JE #1C

It is 6:00 in the early morning of September 11, 2001. My mother and I drop-off my older brother at the  long and winding pedestrian border crossing line at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. My brother has regained  (since elementary) his daily "transfronterizo" commute to school now as a "college man" in the local south San Diego community college. But today is no ordinary day, today is 9/11, and la línea stops....
A day before, my brother's daily commute to school would range from 90-120 minutes, transferring from trolley cars, to two buses that would finally lead him to his daily destination. The policy on tardiness and absences in college is no joke. He sweats and fidgets from the anxiety of not being able to reach school that day. Twelve-years ago, my brother did not make it to school on 9/11. And he could be sure that from that time on, him and thousands of other "transfronterizo" students (a term used in Mexico to describe students who commute daily from the Mexican border cities into U.S. schools), like myself, will have to wait in line for at least 3-4 hours (if they are lucky).
The article reports the challenges and controversy around the brave (and illegal) "transfronterizo" students living in the US-Mexico border. The article titled,  "Young U.S. Citizens in Mexico Brave Risks for American Schools," was written by Patricia Leigh Brown and published in the New York Times on January 16, 2012. The reporter says, "border crossing students are called 'transfronterizos,'
migrating between two cultures, two languages and two nations, very school day."
I open this write-up with the anecdote of 9/11 and the "transfronterizo" experience because before that event, border students would "effortlessly," or shall we say, less strenuously commute daily from home in Mexico, to schooling and  "access to knowledge" in the United States. Yet, after the increased border patrolling and security caused not only by "Operation Gatekeeper," but the terrorists attacks on the Twin Towers, these students, mostly U.S. citizens have become a risk, or say, liability to U.S. economy, public school funding, and safety. Consequently, this border population is no longer under the radar, but now surveilled by U.S. national security efforts.
Another reason I bring up 9/11 is because, before this event and the heightened waiting-lines at the ports of entry (caused by safety measures), "transfronterizos" were not an issue. "Transfronterizos" have existed long before 9/11. I was one of them. As well as most of my U.S. passport holding cousins, friends, and relatives had been border students at one point in their lives. But after 9/11 and the housing market crash, reporters on the U.S. side have began to notice the under-aged and the younger generation waiting in line along with adulf-aged border working commuters. Other reports I have read, in addition to this one, talk about "transfronterizos" as a recent phenomena that was caused by the housing market crash, forcing thousands of families to migrate "back" to Mexico, where cost of living is more affordable, and increased immigration patrolling and deportations. This article is no exception and follows the U.S.-view on "tranfronterizos" narrative quite well. I have also seen short documentaries produced by college students of color in the States following the same narrative. The ultimate message: "Transfronterizos" are a burden to the U.S. economy (like undocumented migrants) because they don't provide with property taxes (which is a generalization), and thus, they underfund the U.S. public school system (again, like undocumented and "undesirable" brown population in a white hegemony).