What’s the best swimming stroke for entering a country illegally? The Butterfly would tire out all but the strongest migrant too quickly. The Backstroke can be difficult to execute for the inexperienced. The Crawl has a simple, reliable elegance, but that classic might prove tough if you’ve got, say, a duffle bag of belongings attached to your wrist. More importantly, do transgender illegal immigrant women swimmers have any inherent physical advantages over undocumented birthing migrants?
That’s about all the satire possible with this one, because Spanish language network Univision is hyping free swimming lessons for Nicaraguans fixin’ to swim the Rio Grande and enter the U.S. MRC Latino colleague Jorge Bonilla writes that Edicion Digital midday newscast interviewed the guy offering the amphibious course and thought it was all just super. Yep.
Univision anchor Carolina Sarassa explained the importance of the service:
Obviously, when people see the Rio Grande it looks very calm, still waters- like a pool. However, there are many currents which are very dangerous.
So rather than warning aspiring border-hoppers not to risk life and limb while committing a crime, Univision’s telling them where they can bone up before taking the plunge.
You can’t make this up.