Crossing The Bridge

Immigration is an issue that has been affecting the country for several years. Lately, the lines to cross to the United States have been extremely long to the point people have been doing up to 8 hours in the bridges. This is something that affects students, employees, families, traders, and others who share a life in the frontera. Mario Diaz, 11 has been affected by the border issue. He crosses multiple times to Juarez and said that the time he takes to cross is really frustrating.

“When I cross I have to wake up around 5:15 in order to get to the bridge on time. Once there it takes around 2 hours. I think this is a huge issue since there is a lot of students who want to be better at school and this does not allow them to be at school in time or sometimes they’re just absent. I think the solution is to wake up earlier on days that we have to cross and find other ways to be earlier at school,” Diaz said.

Camila Moreno, 11 also thinks that the border times and issue is something that is affecting society. She feels that immigrants should stop trying to enter the country illegally because their actions are what  impulses president Trump on wanting to close the border.

“Many times us as students have to cross early for school and sometimes it’s not possible since many people decide to cut in line instead of waiting in the lines as everyone else. My routine has changed drastically since I have to wake up at 5:30 in order to try to get to the bridge on time. I think the solution for this problem is just to stop staying at Juarez on weekends and just stay in our house at El Paso, that way we avoid waiting to cross for like 1-2 hours,” Moreno said.

Laura Galvan 12, is also affected by this issue since she crosses some days of the week and people are going crazy over the bridge times. She said that even if the lines are not that long people do not respect others who have been waiting and they just skip the line and go all the way to the front.

“I have to wake up a lot earlier between 5:00-5:30 a.m. to come to school because if I don’t wake up at this time then I take longer to cross. I think this is an issue because people start panicking because they think they are going to close the bridges so then everything gets really overcrowded. I think the solution for not being absent or tardy is to resolve the immigration problems like stop letting people get into Mexico and then wanting to come to the United States. If they stop trying to come to the country illegally then everyone would end up with benefits like less lines and less line times,” Galvan said.

Itzel Sarabia, 9, “I cross the bridge everyday. I usually wake up around 4 or 3 in the morning. I’ve been waiting like 2 hours in a half and that’s the longest I’ve been waiting. It has affected be my getting late to class and missing classes.”

Dillon Uribe, 10, “I cross the bridge everyday, and I wake up around 5 in the morning. I’ve been waiting like an hour and a half, but the longest I’ve ever waited is 2 hours. It affects me by feeling tired during the day, and I don’t have too much time to do school activities/homework.”

Gisel Torres, 10, “I cross the bridge almost everyday. In order to get to the bridge on time I have to wake up at 5.50 am. The longest I’ve waited on the bridge was 2 hours. It has affected me because now I have to wake up earlier and I get get to school late sometimes. If they were to close the border the bridge I wouldn’t be able to go to school anymore or see my relatives and friends in El Paso also I wouldn’t be able to buy things that aren’t in Juarez.”