Illegal Immigrants Cost 2.2 Trillion to taxpayers
USA Today
EL ALBERTO, Mexico — Sirens wail, and Rosa Estrada, 34, scurries
down the side of a muddy bank.
"Get under the bushes!" someone whispers urgently in
the dark. "Immigration is coming!"
Estrada and 20 other Mexicans hit the ground, crouching among thick branches and brambles. Red and blue lights streak overhead, and then a voice booms in English: "Hello, this is Border Patrol."
If this were in the United States, Estrada probably would be detained and deported. Instead, it's all happening at a park in central Mexico, where Estrada and others have paid about $18 each for a simulated experience of what it's like to cross the U.S. border.
During a five-hour trek that goes past midnight, visitors walk in ankle-deep mud, balance on steep ledges and sprint across cornfields. All the while, they try to evade "U.S. Border Patrol officers" — actually local actors — who are pursuing them.
Located in the rugged mountains of Hidalgo state about 700 miles from the real U.S.-Mexican border, the park has been criticized by some Mexicans as a training ground for would-be illegal emigrants, says Bernardino Martin, the mayor of nearby El Alberto.
EcoAlberto Park was founded by the Hñahñu, an indigenous community that has been decimated by emigration. Of the 2,200 residents of El Alberto, Martin says about half of them have left for the United States.
Martin says the park seeks to generate jobs and money so the rest of the community can stay in Mexico. Some of the park's employees have worked in the United States but returned home.
The park "has been interpreted badly by some," says Martin. "It is misunderstood. This is so my neighbors prosper, so that no one else is forced to go."
Aspects of the experience appear designed to give pause to anyone contemplating a trip to El Norte. When Estrada and her group are confronted by the "Border Patrol," one of the agents yells: "Are you Mexicans? It's too dangerous to cross the river. Remember your kids and families at home!"
The adventure is nowhere near as dangerous as an actual border crossing — but it's no walk in the park, either. Visitors run through tunnels and lie still on the dusty ground for up to 20 minutes at a time. About 3,000 Mexicans have taken the tour — called the Caminata Nocturna, or Nighttime Hike — since the park opened 2½ years ago.
"It's an adrenaline rush," says Alfredo Trejo, 31, an accountant from Tlalnepantla in the state of Mexico.
Trejo and a group of family members and friends came not for tips on how to cross the border, but out of curiosity. "Someone recommended it. They said it was fun," Trejo says.
Others, including Estrada, say that they feel a certain empathy for emigrants and that participating for laughs is in poor taste.
Estrada says she has been on the park tour three times with family members or friends.
As the border run winds down, participants collapse onto the cold earth, exhausted and dirty. One man has fallen into a rushing stream. A few people are limping.
"We get so immersed in our lives that we forget how much other people suffer," says Estrada, from Mexico City, who came this time with eight family members. The group includes her 12-year-old son, whom she says she hopes will never make the real journey.
"I don't want this to just be fun for him," Estrada says. "I want him to take home the message."
Miller is the Latin America bureau chief for USA TODAY