The Cost of an Illegal U.S. Entry Truths
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MEN’S STYLE FRIDA KAHLO SEA CHANGES IT’S COOL TO BE DECIPHERING HER WILL WARMER WATERS A SUBURBAN DAD SINGULAR STYLE END THE LOBSTER BOOM? PAGE 10 | SPECIAL REPORT PAGE 18 | CULTURE PAGE 12 | BUSINESS .. INTERNATIONAL EDITION | THURSDAY, JULY 5, 2018 World Cup On ground and lessons and online, in parenting a counter Pamela Druckerman to Russia Contributing Writer ORZYSZ, POLAND OPINION U.S. military strengthens PARIS I consider it a credit to my independence of spirit that despite ties with NATO to thwart being married to a journalist who might and disinformation covers soccer and raising several young soccer fanatics, I’ve managed to BY ERIC SCHMITT absorb practically nothing about the sport. I can sit alongside them as they Soon after a United States Army convoy hoot and moan at players on TV, then crossed Poland’s border into Lithuania still ask, after an hour, “Wait, are Spain during a major military exercise last the red ones?” (Similarly, when I month, two very strange things hap- played softball as a kid, I’d forget pened. whether I’d just batted and run to first First, four Army Stryker armored ve- base or whether I was the first base- hicles collided, sending 15 soldiers to the man.) hospital with minor injuries. But hours Despite this, I’ve come to appreciate later, an anti-American blog claimed a soccer, and especially this year’s World child was killed and posted a photo of the Cup. It’s partly the free babysitting. accident. Lithuanian media quickly de- While my husband is in Russia for five nounced the blog post as a doctored weeks covering the tournament, I’ve fake, designed to turn public opinion relaxed our usual screen-time rules against the Americans and their Baltic and let my kids ally. It’s been four watch every match The bloggers had borrowed a page years since until bedtime. (I from the playbook of Russia’s so-called recently expanded hybrid warfare, which American offi- I’ve had this this to include the cials say increasingly combines the abil- much free extensive pregame ity to manipulate events using a mix of time. and postgame com- subterfuge, cyberattacks and informa- mentaries.) It has CHANG W. LEE/THE NEW YORK TIMES tion warfare with conventional military been years — four, to A Border Patrol checkpoint north of McAllen, Tex., in a band of territory where officers have grown more aggressive in their search for unauthorized immigrants. might. be precise — since I’ve had this much The military exercise, which involved free time. 18,000 American and allied troops, of- My affection for the World Cup isn’t fers a window into how Army command- purely selfish; I also think it’s good for ers are countering not just Russian kids. I’d heard that a few desperate troops and tanks, but also twisted fans jump off buildings when their The cost of an illegal U.S. entry truths. The exercise occurred as Presi- team loses a key match — hardly the dent Trump is sidling up to Moscow by kind of loyalty I want to inspire in my MATAMOROS, MEXICO them back $6,500 more. bad-mouthing NATO, calling for Russia offspring. In fact, my husband calcu- It was an almost inconceivable to be readmitted into the Group of 7 in- lates that there are fewer suicides in amount of money for someone who dustrialized nations and planning a the month that a European country’s earned just a few dollars a day picking summit meeting with President national team plays in a World Cup, Bribes and shakedowns, coffee beans back home. But he wasn’t Vladimir V. Putin of Russia this month. thanks to a generalized feeling of com- weighing the benefits of a higher-paying American commanders say they are munity and togetherness. (There’s no days spent without food job. He was fleeing violence and what he tuning out Mr. Trump’s comments — pent-up spike in suicides after that and, always, the fear said was near-certain death at the hands strengthening ties to allied armies, in- month, either.) Even losing unites of local gangs. creasing the number of troops and spies people, because they join in a high- BY NICHOLAS KULISH “There’s no other option,” Mr. Cruz devoted to Russia, and embracing De- stakes drama whose outcome they said. “The first thought I had was, ‘I just fense Secretary Jim Mattis’s newest de- know is, ultimately, inconsequential. Shortly before dawn one Sunday last need to get out of here at whatever fense strategy that focuses more on po- “It’s a very safe escape from things August, a driver in an S.U.V. picked up cost.’” tential threats from Russia and China that really matter, which is almost Christopher Cruz at a stash house in