Monsters in Paradise: Why Do We Shoot the Mexicans?

Are There Monsters in Your Heaven?

Can you imagine searching and pushing and struggling to get to the entrance to Heaven, only to have Peter tell you that he was not allowed to aid the fact that you were in limbo, hungry, thirsty, scared, and homeless?

Upon hearing from a friend, a National Reservist who is due to be shipped to the American-Mexican border, about how he is preparing himself psychologically to deal with killing the Mexican people when they try to cross the border illegally, I was beside myself with questions. I wanted to answer for myself if Americans had indeed become so selfish, so untrusting in their God to provide as He always had, so uncaring that we allow the atrocities to continue at our feet, and even more abominable, we shoot those fleeing the monstrosities.

Armed with these and many more questions, I set out to find someone willing to share their story. Though I tried to put those four years of Spanish class from a very good school here in Birmingham, Alabama to use, I could not remember an adequate amount in order to communicate all I wanted. Fortunately, the willing party had been here in the U.S. almost nine years, having come alone to the U.S. illegally when he was 16, and had learned the English Language very well. We will call the twenty-five year old male "Roberto," because he did not wish to give his true name.

Roberto was the only child born to a very good woman but absent and eventually estranged father somewhere on the outskirts of Tehuacán, in a rural, farming area. Tehuacán lies Southeast of Mexico City, and West of Vera Cruz. Roberto was not sure of the location, nor how to return home once that time came because there were no maps with which to teach anyone where there their area of the world was while he was growing up there. When we finally found satellite imagery of what appeared to be his old home region, he wept quietly for a moment.