An Alien Country Vs Non Immigrant Residents

This is about my visit to the state of New Mexico, a state next to Texas and sharing the border with Mexico. I had to visit this place called Silver City which is close to Texas and very close to Mexico border. The closest airport that I had to take was the El Paso International Airport in Texas 3 hours away from Silver City. The journey from Boston started as early as 4am on a sunday and ended at 5:30 pm local time in Silver City with connections in Chicago and Denver and the the drive from El Paso to final destination. It was heck of a travel. I traveled in three different time zones in one day. I was not able to keep track of the time since my watch, which I ad adjusted to CST was showing a different time than my cell phone. In Denver I almost thought I lost my connecting this flight because of this confusion, I thought I had only 10 minutes left for my connecting flight to depart.

The Chicago aiport and the Denver airport looked like an international one but not the El Paso. El Paso is right at the US and Mexico border (this fact will come into picture later here). I could see more of spanish speaking people instead of english speaking, which was expected because of it's proximity to New Mexico and Mexico. The one thing I was looking forward to in this trip was the Mexican food. I like mexican food with all the rice, different kinds of beans, vegetables and sour cream and guacamole with chips and salsa. They make their dishes taste better with a side dish of guacamole and salsa at times. Being a vegetarian, I can think of satisfying my hunger only with these things and i find them yummyyy...

The drive from El Paso to Silver City was full of adventure and trust me on that, it was. The traffic was not that bad and I had to drive for a stretch of 96 miles on US 180 West. The higway seemed very dry with close to no stop areas in between and the sign boards saying "USE CAUTION, DUST STORMS IN NEXT FEW MILES POSSIBLE" and the others saying "ZERO VISIBIITY POSSBILE". I kept thinking about how dust storms were in India and how well we were used to those. But here, it was not a very common thing. This area looked deserted with only mountains as far as you could see. The sun was on top of my head and it was strong enough to tan me even with windows of my car closed and A/C on to the maximum.

The drivers were not that bad and I could not see a single cop car around so people were driving 10-15 miles above the speed limit and the speed limit there was not less than 70 miles on the higway. I felt like I am going to a place where I would not even find anything to eat, a place where the life would be riding on horse back and going to work, a place where the most fun thing you could do would be climbing a mountain on a weekend or get yourself tanned in your backyard. No signs of life better than this occured to me during the 3 hour drive.

The drive was pretty smooth though, my car was in cruise for most of the time while I listened to my favorite songs until I was stopped at a check post by US border police. That's what I think they were. So here one person comes and stops me, while letting others go. I guess the reason was I am BROWN but I will not hold on to this reason as there can be many security related reasons for this. He asked if I was US citizen or a permenant resident and I am none of those. So he asked me what status I was on here in US. Unfortunately, I was not carrying my passport with my VISA details on it and my company ID.

I never needed those documents earlier when I was traveling to different places but this was just a different world altogther. I was asked to pull over so they can let the other traffic behind me go. So I was asked to present all kinds of documents, right from my passport, company ID and the SSN card. "God, why would I need to carry all these documents if I am in US on a valid status with a valid DL", I thought to myself. I was scared to spit it out on the guard. The look on their faces when I mentioned that I am not carrying any of those documents was as if they are about to say, "You are not carrying your documents, sorry we will have to shoot you dead".

The funny thing that happened here was the fact that the guard could not find my name on my DL. I thought being a US CITIZEN one would know where the name of a person is written on a DL. Anyways, they did some check using my DL and came to me just to tell me that I could be deported back to India or charged a fine if I don't carry all these documents. Can someone go over the immigration rules with me here please???

That was the moment all my charm to be in a different country other than my own, faded. It was the moment that actually showed me the meaning of what "Your Country" means. I don't know how many would realize this and when, if at all they realize it but it makes you think what you are doing in an ALIEN land where you do not have an identity and you could be taken down for not carrying every minute details about your existense. I was really nervous a little for being pulled over and thought of being deported back just because of these reasons made me more worried. It felt like I am traveling within the US borders, illegally. But I do not blame them, while they were just doing their duty, I saw other vehicles passing by me without any issues. I learned my lesson.

The only intent behind writing this was to make myself and the readers realize that whatever they do to be in any part of the world as a legal citizen except their own country, they will be considered alien residents. Think about it!!!