8/19/20

By Josh Rubin

Desperation lives on the banks of the river that separates Mexico from the U.S. Desperate people share the muddy banks with venomous snakes and rats and the air swarms with mosquitos. The river, which rises and falls but always swirls with ominous currents, does not seem so wide. Not wider than the long year behind them, the months ahead, fenced in by fear, disease and the brutality of the policy known as MPP, Remain in Mexico.

Word comes to us, from the edge of that river, of the death of Edwin Rodrigo Castro de la Parra. He leaves a family behind on those banks. We are told he may have plunged into the river to save someone whose desperation had pushed them over that edge, someone who saw hope on the other side and lost all hope behind.

We know there are many ways to die there. You may sicken. The river can take you under. The coyotes who work for the cartels, transporting people across for their blood money, claim the river as theirs and jealously guard it. They are known to collect their toll in lives when their terms are not met.

But we know what killed Edwin. We look at our hands.