La Migra

As some people may know I used to live in Utah. It was a little place called Wendover. A border town. I lived in Utah and had a casino just down the street. Maybe four blocks away. It was kind of nice to live in a town with casinos because it was never very difficult to get a job. In fact, the town had become something of a destination for illegal immigrants. Probably because of the whole two state thing. I mean I bet it's way harder to track someone who is working in one state and living in another.

So basically the town is dependent upon the illegal immigrants and things really don't run very smoothly without it. If you've ever seen "A Day Without a Mexican" then let me tell you, I've seen a week.

He ran in yelling, "La migra, la migra." It would be the headline of the local paper that week. After that was yelled the workers cleared out. It was amazing to watch the population just disappear. Well, not entirely disappear, because I could see the fires up in the hills where everyone had gathered to hide out until immigration left the city.

School started that week. Well, I should say that the school opened up. There was a problem, though. Half of the students didn't show up for the first day. So not a lot of teaching went on because all of the teachers knew that when immigration left all of the students would be back and they'd have to teach everything all over again.

Back in the casinos business didn't stop, it just became very difficult to keep things going. It was so bad, in fact, that the CEO of the two most profitable casinos in town was not able to do any of his CEO duties but instead had to spend his time washing dishes. His thirteen year-old son, my friend, worked in the restaurant that week too.

That was a week that I don't think I'll ever forget. Once it was done everyone came back into town and things went back to how they were before, like nothing had ever happened.