New Border Security Measures Not a Big Deal to Me

I've never lived more than 15 miles from the Mexico/United States border in my entire life. I grew up in the border city of Laredo, and visiting Mexico is something that my family and I do on a monthly basis. The food is great, the medicines are cheaper, and we even have relatives that live right across the Rio Grande.

On February 2, 2008, a Saturday, my grandma decided that she needed to go see my uncle across to drop off some things that she had bought for him, and asked my aunt, my sister, and me if we would like to go along with her. Of course, knowing that the new requisites for crossing back would be in place, I jumped at the idea of going.

The crossing into Mexico really didn't change much at all. We drove to the border, and waited till it was our turn to pay the toll to cross into Mexico, like always. Once that was done we were able to drive on the bridge with ease, as there were very few cars going to Mexico; that isn't rare though. Once we were about to enter Mexico, we drove past this inspection station in which we were asked what are plans were while in Mexico, and if we were taking anything that needed to be declared as well. We answered no, and went about our afternoon, visiting with my uncle and cousins and having some tacos for lunch.

A couple of hours after that my grandma decided that she was tired, and since we'd seen the bridge lines back to the U.S. on our way into Mexico we decided that we better head home now, otherwise we'd be waiting in line until all hours of the night. Now, my uncles house is only about two blocks from the bridge, we are lucky enough to be able to turn from that same block onto the line, instead of having to start all the way from the end of it; the end of the line to cross back into the U.S. was about 15 blocks from my uncles house at that time.

To make my long story short after that, it took us about one hour and thirty minutes to get to the U.S. inspection booths where they would ask for a document that would verify our identity as U.S. citizens. My grandmother took out her driver's license, my aunt displayed her U.S. passport, I showed my Texas I.D., and my sister took out her birth certificate. The U.S. Customs agent checked all of our documents out, and said that they were all acceptable. He also asked what our visit to Mexico pertained to, and when we told him, he said "Go ahead," and we drove through.

To me this is nothing out of the ordinary. I understand why it's being done, as I had always questioned why the only thing we had to say before was "U.S. citizen" to cross into the United States from Mexico. To me, that was not a secure border at all, as anyone could say that with ease after practicing a couple of times. I really appreciate what the United States is doing to guard against illegal aliens, and although I think that the lines will be longer, and the time to come back to the U.S. will be greater, I think it is all worth it.