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The
US has seen few mass migrant crossings from Mexico since the 1990s.
Ever-increasing border militarization has failed to halt undocumented
immigration to the US, but it has succeeded in pushing unauthorized crossers
far from the public eye, crossing through perilous climes in small groups to
evade detection. But two recent actions along the border seem to signal a shift
in some migrants’ willingness to cross in large numbers, based on a growing
sense of desperation.
The
first attempted mass migrant crossing in recent memory took place last
Thanksgiving when, in the glaring daylight of the early afternoon, 200
undocumented migrants attempted to cross the border together from Tijuana into
the United States, about a quarter of a mile west of the San Ysidro port of
entry. In the days leading up to the mass crossing, a flyer had circulated
among breakfast halls for migrants and deportees that gave an open invitation
to meet near the border “on the day Americans give thanks,” where there would
be three organizers in charge of leading migrants into the US. The wording of
the flyer seemed to hint at a protest as much as a true celebration of the
American Thanksgiving tradition.
“We
are doing this with the intention of being able to cross into the US,” the
flyer read in Spanish, “to reunite with our children and families and to fight
for the American dream.”
