Troubling on so many levels

“Are we having fun yet?” takes on a whole new meaning at the Eco Alberto Park in Ixmiquilpan, Mexico. It’s a theme park where for $10 a night, tourists pretend to be migrants trying to cross the border into the United States without immigration papers.

“They come to the Eco Alberto Park to be shot at, chased and to wade through fast-flowing rivers. The plan is simple. We are the migrants and we are being chased by fake border patrols. A bit further on, the real heavy stuff began. The shooting, I mean. They had assured us that the fake border guards were using blanks, but they certainly sounded real. You know it is a kind of game, but all of a sudden it takes on a realism I had not expected. Bang! And yet another shot and yet another shout. Sirens too. We are told by Poncho to stand up. It is to witness an arrest. The migrants that have been ‘captured’ are taken away. Yes, already for two of our group, the evening is over.”

“Amnesty International has criticised the whole thing as trivialising the lives of real migrants. But Poncho [one of the park “guides”] does not see it like that. “It is serious,” he says, “and it is our way of paying homage to those who seek a better life in America.”

Oh, dear.

How very much the United States has changed since the Statue of Liberty’s inscription was written.