Piled into a white van driving along the United States-Mexico border, the young men and one woman beheld the wall and weighed just how easily it could be conquered.
Isaac Antonio did not seem impressed.
“That’s easily climbable,” the 20-year-old declared.
Their chaperon, a Border Patrol agent, called out from behind the wheel: “Good luck, bro! I’m sure you can, but good luck.”
As debate swirled, Antonio described ways that the 30-foot-high wall could be defeated, which prompted the lone woman to finally ask in faux suspicion: “Are you from Mexico?”
Most of the nearly dozen participants in the El Centro Sector Border Patrol citizens’ academy were, in fact, of Mexican descent. And the mood was light as they learned about an agency they one day hoped to join.
President Trump has called for hiring 5,000 more Border Patrol agents as part of his war on illegal immigration. If that happens, the academy in this Imperial Valley town last month offered a snapshot of many of those likely to apply: Latinos….
Read more in the Los Angeles Times.