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Linda Bristow (Elias)
Mel: I must say that regarding people coming across our border, there is and will always be some people who are not honest, or kind, or here for the right reasons. We have people coming from country's all over the world in hopes of our port of entry being easier to enter than other ports of entry on our border. There will be crooks and worse who need to get sorted out with time. If they have a record of ill-gotten gains or theft, murder, etc. in their own country, our computer systems are trying to sort them out and get rid of them.
After studying Immigration Law from the 1800's to now, I think the biggest difference between immigration in the late 1800's through 1960's have one major difference to today's port of entry here. The difference is that they came mostly on ships and the amount of people on those ships were expected at Ellis Island.
Now, we never know how many are showing up at our border. Living in El Paso for over 60 years, we've always had illegals entering by wading across the water and hopping over the 'Tortilla Curtain' that was a 3 1/2 to 4 foot chain-link fence. Of course there were always some who cut through that fence and the fence had to be repaired daily. But, we had a steady 'light-flow' of people coming in legally, also.
I have always found some lovely things about living here too. It isn't just doom and gloom. I love to see the man, with a homemade wooden cart and wooden wheels, who brings down his goat herd to drink out of the Rio Grande each morning about 8:30 to 9:00 and again around 4:00 to 4:30 pm. He represents the poor who work hard to create their own destiny. He takes such great care of those goats so that he can sell their milk and make special cheeses for sale. It supports his whole family. But, to me he looks like an image of someone from over 100 years ago doing the same thing. He wears a large straw sombrero to shield himself from the sun. He usually wears white clothing in the summer.
Then, there was the man that I saw for over 20 years on a bicycle heading toward the New Mexico/ Mexico border on Executive Center that crosses I-10. Every night by 5 pm he came across Executive Center walking toward the houses in my area, but every morning he was on a bicycle with a bag that looked like a pillow case. Nightly he stole a bicyle and robbed houses as he could and carried his loot back to sell on the other side of the border.
Thanks for reading what I have to say!
Linda
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