New Mexican borderlands recently transferred from the Bureau of Land Management to the U.S. Army hold many treasures.
I became familiar with parts of these spectacularly lonely reaches of the Chihuahuan Desert nearly 40 years ago while attending New Mexico State University. A much older friend of mine had the privilege of patrolling the expansive stretches of sun-drenched scrub as a BLM volunteer. He extended an open invitation for me to spend days riding along with him in a battered pickup whenever I desired.
Even in that era of Reagan and Bush, we’d encounter groups of migrants making their way north across the rugged landscape wearing makeshift flip-flops fashioned from strips of discarded tire tread and rags of faded clothing. BLM’s official guidance was avoidance, but sometimes we’d unavoidably come across a group huddling in the shade of a long-dry arroyo bank next to the primitive two-track we were navigating in low gear.
In those cases, we’d stop briefly and hand out one or two milk jugs we had rinsed out and refilled with water. On one occasion, I gave my hat to a kid about five years younger than I whose ears, face and neck were peeling off his body from sunburn. He fished about among the few precious items he was carrying in a tiny makeshift satchel in an attempt to return the favor.
“No es necessario,” I stammered in invented Spanglish. “Vaya con Dios!”
He flashed a sun-bleached Cheshire smile, and a chorus of muchas graciases floated off behind us in the blast-furnace breeze as we drove away.
In addition to transporting us through these hidden pockets of shared humanity, the truck hauled us through rugged canyons carved deep into the desert. Ancient petroglyphs pecked into rocks at key waypoints whispered highly detailed stories of hunting expeditions as well as mysterious depictions that defied modern understanding. Despite the harsh landscape, astounding species of delicate plants and insects that I had no idea existed thrived in the shadows and nooks. We discovered places so remote that the silence echoed inside your skull like a gunshot.
One day we passed through a BLM gate and plunged south for hours. Using obscure peaks for reference, we triangulated our location as somewhere near the Bootheel. Barely visible tracks beckoned us farther south until we realized we had traveled uninhibited beyond our own frontier. For an instant, we realized our illegal presence could lead to detention or worse if we were discovered by foreign authorities. In that same instant, we shared an infinitesimally tiny sherd of commonality with the undocumented dark-skinned pilgrims we could see heading in the opposite direction.
Later, in the village of Columbus, we drank cups of scalding-hot coffee in the afternoon heat and passed around packages of little powdered doughnuts among the outlaws who had taken over the community. My tour guide did his best to try to convince them I was not an undercover fed fresh out of Quantico, but I could see in their eyes that the skepticism never wore off most of them.
The way some people tell it these days, illegal immigration is a product of the Biden administration. Yet illegal immigrants have served a purpose as far back as I can remember — whether it was harvesting produce, serving as nannies, maids or attendants of the elites, or being unwittingly used as political pawns.
Our current presidential administration has militarized New Mexico’s borderlands, much to the disdain of our governor, who decided to militarize the streets of Albuquerque to deal with a crime crisis that probably stems from our nation’s collective refusal to deal with the immigration issue for as long as I can recall.
Ironically, the Trump administration is not the first to militarize our borderlands. Democrat Woodrow Wilson did the same thing back in 1916 in response to outlaw Francisco “Pancho” Villa’s attack on Columbus, which seems to have preserved much of its outlaw heritage throughout the past century.
Had our nation truly wanted to address its immigration issue, it would have done so by now. But Big Business and partisan gridlock have prevented resolution, keeping us divided. Until the national electorate agrees to populate Washington, D.C., with moderates and true independents, New Mexico’s borderlands, and those elsewhere, will continue to stash many of the dog whistles that keep us polarized and on a rocky path toward oligarchy.
James Rickman is a native New Mexican, former Los Alamos County Councilor and retired public relations professional.
