Enrique's Journey

Chapter 6 describes the dangerous journey across the US-Mexico border. Enrique makes the trip with El Tiríndaro and two other migrants, a Mexican brother and sister. The migrants remove their clothes and place them in plastic bags to keep them dry, then they cross the river in stages. First, El Tiríndaro loads the Mexican siblings onto an inner tube and paddles them to an island in the middle of the river. He then returns for Enrique. Enrique is terrified because the current is swift and he doesn’t know how to swim. Lights from a border patrol vehicle move across the trail above the river. If the migrants get caught, they face deportation or months in a squalid Texas jail awaiting their court date. The group evades detection and crosses to the US side of the river. El Tiríndaro leads them to a sewage-filled tributary to dress and eat before running up a steep embankment, where two members of his smuggling network wait in a Chevy Blazer. Enrique falls asleep in the car. When he wakes, El Tiríndaro is gone. He is taken to a house to change into American-style clothes.

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