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State-of-the-art shoes aid migrants

By Amy Isackson The World programme, San Diego

Judi Werthein is handing out free "crossing trainers" to migrants

Declarations of emergency in US border states like Arizona and New Mexico have kicked the immigration debate into high gear.

Artist Judi Werthein has walked smack into the middle of this controversy.

She is hoping to leave her footprint with a special "crossing trainer" she has designed to help illegal immigrants negotiate the sometimes deadly terrain they encounter when crossing the border from Mexico to the US.

Migrants waiting for dark to hop the border fence from Tijuana into San Diego start calling out their shoe sizes when they see the boxes in Werthein's arms.

People start emerging from their makeshift homes in rusted cars and the cement channel that runs parallel to the border fence and drains Tijuana's fetid run-off.

Some have been waiting for months in this no-man's land for their chance to cross into San Diego.

Tarantula risk

They call the act of crossing the "brinco" - literally "jump" in Spanish. And that is the inspiration for Werthein's crossing shoes, called Brincos.

The trainers are adorned with unusual items.

"The shoe includes a compass, a flashlight because people cross at night, and inside is included also some Tylenol painkillers because many people get injured during crossing," Werthein says. (emphases added)

The trainers are equipped with a compass, light, map and painkillers

I think I'll just go and take a Tylenol myself..

By the way, how do you scream, "SIZE 10, Judi!!!" in Spanish?








(Filed under the fifth column, Reconquista!)