The Gate
Jul 7th, 2009 | By Michel Marizco | Category: General News, Immigration, Politics
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THE BORDER REPORT
Out on a totally unrelated assignment down on the Ambos Nogales border when a friend suggested I take a drive down the federal border road that runs east of the twin cities.
I hadn’t been out here in some time, not enough reason to justify the road-trip really, but I’m glad I listened because the engineering that went into the wall is astonishing.
Myself, I’ve never believed that the United States’ mandate to slap steel down along the border is ever going to change a thing – though not for the reasons that are usually given as why it won’t work.
The U.S. first grew serious about building border walls back in 1994, a Clinton Administration security plan that walled off the San Diego area from Mexico. It was the same year that the NAFTA treaty came into effect, and, as they say, things ever ain’t been the same since.
The wall worked, sort of. It drew San Diego-bound traffic east out to Arizona and Sonora but it’s never had an effect on drug trafficking in either region. The rise of the Arellano Felix brothers in the same time period as Gatekeeper demonstrates that. Federal data shows that wall or no, Tijuana is back in action as a growing cocaine corridor (that should make El Ingeniero proud). The ports of entry, the fulcrum points of cross-border trade, go ignored as the portals for narcotics. In fact, it’s only this year that the Feds released $720 million in stimulus money to upgrade the ports of entry, many of which are beleaguered by poor lane splits and technology from the seventies. The same strategies from the seventies were merely applied to the new century with the same, predictable results – illegal migrants moved to other areas to try and cross while drug trafficking maintains, rooted in the border cities on both sides. No surprise there, not for even the most casual readers who take an interest in following the recent histories of the border. I’ve long maintained and I always will, that the walls are built to appease Americans, not to blockade Mexicans.
Which leads me back to this structural wonder here. 
The wall, polished steel rails some twelve feet high and a few feet deep, follow the rolling mountains like some shaded protrusion, a ribbon of dark steel. It looks impermeable and though I didn’t drive it out to Cochise County, my friends in that area of the state say it’s mostly intact all the way out.
You look at this steel wall (and no matter how badly Homeland wants to deny it, this is a wall) and you can almost believe; there’s no way a pack of drug mules is going to scale that thing with 50-pound sacks of weed on their back and not be noticed. No way for beat-to-hell Ford F-150s laden with a ton of Sinaloan schwag to slip through on their way to Interstate 10.
Some sad group of migrants is going to end with badly sprained ankles or worse trying to clamber over, you would think.
Then I noticed the gate. 
Gates, actually. Immense eight footers with a six inch cross-beam and a simple lock protected by a steel sheath. One every mile or so. I’ll admit, for a second, all the conspiracy theories that generally buzz around in my head suddenly made sense. Calm down, I thought, nobody’s that obvious.
But I did want to know what in the world these gates were doing here.
“Man, just look at the size of that thing,” said an old friend on the Arizona side when I showed him a picture. “You could fit a Humvee through there.”
Oh, come on.
He grinned, warming to his fantasies. “Or a tank.”
“No te digo, cabrón,” says an even older friend, a radio reporter on the Sonora side, one of these crusty old guys, with theories going back to Jose Luis Portillo and Jimmy Carter.
Finally, I got the answer from a state cop.
Turns out the gates were built into the wall for the use of the International Water and Boundary Commission, the binational agency who monitors the boundary of the two countries.
Okay, I was a little disappointed, I’ll admit.
“Of course,” the guys says, “that doesn’t mean you can’t drive a tank through,” he said. “You’re just not supposed to.”
by any chance do you think Mexico is watching live coverage on Michael Jackson’s service?
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So an athletic guy can scale the fence, fast rope down the other side, his compadre can hand him a cutting torch and he can open the gate? Or there are sensors on the gates?
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no need to cut the gate open, it has enough space to pass white squares through by hand, and very fast, i even think it was built that way with that purpose, lol!!
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Wow ilegal, I am impressed….I think your right on
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Michel, maybe you should recalibrate your thoughts that El Teo has taken over Tijuana. The authorities there are putting on a clinic on how to dismantle a cartel (or a pain in the ass former faction of a cartel). They are popping Tres guys everyday.
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the almighty “el teo” with his buddy “el mayo” the owners of tijuana, LMAO!!!! what’s next? “el teo” fighting arturo’s son for the total control of mexicali?
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http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_12769262
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Yes, what do you think about LaBaron’s and Widmar ‘s deaths, especially in light of the two previous kidnappings which seemed to work out so well? Also are their high profile kidnappings and murders in Sonora the way they seen to happen in Chihuahua? I see them in the Chihuauan papers, but not in the Sonoran papers. how come? Also it occurs to me that these two young fathers, were pretty honest hard working people and not drug runners, so when we see the murders of others in Northern Mexico, are many of these also people who are innocent victims as opposed to thinking every poor sot found murdered on the side of the road just another player in the battle between the cartels? Also while I’m at it where is a good place to get a list of who won the elections.
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you guys should follow this story, shit just hit the fan and the procuradora paty just blamed it on la linea, even though the le baron family knows who did it.
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this is PGR’s version http://www.elagoradechihuahua.com/Arroja-PGR-datos-de-asesinato-de,15801.html and this is paty’s http://www.elagoradechihuahua.com/Culpan-a-La-Linea-de-asesinato,15804.html
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I like the wall. People have gates and fences all the time. Mexicans especially have walls with glass and barbed wire and things. For people who think a wall is useless, Mexicans sure do put a lot of energy into the ones around their homes. I guess they just like the way it looks. The wall creates jobs, gives people something to bicker about, etc.
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Does the following true account suggest probable BP collusion in the illegal transport of the undocumented?
Migrant “A,” (sin papeles) a valued employee of a ranch outside Phoenix, is stranded in Tubac after a grueling 3-day climb over the Tumacacori Mountains. He must find a way around the temporary checkpoint at Exit 42.
He’s too battered and bruised to walk, so he hitches a ride south to Nogales where he climbs into an SUV to sit with 3 other migrants. The fare is $1,200 each for a ride in air-conditioned comfort, including snacks and Gatorade.
The SUV breezes through the checkpoint, and 4 hours later “A’s” dropped off at the front gate of the ranch. His waiting boss hugs him and the driver and forks up the cash.
Coincidence? Pure luck? Tengo mis dudas…
Another reason why walls won’t work?
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jack, you hit the jackpot, but sadly, nobody believes that can happen, in mexicali, almost everybody knows “somebody” who has a contact with some BP agent who can do “el paro” for like 6 or 7k.
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@El Alineador:
Not sure I agree; one of Ingeniero’s people was just popped yesterday: http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/611498.html
Until someone can show me Teo in handcuffs, I’ll continue to think he’s doing just fine.
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So that’s what kinda fight this is gonna be huh?
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