Outside the
Defensible Perimeter
Five
years ago, my husband and I bought a house in the emptiest county in America.
We went there because the night sky is so dark, you can walk in the high desert
by starlight and cast a shadow, so dark you can see distant galaxies and the
zodiacal light. Three types of people live in our rural area: amateur
astronomers, ranchers, and illegal aliens.
If you climb the
mountains behind our house and look south, you look into Mexico. If you climb
those mountains to the top, you are on one of the major drug trafficking routes
into America. If you stay in the desert at the foot of the mountains, you are
in rattlesnake country—the greatest biodiversity of rattlers in America, and
the night path of illegal aliens.
It is not even a secret
that the 60 miles between the border and Interstate 10 are treated as a no
man’s land. We live and vote and pay taxes in America, but the government acts
as if we are beyond the defensible perimeter of the country. Border Patrol is
everywhere, but even with President Trump, they are just going through the
circular motions of catch and release.
They have high tech
listening stations in the mountains, trucks equipped with radar on the back
roads. They know when drugs are moving through, know regular drop-offs, are
adept at finding caches. But if they can’t secure the border, they can’t keep
the families that live here safe—and they don’t even try.
We are the deplorables.
All of my rancher neighbors have guns. Most are Evangelicals. To Democrats and
open-borders Republicans, we are throwaway people. The Other. Disposable.
The reason I am not
naming names, even place names, is that these are my neighbors’ stories, not
mine, and my neighbors—farmers, cowboys, and ranching families, strong,
resourceful, tough people—my neighbors are wary and they are weary. They fear
retribution by the drug runners and coyotes who bring the illegals across,
because they have seen it happen.
All of my neighbors have
had encounters with illegals. Every single family. Everyone knows dozens of
families whose homes have been broken into and worse—loved ones tied up,
kidnapped, threatened, shot, permanently crippled by a hit and run attack, when
they made too much of a fuss to authorities.
They hear a knock on
their door in the dark of night. What would you do?
The Bible says to care
for the stranger. So people here do not pick up a shotgun or a pistol and
noisily cock the hammer—all it would take to say, “Be on your way.” You can’t
know if it is a decent soul out there, thirsty and lost, abandoned by their
“coyote,” or a murderous villain. These Christian ranchers open their doors in
the night. There may be someone in trouble in the desert out there, so they
open their door.
Sometimes it works out
just fine. More and more often, it does not.
Some ranchers,
especially right on the border, have finally admitted it is too dangerous. They
have sold their beloved land, and walked away from a lifetime of face-to-face
relations with neighbors and family, an irreplaceable life, under a big sky,
close to land and community and God.
What else can they do?
They have petitioned their elected officials. They have spoken to reporters.
They have even talked around the kitchen table to the presidential candidates
who make the obligatory visit to the border every four years. Some politicians
really care and some really do not, but it makes little difference. President
Trump is popular here and taken as sincere. But so far, he has been blocked by
our contemptuous GOP elite.
The defensible border is
moving north all the time. The crime starts here, but it does not end here. It
is in your neighborhood, too.
You hear the stories
whenever people get together. I hear them when I am driving with a rancher
friend and we pass a car with someone she knows. It’s the kind of place where
you can stop in the middle of the road and have a chat. Did you hear about so
and so?
Neighbors are worried
about an 80-something widow who always gives illegals food and water. This time
when she opened her door at 3 a.m., the illegals pushed into the house, tied
her up and robbed her. Living by herself was never a problem before.
These are not rural Mexicans looking for work, like when she was young. They
are dangerous criminals. Will she be able to keep her home?
Neighbors are worried
because a crucial member of the community—the man who digs wells—was waylaid on
a distant ranch, taken at gunpoint along with his truck, his family’s lives
threatened if he ever told, and forced to transport a load of drugs.
Neighbors are worried
because the illegal they spotted crossing their ranch was no Mexican. They took
a photo with a long lens. I look at their photo. It sure looks like the long,
narrow face of a Somali.
Neighbors are worried
because an older couple on an isolated ranch (is there any other kind?) were in
bed asleep, when they heard men ransacking their kitchen. This was the third
time. A few months ago, the wife was forced at gunpoint to take a pregnant
woman to the hospital to deliver an anchor baby. How much longer will they be
able to keep the ranch?
Another neighbor arrived
home from the hour and a half trip to the nearest supermarket. The ground was
muddy, so he carried his five-year-old daughter to the front door of his small
house. When he turned around with a heavy bag of groceries in each arm, there
was an illegal standing in the doorway, between him and his daughter. The
illegal was wearing the man’s clothes, his hat, and was holding his gun.
Given the circumstances,
the American father ran the guy off with no confrontation. Next day, border
patrol called. They’d caught the thief—could he come by to identify his clothes
and gun. The answer was sure, but it would be two hours, as he was at a
doctor’s appointment. Our neighbor was told, “We’re not allowed to hold him
that long. We’ll have to let him go.”
And they did.
I take the story as a
metaphor, even though it doesn’t meet the strict meaning of the term. When
someone can walk into your country, enter your house, take your gun, your hat,
and your clothes and the authorities aren’t allowed to arrest him—that’s not a
metaphor for losing your identity, your home, and your country.
It’s the real thing.
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