In the book, The Devil’s Highway, Luis Alberto Urrea describes the impact the desert has on undocumented entrants. The Devil’s Highway is a vast desert beyond Sonora and Mexico, which is one of the most desolate and dry areas in the United States. It is for this reason that is also known as Desolation to the locals. It is a desert that few dare to enter, and those who do it unprepared rarely make it out alive. In May of 2001, a group of illegal Mexican walkers were left for dead, stranded in the Devil’s Highway, after trekking for days in the wrong direction, through mountains and desert, with only a small amount of water and few personal items. “The Devil’s Highway is a name that has set out to illuminate one notion: bad medicine” (Urrea 5). Even though the desert is an obstacle itself, there are still other physical and mental aspects that drive the walkers into great danger.
The illegal immigrant population coming from the Mexican border is large and unending. One of the U.S. government’s solutions to this issue is to build a wall in certain areas along the border. The wall is not an entire figure running along the entire border, but instead is composed of sections of walls placed near urban areas such as San Diego and El Paso, where illegal immigration is the strongest. Due to the fact that these walls are built in areas of easy access to illegal immigrants, there is a greater amount of people who are now choosing to cross the border in dangerous and mostly uninhabited deserts running along the border. Unfortunately, many of the undocumented entrants who are pushed further into these dangerous crossing zones are given little warning of the true perils they will face. Urrea states, “No matter where they entered, they had only to step over a drooping bit of wire fence, or across an invisible line in the dust…Along the Devil’s Highway near Tinajas Altas, there is nothing but a dry creek bed and a small sign telling walkers: ya’ll better stay out or else we’ll be, like, really really bummed” (56).
Once they are pushed further into inhospitable territories, they must also contend with the Border Patrol. Urrea presents the Border Patrol as a symbol of both law enforcement and national security. As these officers are an integral part of the government, they also present a mental dilemma to the walkers who travel through the unforgiving conditions of Devil’s Highway. Although these members are paid to arrest undocumented entrants, they continually become a sign of refuge and safety to these walkers. To those crossing the desert illegally, the Border Patrol is their enemy, just obstacles in SUV’s that will send them back to the start of their journey. But as unprepared walkers venture further into the desert, the Border Patrol officers become the first people they would like to find. As stated by Urrea, “if it was the Border Patrol’s job to apprehend lawbreakers, it was equally their duty to save the lost and dying” (18).
A less caring force that is controlling the fate as well as the flow of undocumented entrants into the United States is vigilante groups. Unlike the Border Patrol, many vigilante groups do not always care that these walkers make it safely through the desert that is Desolation. It seems that some groups aim to sabotage this mission and even put the walkers into greater harm. The towers that are erected in order to help guide the immigrants to safety, and the water and food left along the trails are seen by some groups as little more than care packages for people who should not be cared for. According to Urrea, the critics in Arizona are very direct. “Toxic materials appear in jugs that look like drinking water. Humane Borders’ water stations are vandalized, the three-hundred-gallon tanks broken open so they run dry. Small groups of Mexicans are found tied and shot in the head” (Urrea 214).
Although forces such as walls, the Border Patrol, vigilante groups, and areas such as the Devil’s Highway keep some illegal immigrants from successfully crossing the border, there are still other forces that continually cause these people to attempt this dangerous journey. Many people try to come to America in search of a better life and more opportunities for their families. It is Urrea’s opinion that the Mexican government is not providing a real solution to the needs of its poor. While traveling back to Mexico with the Yuma 14, Rita Vargas, the Mexico Consul in Calexico, “calculated that the dead men’s flight alone had cost over sixty-eight thousand dollars. ‘What if,’ she asked, ‘somebody had simply invested that amount in their villages to begin with?’” (199).
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