The Big Bend country has been a country without borders for centuries. Families lived and worked on both sides of the border. Remote Mexican villages, virtually cut off from mainland Mexico, depended on stores and schools in the park for food, gas, electricity, medical care, and education. Likewise, the merchants in the US depended largely on this trade with Mexican villagers to stay afloat.
Before September 11, there were three "informal" border crossings within the park, and another just outside at Lajitas. It was a VERY popular to cross the river and visit one of these small Mexican villages to eat tacos, drink beer, mill with locals (and interesting American expats who relocated there for various reasons...some to escape the IRS or the FBI), and buy trinkets. The cultural experience was priceless, and the towns benefited from tourist dollars.
These informal crossings were developed, supported, and though they were technically illegal, the government allowed the park service to promote them.
This was only natural, for the country has been borderless since BEFORE the Spanish even colonized Mexico. Families of Mexicans, Native Americans, and American ranchers and traders moved back and forth across the shallow river like crossing a street.
After September 11, the INS ordered the park service to close the informal crossings. Families were split apart. Children (US citizens!) who reside in small Mexican towns cannot cross the river to attend school. Boquillas depended on gas from the Rio Grande Village store to run their generators. Now the town is completely without electricity. These towns are isolated from mainland Mexico by hundreds of miles of impassable dirt roads through high mountains, and without gas from the US side, they cannot reach medical assistance or critical supplies.
It is, in one word, a crisis.
Not only do we no longer have the pleasure of making visits to these small border towns, where life has remained unchanged for a century, the towns no longer get our tourist dollars or supplies, medical treatment, and education they formerly depended on.
Currently, it is not illegal to cross into Mexico from within the park.
However, to cross BACK into the U.S. anywhere within the park will land you a $5000 fine and possibly jail time. The Border Patrol is out in force, running stings in patrol cars and helicopters. The formerly peaceful skies above Boquillas Canyon and Rio Grande Village are torn by the sounds of airplane patrols.
Never mind that in order to REACH these informal crossings, a terrorist would have to orchestrate a transportation miracle far more complex and harder to disguise than his final intended operation. It is much easier to secretly cross the Mexico/US border at other places.
The situation is devastating to both Mexican and US citizens. If you have time, please write your congressman and tell him or her that you support reopening the informal border crossings in the Big Bend country. That way everyone prospers, and we get to eat tacos and cold beer in Old Mexico.