The Continued Calamity at the Border
Photographs by Alejandro Cegarra for The New Yorker
Near Dolores’s dwelling, a dozen boys played with spinning tops. They had been at the camp between two and four months. One maintained that he had arrived thirty months ago—an indication of how slowly time had elapsed for him. They seemed uninterested in the camp’s makeshift school, where children of different ages gathered beneath a canopy to learn English. Class that day had centered on the letter “D”—the words “doll” and “dash,” “dangerous,” “darkness,” and “dead” were half erased on a chalkboard nearby. Some of the children, the majority of whom came from El Salvador, had made the journey north with their parents and siblings. Others had travelled alone with their mothers or fathers. They were all hoping to join other relatives in the United States: uncles or aunts, perhaps cousins. The children didn’t look older than six, but they all had a preconceived notion of what the U.S. would mean for them and their families. Their journeys north seemed to be engraved in their young minds. One recalled having travelled on a motorbike, then a car, a large speedboat, and, finally, a bus, on which he had crossed the jungle. Another had also been on a boat, running away from the police—he had managed to escape, he said. One more boy, who wore a red shirt inscribed with the words “Battle Tested,” said, “All I remember is that I saw drugs and weapons.” An uneasy silence ensued, which the boy rapidly filled: “It’s what you see along the journey.”