2003sep13. After visiting Nogales (Mexico) we were in Nogales (Arizona) looking at The Wall. Around fourteen feet high, with six or so strands of barbed wire facing the other way. “It doesn’t seem like that would be that hard to climb over,” I said. Ten seconds later, a Border Patrol truck came zooming up and stopped between us and the wall. My girlfriend spotted the jumper, thirty feet to our left, booking through the parking lot and passing a couple of surprised tourists. The Border Patrol agent jumped out of the vehicle and tried to pursue on foot. I was looking at all the bystanders, to see if their body postures were giving the jumper’s location away, but everyone was watching the agent. The agent pulled his Maglite (this is at 5pm – head cracking? tinted car windows?) and shuffled back toward Immigration in some sort of reverse-psychology tactic. We scrambled out of there, not wanting to become detained witnesses. Rolling by fifteen minutes later, we saw the two tourists being questioned by at least five Border Patrol agents. We congratulated ourselves on our foresight and proceeded Northward to see three-inch grasshoppers in Tumacacori that weren’t there anymore.
