‘Soccer field’ was a popular crossing place for migrants headed to U.S.
Jose
Arias Martinez is 83 and has lived in Tijuana’s Colonia Libertad
neighborhood for 40 years. He remembers when a patch of American soil a
few hundred yards from his house was the busiest and most famous spot on
the U.S.-Mexico border for illegal crossings.
Every
day, hundreds of migrants who were heading north for work gathered at
dusk and waited for darkness before moving through the brush and up the
canyons, into San Diego and points beyond.
BORDER WALL: A SPECIAL REPORT
So
many people used it as a staging ground that a marketplace emerged:
Vendors in tarp-covered stalls sold food, clothes, shoes — even shots of
tequila, said to be good for courage because the journey was risky.
Bandits were in the nearby hills. Border Patrol agents were on the
canyon rims.
Nobody
waits at the dirt field any more. Ask Arias why and he nods at the
rust-colored 10-foot-tall metal wall that sits a few paces from his
front door.
“It ended,” he said, “when they built the fence.”
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