From all over the world people came to seek asylum in the US, and of all the nations, the US’s southern neighbour had it the worst. Every day, in an attempt to escape violence and persecution, Mexicans arrived at the US border, and only a tiny percentage of these people were let through and granted refugee status. The rest were denied entry, turned away and sent back. Illegal crossings were an option, but an option only open to a few. They were too expensive for most, and too risky for others.
Jack Rhodes and Adam Harding used to go to Mexico together regularly when they were at university. Adam was a surfer and he went there for the waves, and Jack came along to try to perfect his bodysurfing skills. With Adam’s boards strapped to the roof of Jack’s van, and the inside of the vehicle a total mess, with tents, sleeping bags, towels, sunscreen, surf wax and all sorts of paraphernalia strewn across every inner part of the van, the two friends ventured south as often as they could. They were young and single and the endless hours spent in the water were punctuated only with parties, tequila and overindulging in Mexican food. A total escape from their studies and everything they identified with back in San Diego.
Sometimes they even just broke free for short weekend trips across the border, going not much further than Ensenada, but often they went for longer, and much further. They had been to Mazatlán a few times before. Adam had met a girl there. There were a variety of surf spots for Adam to choose from, and soon enough they’d made a lot of friends, so even after Adam’s romance had fizzled out, the two would often make Mazatlán their final destination during a road trip, or stop off there before heading further south if they had more time.
During one of those visits, while enjoying a beer after a long session out in the water, Jack and Adam enquired after two of their friends – two brothers, Cristian and Felipe, who had been working at the bar. After a bit of investigation they got news of the fact that the two brothers and their family were in hiding after having been witnesses to a cartel crime. They had been denied asylum by the US and didn’t have enough money to afford the illegal means of crossing the border that had been offered to them. The full story was horrifying, and Jack and Adam spent the rest of that trip discussing the possible options for the two brothers and their family. A plan was devised. Jack and Adam headed back to San Diego to renovate the van, while their Mexican friends went about obtaining fake documents: driver’s licences, social security numbers, a license plate and even credit cards. Everything to prove their new identities.
It took a total of three trips over a period of almost two months to transport the two brothers and their family to the US. Straight-faced machine-gunned guards lurked around on the road as you waited in traffic queues at the Mexico-United States border. You avoided eye contact at all costs. Those long queues gave you enough time to stress and panic even if you had nothing to hide. But as usual, Adam and Jack strapped two surfboards to the top of the van, threw towels, board shorts, rash vests and sleeping bags around the van, so as to make it all look as unassuming as possible; just two friends heading out for their usual surf trips. Nothing to be suspicious of. They even made a habit of making sure all the curtains on the windows were open. We’re not hiding anything.
Once back in the US, Jack and Adam handed the family over to a team of human rights and immigration lawyers. Pete, my model, who Jack had stepped in to cover that first day I’d ever met him, had been an important part of that team. It’s funny how much you don’t know about people.
The trips changed the two students, making them even more passionate and active in the sphere of politics and human rights. Perhaps they were naïve and reckless to think they could ever get away with it. But they were cunning. Keeping up to date with current affairs, they always timed their crossings with major events or crimes. They chose days when border authorities had their minds fixated on catching the bigger criminals. And so, despite the existence of X-rays and heartbeat detectors, which could have been used at any time, they did it. They outwitted border control. Full of empathy, passion and drive they repeated similar trips over the course of the year that followed, risking their own lives and security. And although they were regularly offered money, or other kinds of compensation, they never took a cent for any of it.
They finally stopped when they got a reality check and lost that feeling of invincibility after a close call with border control. Just over a week after they made their last such border crossing, Jack was in New York visiting his family. And that’s when it happened. There on that Montauk beach. On that day. In that moment. The meaning of life changed so suddenly and so absolutely.
Jack had never told me any of this – about the illegal crossings, about the fake IDs, about any of it – just as he had never told anyone. It had remained a secret. I doubt Adam had ever wanted to tell anyone this either, but keeping secrets from me now would have been pointless. After all, I too was no longer a secret to him.