this The stretch of southwest border and less on terrorism. everything else in life,” he said. border city near the Gulf of Mexico. The where he intended to cross has become “The Russians are actively seeking to That “everything else” currently 22-year-old from El Salvador was glad the center of the raging battle over the divide our alliance, and we must not al- includes the dangerous nationalism to leave the one-story building, where Trump administration’s immigration low that to happen,” Dan Coats, the di- taking root in Europe and the United smugglers kept bundles of cocaine and crackdown. One clear consequence of rector of national intelligence, warned States, by which immigrants and other marijuana alongside their human cargo, the tightening American border and the separately in a speech in France the day foreigners are dehumanized and but he was anxious about what lay growing perils getting there is that more after the June 7 accident in Lithuania. scapegoated, and leaders claim that ahead. and more desperate families are turning Over the past year, the United States certain countries are intrinsically The driver deposited Mr. Cruz at an il- to increasingly sophisticated smuggling CHRISTOPHER LEE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES and its NATO allies completed posi- worse. The World Cup, by contrast, legal crossing point on the edge of the operations to get relatives into the As Christopher Cruz made his way to the American border, his smugglers sometimes tioning about 4,500 soldiers in the three offers an alternative, positive and Rio Grande. A smuggler took a smart- United States. identified him by a numeric code or an assumed name or simply as “the package.” Baltic States and Poland, and have sta- tolerant form of nationalism in which phone photograph to confirm his iden- Mr. Cruz’s story provides an unusual- tioned several thousand other armored you can cheer on your own country tity and sent it using WhatsApp to a ly detailed anatomy of the price of the troops mostly in Eastern Europe as a de- without denigrating people from else- driver waiting to pick him up on the journey. The money paid for a network guides abandon some migrants who he said, referring to American officials. terrent to Russian aggression. where. other side of the frontier when — if — he of drivers who concealed him in tractor- could not keep up and guards prod oth- “They can send as many soldiers to the In Brussels, allied defense ministers Indeed, watching the World Cup made it across. trailers and minibuses, a series of ers to become drug mules. Sometimes border as they want, but a people’s need met recently in advance of a NATO sum- almost always means identifying with The nearly 2,000-mile trip had al- houses where he hid out, handlers tied the smugglers identified him by a nu- and desire for a better life is stronger.” mit meeting this month and approved a DRUCKERMAN, PAGE 17 ready cost Mr. Cruz’s family more than to criminal organizations who arranged meric code, other times by an assumed President Trump and his supporters plan to ensure that by 2020, at least $6,000 and gotten him within sight of his passage, and bribes for Mexican po- name. But as often as not, they simply have called for greater vigilance along 30,000 troops, plus additional attack The New York Times publishes opinion Brownsville, Tex. The remaining 500 lice officers to look the other way as he called him “the package,” to be moved the border to keep out people like Mr. planes and warships, can respond to ag- from a wide range of perspectives in miles to Houston — terrain prowled by passed. for profit like an illicit good. Cruz, a low-skilled worker who followed gressions within 30 days. hopes of promoting constructive debate the United States Border Patrol as well Even with his family’s payment, he For Mr. Cruz, it was worth it. “They in the path of other family members who These tensions are part of an expand- about consequential questions. as the state and local police — would set slept amid filth and vermin. He watched can build as many walls as they want,” MIGRANT, PAGE 6 MILITARY, PAGE 5 Out of sight, but still in the game MYKONOS, GREECE Kalo Livadi beach, the beach club, which includes a restaurant, a bar and a foot- ball field’s worth of sand, is a serene sprawl of wood decks, lush canopies and Lindsay Lohan is putting overstuffed chaise longues. On the lazy, winding ride there — all of the cabs in her past behind her, except Mykonos seem to cost 35 euros and ar- that she’s still making films rive no sooner than 30 minutes after they’re called — the driver described BY GABRIELLE BLUESTONE the club as a genuine island success.