They shall not pass

Francisco Cantú’s mother is surprised when he announces he’s joining the Border Patrol and going to work in the Arizona desert. He has just received a college degree, studying international relations. His response to her bafflement — and concern — is that he wants to see the reality, what it’s like ‘in the field’. This will help him better understand the issues, so he can later use the power that this understanding gives him… for what? To attend law school? Become a policy maker?

But first: to write this book.

More than half of this memoir comprises brief, suggestive episodes from Cantú’s experience on the line, where he would eventually spend four years — tracking people who risk their lives crossing this inhospitable terrain to get to the great US of A, picking them up in whatever condition he can find them, logging them into the system and then sending them right back to where they started.