego Mancha is so good in school that his teachers recommended him for a course to prepare for College. He is. And to fill out, as with all other applications for scholarships. “But I couldn’t. I had no Status, let alone a social security number. I just thought: Now I’m really in the shit.”

Without paper no scholarship

And again, it is the thought of the mother who had to drop out of school, which allows him to not give up. “I wanted to be the first in the family with a high school diploma.”

So he finally speaks with his supervisor. Tell her the truth. She is shocked, asks her colleagues. No one here in this white suburb has experience in dealing with people without documents. “I felt like an outsider.”

It is the year 2012. President Obama has enacted the so-called Dream Act, a regulation, which helps children like Diego. Even if it is not complete legalization, so he can get thanks to the new laws, finally, a work permit, his driver’s license. Live a halfway normal life. But first, he remains cautious. What if Obama loses, and Matt Romney moves into the White house. Then what happens with the data? He would be after all these years, maybe even deported? And his sister and his mother. He waits. “But then something happened this summer. I couldn’t take it anymore. At a press conference, I grabbed everything.”

A huge liberation. Most of his friends were shocked. Not about its origin, but the fact that he had concealed his true history for so long in front of you.

“My coming out has gave me so much energy. I felt incredibly liberated.

Sponge as a child illegally in the United States: Diego Mancha

Pack your bags, if Trump wins

Now, where Diego Mancha is no longer hiding his history, he can apply for scholarships. Organizations such as The Dream.US help him to pay his College fees. Thanks to Obama’s Initiative, he can work, earn money and his mother relieve.

He has arrived? He feels as an American? “With this confession I have a Problem. I am, however, that you must assimilate. Everyone should be able to keep its own culture.”

In two months, Diego will make his College degree. Then two years of work to fulfill the dream to go to College. “I will be the first in my family to have a doctor title.”

Doubt that he might not make it, Diego Mancha. An uncertainty factor of but there is. “I am already planning what I’ll do, if
Donald Trump is elected President. I’m thinking if I should go to Mexico or Canada.” It would not be hard to leave the USA? “I’m here, if you want me here. I still have no rights. Somehow, the escape is never the end.”