How do you make conversation at the border? With those super-serious federal agents on the line between Mexico and the U.S.?
Recently I crossed the border and came right back again. I’m no coyote; I was the boyfriend. Aviva is an Israeli and I was helping her get a new visa. She was required to leave the country every six months to get a new visa in order to come back for six more. During those six months, she did grad school experiments at UCLA. Brilliant woman.
To make it more than just a quick turnaround, we drove down to Rosarito Beach for a romantic weekend. I love Mexico and showed Aviva where Americans go to retire in cliff houses that cost less than $100,000, while the same would be $4 million in El Norte. Having trekked through India and Tibet, Aviva said to her Rosarito, “looks like Gaza.”
Oh well. Lots of sand I guess.
After all day at the Tijuana consulate, processing her visa, we drank celebratory smoothies, got some jicama to take back to my mother and bought seashell necklaces because beautiful little children broke our hearts selling them to us.
After another day down there, we drove back north, sitting for an hour before getting back into the good ol’ USA. But first we were greeted by an American officer in green fatigues at the welcome-back booth. And here’s a fine how-do-you-do: after glancing at our passports, he slapped an orange sticker onto my windshield and only said with a single wave of his hand, “The brown building over there.”
Secondary Inspection Area.
Uh oh.
Suddenly a blue-clad officer-slash-agent came out of the brown building and appeared at the passenger window, speaking Hebrew.
So that’s how to converse with a border guard: Speak their language! (Not me, but Aviva sure could.)
Somehow we’d found the Border Patrol’s “Middle East expert.” A friendly young agent named Kohn. Kohn said Aviva was the second Israeli he helped today. (Or delayed, depending on how you look at it.)
“You know, it would take a lot longer if you didn’t get me,” Kohn bragged. “I’m your one-man homeland security.” I’m thinking, hey, this is the busiest border crossing in the world. Why not just try and have an enjoyable conversation?
Israel, said Kohn, “is a special interest country.” That meant — he told Aviva he was really sorry– he had to “treat her this way, like all the Arab countries.”
(Later, on that U.S. Customs Comment Card where you evaluated whether “the officer was: patient/courteous/careful/abused his authority/rude/or unprofessional,” Aviva could add: “Apologetic.”)
There is a convincing swagger to these agents. I heard a another guard nearby demanding, “Papeles!” These are busy, no-nonsense individuals. Our agent Kohn looked like he could easily toss my Toyota back over the border. In fact, he busted people while we waited: two guys with tattoos and an American flag on the back of their California pickup.
“Smuggling previous deports,” Kohn informed us as we watched them being led away. He meant they were a coyote and a rider.
Turns out, Aviva needed an “I-94” form. That’s what Kohn said, reading her passport. A visa says you are allowed to enter the United States and the I-94 reports when you entered.
He noticed something else on her passport and asked her: “Why were you in Jordan?”
It was 1997, she told him. Every Israeli went to visit Jordan. It was okay to do that then.
He wanted to know what she did at the university.
“Research biology.”
“All it takes is a little vial,” he warned. “It could kill a lot of people.”
But Aviva looks like Aviva so he kept smiling. Kohn told us he didn’t like Mexico. Then he told us why: “They say there’s a hundred thousand dollars on our heads. Every one of us who works here.”
Suddenly his shift was over and he had to go grab another agent to run Aviva’s parents’ names though the database. We sat another 40 minutes, observing two playful “explosive detection canines” being petted by a few officers. Such comical pups!
We saw Mexicans walking by with their hands behind their backs. We saw a plastic bag of pot as big as a bed pillow. Confiscation is an impressive thing — unless it’s being done to you. I worried they’d find my hunk of jicama. Or the generic Viagra I purchased in one of the many Tijuana farmacias — “Que es disfuncion erectile?” — for my buddies back in Los Angeles.
“This is unbelievable,” said Aviva as one bust after another went down around us. “Look, he goes to a car,” she pointed to a sniffing spaniel.
“Dogs always go to cars,” I said, hot and tired after two hours now.
After Aviva’s parents check out on the computer, she paid $6 for the I-94. (The visa was $104, about a thousand pesos) Soon we were driving in California. I told her how I really didn’t believe in borders. We should be free citizens, like that philosopher whatsisname wrote, “students of the world with no princes over us.”
“You have many ideas,” Aviva said. “Why don’t you run for president?”
I thought of Trump and the big border wall he wants to build. Aviva said she wants me to take her to Canada to do this next time.
150 miles later, we reach home with the visa and smuggled jicama.
Viva Aviva!
