Border Jumping: A journey across imaginary lines

SAN FRANCISCO -- In the midst of the raging immigration debate, there’s no better way to get a pulse on the issues than riding a tourist trolley across the invisible line to Mexico. A few weeks ago I boarded the "Border Jumper" from El Paso to Juarez. I was traveling with passengers on opposite ends of the immigration spectrum: my older, conservative brother, a major in the United States Air Force, and my boyfriend, whose family immigrated illegally to this country in the early 1980s.
Border
My older brother Rahul has been living in El Paso for the past few years. Each time I visit, I urge him to take a trip into Juarez with me, insisting on seeing the biggest metropolitan area – populated by some 2 million people – on America’s southern border. He usually shoots me down. Last year, there was no discussion. “It’s dangerous there,” he said grimly. Instead, I spent an afternoon at the National Border Patrol Museum, a small concrete box where a whole wall is dedicated to sharp shooting awards earned by Border Patrol officers.

Rahul and I are pretty different political animals. I’m an anti-war, Green Party member living in San Francisco. My brother began his slow drift to the right as a reaction to the over-liberal atmosphere at his Ivy League university. He joined the Air Force in the late 1990s, just before entering medical school, when it was a benign way to get medical school paid for and a guaranteed four-year job. Now, my brother is considering volunteering for duty in Iraq, where his skills as a trauma surgeon might come in handy. He epitomizes the country-serving immigrant who believes that his benefits will be preserved by closing the doors to others.

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