The Desert in the Oasis

The sun had dipped into the desert several hours before.  But for our own headlights and occasional westbound traffic, we continued on in the darkness.  Highway 10 seemed to continue indefinitely through an expanse of nothing.

It was early March and we were on our way to watch spring training baseball for a long weekend.  My three-year-old son had been talking about it since his December birthday – a result of him witnessing his first World Series win before he turned two.  Winning was fun.  As the miles continued we sometimes wondered to each other about the merits of driving versus flying.  Despite everyone’s advice to the contrary, the thought of dragging a double-stroller, six suitcases, diaper bags, car seats, Curious George and two little kids through an airport two hours before a flight reminded us of the wisdom of our decision. 

Smiling, yet exhausted, we laughed about how two kids that weighed a combined 45 pounds could make a 13-hour drive over two days more attractive than a two and a half hour direct flight to Phoenix.  How times had changed.

As the drive wore on, red brake lights and flashing caution signs interrupted the darkness.  All vehicles were advised of a checkpoint ahead.

With little attention paid to our general location, we guessed it was some sort of DUI checkpoint – in the middle of the desert.

As the speed limit quickly descended from 70 mph to 25 mph, we neared what we soon realized was the Arizona / California border crossing.  Floodlights lit up the horizon and dozens of flashing immigration vehicle lights surrounded the border.  Our car slowed to a single-file line as we approached a crowd of several dozen police officers and immigration officials.

“Welcome to Arizona,” I muttered.

The politics around immigration had certainly been building for years.  Efforts in 2008 to work a compromise through Congress that would have recognized the status of undocumented immigrants and provided a path towards citizenship for millions of people in the U.S. had failed.  As the political landscape changed with the rise of Tea Party politics in 2010 and a massive U.S. recession continued to linger, the immigration debate had become part of an ugly political atmosphere.  Arizona made itself ground zero for that debate.

In the middle of the night in the desert, Arizona’s argument lit up the barren rocky landscape.  Each vehicle was stopped and questioned.  Trucks were automatically diverted to a separate line and inspected.  We wondered if we were entering Arizona from California or returning to the U.S. from Mexico.  Our conversation ceased and we turned off the satellite radio.

Of course, our anxiety was almost as naïve as our original surprise.  As we approached the officers with our windows rolled down and squinted at their flashlights, ready to answer their questions, their hardened expressions shifted to soft smiles and we were waived on through without hesitation.  My two blonde-haired kids remained asleep in the back of the car as we continued past the officers, our car never coming to a complete stop.  To our right, a Latino family had been pulled over and was being searched and questioned.  Other vehicles we couldn’t make out had been stopped and were swarmed with officials.  Police dogs circled every vehicle.

I suddenly wondered if Governor Brewer had been through this checkpoint in the middle of the night.

As quickly as they arrived, the lights faded and we were once again driving alone in the dark, the white road markers flying by us in rapid succession.

We drove on in silence.

During the miles ahead, we wondered if it was better that our kids had slept through that experience.  It was nearly midnight.  Perhaps they were too young to understand.

The lights had now completely disappeared behind us.  The sky was once again blanketed with stars and we continued on in silence. Our kids, who were perhaps too young to understand, slept quietly in the back of the car.  Their parents, who were old enough to understand, agreed that they didn’t.

And without answers we continued driving towards that horizon we never seem able to reach.