Illegal crossers' last try: brazen dash through city

After failing in the desert, hope remains of breaching urban border

By Brady McCombs

ARIZONA DAILY STAR

NOGALES, Sonora — Gabino Ibarra leans against a white stucco wall outside a church in the late-afternoon shadows, prying a few remaining cactus splinters from his calloused hands.

It's mid-April and the 37-year-old father of four from Veracruz, Mexico, is staying at a migrant shelter, resting from three weeks of failed attempts to cross illegally into the United States through the Altar Desert near Sasabe.

The grueling desert treks have left Ibarra 17 pounds lighter and less enthusiastic about his northern quest than when he left Veracruz, more than a thousand miles away in southeastern Mexico. But, he planned to make one last-ditch effort. Like many before him, he will try to scale the steel fence that marks the international line in Nogales.

"This will be the last try," he says in Spanish. "So I don't have to go home defeated."

For would-be-illegal border crossers who have failed to slip into the United States through remote deserts and mountains, the imposing urban border can start to look beatable.