2/2/20

By Josh Rubin

From the Brownsville side of the Gateway Bridge, you don’t see Matamoros at all. The tent courts even block the sight of the muddy river that cuts the borderline in the earth. So, no Matamoros. But all day, coming out of the doors of the office where passports and papers are checked, a stream of people trickle out, crossing for all sorts of purposes, shopping, visiting, school. They step down a few concrete steps to the street, or they roll packages and bags down a ramp.

And at least once each day, an ambulance pulls up to those steps to rescue someone who has succumbed on the long wait forced on those that don’t have the neat blue passport that I have, who are on the long line that may take hours, that often extends down the other side, reaching back to the streets of Matamoros.

And the paramedics get out and open the back, and carry out a stretcher, roll it up the ramp, into the doors, and in a while roll out the stretcher, now with a body on it. Often someone old. Once a baby came out, in the arms of one of the paramedics.

If you never cross that bridge, those people who get through and emerge from those doors are all you will know of the country on the other side. And on the other side, all the refugees are now behind fencing and concertina wire, mere glimpses of them now, camped along the river for a quarter mile or so, tents on the banks of the river.

From a distance, you might smell mesquite burning in the ovens they have built.