The Devil’s Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea talks about a true story in the early 2000s regarding a group of illegal “entrants” who tried their luck crossing the Mexican border into the United States and how horribly the mission went for many of them. The book became a national bestseller and even a Pulitzer finalist. I personally feel there isn’t a better time to read about this harrowing experience now more than ever. With mass deportations underway of illegal immigrants as I write this, it’s extremely important we try to get a deeper and better understanding of this problem that seemingly has been around for so long. I do admit that it was a bit odd at first when I realized that this event only gained recognition due to how large the group of immigrants affected was. There was nothing really special about the survivors or victims of this tragedy in that they resembled your everyday people trying to cross the border in hopes of making just a bit more money to help support and raise their families back home. Yet, the story told in The Devil’s Highway about these men and what they had to go through is no less devastating or heartbreaking than other nonfiction tragedies involving more popular figures throughout our history. Men whose names will surely be forgotten as soon as the last page of the book has been turned.
If they are to be flown home, the “air-tray” to hold the casket costs an extra $50. The Mexican consulates pay for the embalming, and other parties–sometimes the governments of the walkers’ home states–pay for the flights. For more than 80 percent of the dead, it is the most expensive gift they have ever gotten.
Author
The Devil’s Highway introduces us in the beginning to The Devil’s Highway, U.S. route 491, and the history of the land. Very quickly after, it talks to us about the Border Patrol, and soon afterwards, the story starts with how the group of thirty or so men decided to take up the dangerous journey of crossing over to the United States. It’s your classic tale of powerful and evil men running the enterprise in the shadows while employing gangsters, thugs, and basically anyone else desperate enough to make a quick buck to lead the “walkers” across the desert. These men consist of the Coyotes themselves who actually lead the group towards their destination, along with drivers and other necessary guides along the way. With standards of living so poor, it’s no wonder there are shortages of men and women in every category, from the Coyotes themselves to the actual people wanting to make the trek across.
“If I am a wetback because I crossed a river to get here, what are you, who crossed an entire ocean?”
Anonymous Mexican worker
It was definitely fascinating to learn about how things worked. This includes everything from the Coyotes and walkers themselves to the Border Patrol and techniques used to help locate lost wanderers. A lot of the angles are covered to show how complicated this issue was then and is now, with no real solution. The actual walking journey these folks made was nothing short of a miracle, considering how little prepared they were. One of the most basic questions I had to ask myself that the author had not mentioned once was just why a compass wasn’t used. With how dangerous a simple detour can get you lost in the wild, vast desert, as demonstrated by Mendez here in the story, you’d think that his bosses would provide compasses to all his Coyotes to ensure they have a higher chance of making it to their destination. Although it’s a sad and common practice for the Coyotes to simply ditch the walkers in their charge and leave them to rot in the desert for whatever reason, it would seem like mutual benefit for every one of them to reach their destination. Being that many of them took out huge loans at insane interest rates to cover the journey, reaching the United States, securing a job, and paying the head honchos back is a simple way to maintain a return on investment in them as a forever-money-making machine.
In the desert, we are all illegal aliens.
Author
The Devil’s Highway is great reading all around. Many of us take so many things for granted that we often fail to realize just how fortunate we are. Things as simple as being able to load our tacos with real cheese are unheard of in Mexico. Being able to eat actual flour tortillas is as alien to many poor Mexicans across the border as putting actual meat in their burritos. With so many destinations mentioned in the story, it’s best to bring up Google Maps as you read through it. It is extremely haunting and chilling to plug in the GPS coordinates of the walkers and where they were found, either alive or dead. Being able to see the location on a wide map, especially when you can see the mountainous terrain around the coordinates, will give you goosebumps as you know that literally no one sane should be found there at all.
Thank you to u/katiejim for recommending this book on Reddit:
The Mindless Catalog 
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