TheAgitator.com
Markets in Everything: Border Crossing Theme Park
Thursday, January 8th, 2009Great piece from the February issue of Reason just went online.
Alexander Zaitchik traveled to Mexico to experience a “theme park” that mimics an illegal border crossing. Snippet
Then there are the screams that come from behind the bushes. During quiet lulls in the walk, female park employees periodically issue bloodcurdling cries that echo through the mountains. It is not an overly histrionic touch. Rape has become so endemic to the border crossing experience that women often start taking birth control before making the trip, expecting abuse from coyotes or the bandits that travel with them. “Even if a woman is traveling with a brother or cousin, they are at the mercy of the coyotes for survival,” says Walt Staton, spokesperson for No More Deaths, a humanitarian group that provides assistance to migrants on both sides of the border.Nobody actually gets raped, robbed, or murdered during the Night Hike, but the simulation is not for the weak of heart or the pregnant. There are full-speed runs down steep unlit paths as sirens wail in pursuit and stretches along raging river waters where the mire is almost knee high. In most countries participants would be required to sign multiple waivers before even getting in the back of the truck. During periodic breaks, everybody collapses in exhaustion, many tending to bloody knees and sprained ankles.
Is that a Theme Park, or practice?
Awhile back I had an idea to turn the film Apocalypse Now into a theme attraction. Imagine Pirates of the Caribbean but a bit more realistic.
Anyone want to invest?
Did they also put a politically well-connected business owner at the end who would mock exploit them, and periodically mess with them while threatening to deport them if they did anything?
Is there a Ramos & Compean Target Shoot?
If you can dodge the bullets there’s a teddy bear as a prize.
I call BS. The border is so easy to cross that none of this is realistic. At least in most places.
I know a guy that has a house on each side of the border and is married to a Mexican. She can’t come to the USA legally because she was busted for being here illegally in the past. If they start at the same time at the house in Mexico, she can cross illegally faster than he can legally and be waiting for him when he gets to his USA home. They do this all the time.
Nobody’s forcing anybody to cross the border. Cross at your own risk.
http://rightklik.net
Jason, how about I shoot you the next time you go outside? No one is forcing you to leave your house. Walk out the door at your own risk.
Jason, the public education in Mexico is absolutely incomparable.
You would have an easier time buying a new Escalade then paying off the kind of education it would take the average Mexican to pass all the entrance exams to enter our country legally.
It’s actually easier for them to just hop across and live in the shadows, they’re not doing it because they’re just evil people from an evil place.
Terribly sorry it’s so difficult to sneak into our country. Why can’t we be like all other countries in the world and have open borders, with nice people in blazers handing out icy cups of water? Really stupid analogy there RWW. A better one would be to shoot him if he entered your yard.