The Devil Is Loose.
By: California Sunday
Tags: Immigration, Features, Texas, Mexico, Refugees

For the paramedics in Laredo, Texas, the only event more concerning than a Dallas Cowboys’ loss is a fight night. Saturday, May 7, the eve of Mother’s Day, was fight night. Throughout the afternoon, the cemeteries were full of people carrying flowers to their mothers’ tombstones, bright tributes laid down in the searing heat. That evening, much of the town gathered around flat screens to watch the Mexican champion Canelo Álvarez and a British contender named Amir Khan slug it out for the middleweight title. Not many were rooting for Khan.

Before the fight started, I joined the medics at Station 7, down by the Rio Grande next to a rough neighborhood nicknamed Las Canta Ranas — The Singing Frogs. Pickup trucks were parked diagonally out back, near an unused weight rack. Inside the station, air conditioning blasted, and men sat around the dining-room table in blue Laredo Fire Department uniforms. Behind them, on the wall, was a sign featuring an owl that read WE NEVER SLEEP.

The TV was on. The TV is always on in the fire stations, streaming sports highlights, car-buying shows, life-hacking shows, and action movies. Now it was showing a Jurassic Park sequel — dinosaurs racing around onscreen, a woman running to her truck. Alfred de la Cruz, a 5-foot-6 paramedic who goes by Fred and has his kids’ names tattooed on his forearms, nodded at the TV and said, “There’s no way that jeep starts.”

Fernando Mata cackled. Thirty-eight with a wide-open smile and a spherical physique, Mata (nobody calls him Fernando) is revered in the station. He had entered the profession as a 110-pound single father on food stamps, but that was a lot of 911 calls and Whataburgers ago. He served himself some ice cream and told a story about the time when he nearly choked to death while fishing with his paramedic friend Bobby. “Bobby shows up with some double cheeseburgers,” Mata said. “We grab ’em like animals. BOOM! We get ’em, right? It was a complete occlusion.” Mata signaled to Bobby that he was choking, Bobby gave him a Heimlich thrust, and the burger popped out. Point being that they were calm because of their training. “It was so funny,” Mata said. “I call Bobby my fat angel. He’s fatter than me.”

First responders love gallows humor, and I heard a lot of stories like this when I spent time with the paramedics of Laredo this past spring. I was accompanying them because they have an unusually clear view of the most politicized stretch of land in the country: the U.S.-Mexico border. Located in southwest Texas on the Rio Grande, Laredo is one of the least diverse cities in the country — its population is 96 percent Latino. According to the census, that adds up to 255,000 souls. But this figure accounts for only the documented. The actual number, everyone told me, is closer to 300,000. Just across the river is Nuevo Laredo, a city of nearly 400,000 dominated by the Zetas drug cartel.

Like all border towns, Laredo is swamped by law enforcement. Uniforms are everywhere: the olive green of Border Patrol, or La Migra, which has about 1,600 agents in the area; the navy blue of Customs and Border Protection, whose agents check the documentation of people crossing Laredo’s five bridges. There are sheriff’s officers, constables, and highway patrol; in less public view, three for-profit detention facilities employ a small force of correctional officers. Working for La Migra or in a private prison can be a complicated arrangement in a town that’s almost entirely Latino — steady employment with the whiff of betrayal. Paramedics, on the other hand, are legally bound to treat anyone in need. The only questions they ask concern a patient’s medical history. Border Patrol agents get spit as a topping at a local takeout joint; paramedics get discounts.

A blue light lit up overhead and an automated female voice intoned, “Ambulance, special duty.” Fred rose. He sometimes calls himself the Angel of Death, because when he is on the R.Q., or rescue unit, bad things tend to happen. Two nights earlier, he had transported two patients who eventually died. The electronic voice above continued, “Patient with a low sugar dose,” and everyone sighed. It was just a frequent flier — a regular, someone who occasionally calls in with low blood sugar, dizziness, or general exhaustion.

Fred left, lights flashing and sirens wailing. The fight started, and calls sped up. A boy was hit in the face with a baseball bat. A woman complaining of fatigue turned out to be a heroin addict. Fred had to break down a door to reach a guy who’d been beaten to a pulp. Cars wrecked. Then a call came in. Something about a girl at the mouth of Chacon Creek. Something down by the river.

The medics have a saying for nights like this: Se suelto el diablo. The devil is loose.