Many people trying to cross the border have not had the same luck. Their efforts to leave the situations they find themselves in only cause them a different kind of pain. The lack of security of these people was astonishing. Much like Jessie, I was impressed by Anazulda's description of life there and the realistic portrayal of what it was like to live there. As Natalie said, I also loved the realistic writing that Anazulda brought to this piece. She did not seek to soften the tone or make it lighter than the reality of the situations. She brought the reality of what happened there to life in her writing, which I greatly admire. The images Brooke points out in Borderlands on page 2 are such a clear picture of being trapped in a place you can't escape from. Although I hadn't thought of curtains in this way, I understand the reasoning behind the idea. Curtains are meant to provide privacy and shelter from the outside world. Yet these steel curtains are prisons, preventing those nearby from escaping. As Jessie pointed out, the United States is governed to protect the rights of every American citizen, including each of us. Nonetheless, Anazulda and many others who attempt to cross the border may be subject to the rules of those who live near the borders and not the laws of the United States that are in place to protect them. I didn't think about the call for unity as Natalie described it until I read her essay. Even if she does not take the situations caused in the United States lightly, she nevertheless leaves the impression of hope that we can remedy them. We can make these borders less like walls that divide us, and we can make traveling to our country less terrible and less horrible.