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New York City to Upstate.



Go to June 15th.


Day 6
June 14th, 2007
Riding through New York, and a Midnight Immigration Raid



I was really happy to get on the train in New York. I'd had enough of walking. Before I take my next trip I'm getting myself a pair of really good walking shoes. I know I said that the last time, but this time I'm going to do it. I spent almost whole trip from New York City to Chicago in my seat. My feet hurt too much to get up and walk much farther than the back of the train, so nothing noteworthy happened until almost midnight.

In New York City a Hispanic man boarded the train, and all other seats being occupied he ended up sitting next to the guy across the aisle from me. Just as I was getting set up to go to sleep for the night the train stopped in Rochester and two border patrol agents started walking through the car asking select people what country they were from. I finally understood what the kid on the last train was talking about. The guy across the way said he was from Honduras. He was asked for his passport and asked a few questions. Mr. Honduras said, in mostly Spanish, that he arrived one year ago on a tourist visa. All his papers were in Chicago. The agent moved on to talk to someone else and another agent, one who could speak Spanish this time, asked Mr. Honduras the same questions. This time the answer was that he'd been here for five years. They ran his ID, the two border patrol agents compared answers, and it was off the train with him. Here I'd lived in California for forty years and I had to go to New York to see an illegal alien bust.

I wanted to record the whole thing, but I figured reaching down in the dark for my camera while the border patrol was busting someone may not have been the best idea in the world. I really need to carry some kind of recorder that I can keep hidden on me at all times for when the crazy stuff happens.


Go to June 15th.