The Line Becomes A River: Former US Border Patrol Officer Looks Back On His Time On The Job

Freshly graduated from college, Francisco Cantú decided to join the Border Patrol and see the reality on the ground of migration policies he had studied only in books. He recently spoke with The New Yorker's Sarah Stillman (WNYC), about the emotional and physical toll of his time on the job. “No matter what obstacle we put at the border it's going to be subverted,” he says. “People will find a way up, over, under, around it.”

A 2000-mile Partisan Fault Line

In "The Line Becomes a River", Cantú went down to see first-hand what happens around "America's most potent metaphor, its 2,000 mile partisan fault line", as Lawrence Dawnes described the border in a recent review of the book. 

Cantú spent four years as a border cop in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. But while most people working with him were primed for a sort of warfare against drug cartels and organized crime coming in from Mexico, the job was more often boring. He spent his time chasing clues, shuffling paperwork, and only had interspersed encounters with border crossers and agents.

Even when that occurred, most people he came across were not drug kingpins, but the little pieces within the system: smugglers, scouts, mules, coyotes. All in all, he mostly arrested victims: migrants looking for a better job, in dire circumstances, and often on the verge of dying.

Cantú's account is a much-needed bout of fresh air, offering context and a bit of humane sympathy in the midst of a very politicized discussion.