Instead of my children being recognized as biracially black and white, they are often mistaken for Latinos. I didn’t really think much of it until earlier this month when I decided to take them to Mexico. It turns out the Arizona border patrol is not the most welcoming group (surprise, surprise).
The trip began with a drive to Kansas City, then on to Oklahoma City, then Phoenix. We apparently really wanted to go to Mexico. So the night before we leave for Mexico, my sister decided she might need to find her passport. She can’t find it. We then proceed to spend the entire night tearing up her apartment trying to find it. (I also found out way much more than I wanted to know about her while digging through her trash and closet.) The thing was just plain lost.
After a tearful phone call to my dad, I explained that I couldn’t go if she couldn’t go. He suggested I call the border patrol and find out what would happen if someone didn’t have a passport as they entered back into the United States. So I called, and that guy was very nice. Said it would be no big deal if she had a passport on file. They would just have to look it up.
So we went ahead and had the most fun trip with minimal fear factors. However, crossing back over the border was a different story. My pregnant sister was driving and my Hispanic cousin was next to her. I was in the back seat with my two “Hispanic” children. When we first pulled up to the gate, the guard admonished us for pulling ahead without a wave from him. There was no sign that indicated we should do that, but whatever. Then he started asking all these questions about where my sister bought her car, as if we’d stolen it. When she produced her paperwork, he finally gave up on that line. Then he asked for her passport, and she explained that she lost it. He said she couldn’t go back into the country without proof of citizenship. She explained that we called and was told he could look it up. Then he went on a rant about how she shouldn’t have decided to go to Mexico if she can’t remember to pack her passport and that he was sure she remembered everything else. I wanted to bust in with my list of forgotten items (big cowboy hat, tons of cash and fireworks) but I figured now was not the time. This guy literally thought he owned the country and apparently had nothing else to do but lecture us.
So he finally looked up her passport and moved on to the rest of us. He requested that we all hand our passports over and that I roll down my window. He started asking me questions about when my photo was taken and if I was sure it was me. I thought for sure he was going to detain me. Then he says, “What’s your name?” I tell him, and he says, “Oh, this isn’t even your passport.” !?@?!? Obviously, we have our top people on border patrol.
Then he gets around to the kids. We have some disbelief that I’m their mother. Then we have some questions about the validity of their passports. He actually questioned my son about knowing his name. I thought he was going to accuse me of smuggling children into the country. Finally he accepted that they seemed to know me. My cousin had the least trouble getting in. He just glanced at her. I thought we were finally ready to pass the gate, but he wanted to give my sister one more lecture: she needs to have her passport the next time or he could pull her out of the car, handcuff her in front of her family and take her into a holding cell. As if my children have been scared enough, now their eyes are about ready to pop out of their heads. I wonder if that would be cause to detain them? Glad we didn’t find out.
So in the future I’m going to skip the whole passports/border crossing thing and hire one of those human smugglers to get me into the country. It sounds like a lot less hassle. You can never be too safe.
The Fretful Mother's Blog 
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