You may have noticed (maybe not) that I have not posted anything on The American Conservative website for a week now. The reason being is I went back to California and hopped on a cruise bound for Mexico over Thanksgiving. Admittedly, a cruise, with its 12 hour stops at heavily Americanized areas of Mexico deemed safe for tourists, isn’t the best way to see or experience our southern neighbor. Nonetheless, I had a few conversations during my trip that were worth noting.

Truth be told, this wasn’t the trip my family had initially planned. We had a big Alaskan cruise planned for a family reunion in the summer of 2020 until Covid put the kibosh on that. But, we needed to use the credits accumulated for the cancelation before the calendar year ran out, so turkey and stuffing at sea was the way to go.

As we drove over the bridges that traversed the Port of Long Beach prior to boarding the ship, dozens of cargo ships dotted the horizon. Each sat idly, likely loaded with gifts that will find their way under the tree this Christmas, as they long awaited their chance to unload their cargo and carry on. Some cargo freighters’ time to unload had come, as the gentle surf of the harbor caused the ships to bob ever so slightly while tied to the docks. However, the cranes that rose high above the freighters to unburden them from their intermodal containers laid dormant.

The port disappeared from view as we came off of the bridge and arrived at the berth where we would board the cruise ship. I got caught up with the excitement of boarding the newly refurbished cruise ship, and possibly the premium drink package that I’d have for the next week at sea, and thought nothing of what was happening off the ship in port. Later that night, I moseyed on up to the casino bar where I’d meet the rest of my family to enter the dining room just across the hall. I took a seat next to a man probably about 40 years my senior, wearing khaki cargo shorts, flip flops, and a robin’s egg blue “old guys rule” shirt.

After I ordered a drink, the man and I got to talking. At one point, he said, “son, what’s your name and what do you do for a living?” 

“My name is Bradley. I work in Washington D.C. as a reporter,” I said. He smiled a smile that only people who despise the media give you when you tell them you’re a journalist—a gesture I most certainly appreciate. “Yourself?” I asked.

“The name is Jay. I’ve been retired a while now, but a long time ago, I worked for a time with the United States Customs Service,” he replied.

Prior to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection that consolidated members of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Customs Service, the Customs Service was responsible for collecting tariffs, preventing smuggling, and other border security responsibilities.

“While I waited for my room to get made up and my bags get dropped off, I went up on one of the upper decks and watched the port,” Jay went on. “Worked down there for a time. I watched for nearly two hours, and didn’t see a single crane move.”

Jay took a long sip of the coke mixed with some dark liquor the bartender brought him. “In my day, this would have been completely unacceptable. Didn’t matter if it was H.W. or Clinton,” he told me. “People’s lives, and livelihoods, are out on those ships, and no one seems to give a damn.”

I couldn’t help thinking of my neighbors across the street who were renovating their house. They were forced to stay six weeks longer in a rented space because the windows they ordered were stuck somewhere in the port or on its outskirts. Not to mention the construction workers, who had to stay on the same job for more than a month longer than anticipated, with nothing much to do as they waited for the windows that prevented them for moving on to the next project and getting their company the pay that came with it.

 I wondered how many stories like that are out there.

“When do you think it’ll get fixed?” I asked Jay. He looked down and sighed. “Son, I don’t see it getting better.”

We continued talking about the impact Covid has had on our supply chains, and why America needs to start making things like it used to again, but eventually my family met me at the bar. I said my goodbye to Jay, and walked with my family across the hall to dinner.

Two days later, the ship arrived in Cabo San Lucas. It was a short eight hour stop, from noon to eight. Cabo, often the dream spring break destination for West coast college students, was rather dormant. It wasn’t just because it wasn’t the height of Cabo’s tourist season; coronavirus guidelines meant parties had to stay seated at far-spaced tables at bars like the Mango Deck, which normally is a drunken revelry with twenty-somethings sporting the latest bathing suit trends.

To get from the side of the boardwalk where our tender dropped us off to the other, we booked a water taxi. While on the water taxi, I saw one of Cabo’s famous bars where a college acquaintance of mine was rumored to go before waking up the next morning with an unfortunate tattoo. My family, and our driver Miguel, got a kick out of the story. “That’s what happens in Cabo, mi amigo,” Miguel said through a hoarse laugh. He smelled of sunscreen, seawater, and cigarettes.

“I have a tattoo of my mother,” he added as he pulled up the sleeve of his white, long sleeve shirt to reveal a tattoo of a woman that had faded on the brown, leathery skin of his forearm. The tattoo was of a pretty woman who appeared to be in her late twenties or early thirties.

“Who is she?” I asked.

“My mother, from a picture the year I was born,” Miguel replied. “I got it in Vegas,” he added.

“Were you on vacation, or did you live there?” I asked.

“I lived there for twenty years,” he said. I worked at the Venetian as a, how do you say…Gondola driver. But, one day, immigration men came to me at the Venetian and sent me back to Mexico.” Miguel chuckled and told me this as if it was a story from his childhood when his abuela tut-tutted him for doing something a little naughty. “So, I come here and work as a water taxi driver.”

After we left Miguel and Cabo San Lucas behind, I couldn’t help but think how foreign Miguel’s tone regarding his brush up with U.S. immigration authorities would sound to most Americans. On the left, as well as libertarian and right-liberal factions of the right, discussions of immigration are overwrought with emotion. Open borders journalists or lawyers at the ACLU seem to always be searching for a story they can spin or manipulate to pull at the public’s heartstrings. Sometimes, these stories can be quite unfortunate, though it does not excuse violating America’s sovereignty or laws. But for most people actually caught up in the cycle of illegal economic immigration, like Miguel, they understand the reality that underpins matters of immigration. Miguel had told me he gets paid very well as a water taxi driver in Cabo, but more money could be made across the border. So, he took the risk, got caught, got sent back, and found work with relative ease in his home country.

Ultimately, a large portion of illegal immigration across our souther border is still fueled by economic factors, and is thus transactional in nature. I sincerely wish Miguel the best working in his home country to provide for his family—just not ours. Maybe, if more Americans had his understanding of the motivating factors of immigration, our country would be more clear-eyed about the steps necessary to protect American workers by stemming the tide of low wage labor surging across our southern border.