Kori on the Dawn Hike and the Border Patrol

Day five, we all scramble in the morning at 2:30 AM to get ready for a seven mile hike, exhausted we slowly marched towards the vans. Everyone is half awake and ready for the day to begin. We meet up with this guy named Don Garate, a middle aged man, with a big belly and a long handle bar mustache. He carried a cane with him and he didn’t look like the guy who would walk seven miles every day he has to work. After introducing ourselves we walk off into the darkness, where migrants usually walk everyday to find a better life. We followed the old man into harsh thick vegetation, where we had to cut through branches and avoid spiky plants that had needles that would stick to your jeans. Everyone kept thinking that border patrol would come and wonder why around thirty people where walking in the dark with headlamps towards civilization. As the night went on, all we saw was nothing but trees and plants. Eventually we ran into a water station, which was put out by a humanitarian group for migrants to get water when they’re out walking in the desert. As we came upon the railroad tracks, we decided to turn off our head lamps and walked in the dark. The night felt so long without much sleep and food. Everyone was so tired that no one was talking, all you could here were the footsteps of twenty five people. We kept running into gates and every time we saw a tunnel under the tracks we checked to see if any migrants were in them trying to stay warm. As we kept walking we noticed this figure lying across the tracks, the closer we got to the lifeless figure, it turns out it’s a cow that was hit by the train. It’s seems like its skin was the only thing left from the hit, but as we went further we found everything else. All around me I could hear some people in disgust and others bursting out laughing. As we finally make it to Tumacocari state park, everyone was relieved that the hike was over. After resting up for a few hours back at the camps site we headed off to go meet with the border patrol. We all came into the meeting expecting them to be like Roger from the minute men, who was vocally anti immigrant. Turns out they were like normal people with jobs. We spent around an hour watching a presentation in an a hot and stuffy conference room in which the air conditioning wasn’t working. Most of us, exhausted from the hike earlier in the day could hardly stay awake. They took us around their quarters and showed us their surveillance room, where you could see any migrant trying to cross the border. We followed border patrol around and we came upon this room where through a window, you could see migrants who were caught and going to be deported. They were put into these rooms that separated males from females and unaccompanied juvenile. It was sad to see some of these people locked up in cages for trying to come into the United States for a better life for them and their families. But others were just trying to smuggle in drugs.