NEW YORK—SHE might have taken comfort from Hillary Clinton’s January 11th statement in Las Vegas, Nevada, that “no woman is illegal” but Aling Prosing, short for Proserpina, still shudders whenever she has to enter a tunnel.

She remembers abruptly one black evening when she crossed from Mexico to the US a week after leaving Manila. She was 60 years old then, in the company of three other Filipinas, all in their early to mid-30s. “They were lucky I was with them,” she said. “Otherwise, they would have been raped, or worse.”

Unusual story

The US Census Bureau estimates that 155,239 undocumented aliens come from the Philippines—insignificant compared to 3,871,912 Mexicans. “Illegals” increase at the rate of 500,000 per year and the current total estimate is over 18 million, which is still so miniscule relative to the total population of 350 million that one is hard pressed to appreciate the current anti-immigrant hysteria. Border crossers are characterized as traffickers, drug smugglers, terrorists – just about anything – except Aling Prosing.

Her unusual story began with her husband getting religion. He became so spiritual he eschewed things of this world, even his job. And while Aling Prosing had a small bakery, what she made wasn’t enough to cover mortgage payments on their house and the upkeep of 10 children. “I was proud,” she said, “I didn’t want to lose our house. I didn’t want to go back to renting.”

Over the next five years, her story would carom from one absurdity to another. Her first US visa was legal and she worked for two years in Long Island, New York, managing to pay off the mortgage and maintain her family. She got homesick, returned to the Philippines, handed her passport and visa to her eldest daughter, telling her to take her place. Unfortunately, daughter couldn’t abide Long Island’s isolation and returned to Manila. Aling Prosing was at wit’s end. “I promised my employer,” she said. “Also, nagalaw ko na ang bahay (I had altered the house)! It was being re-done. I had to finish the repairs, the construction…”

Off she went to San Francisco, where the immigration officer asked why she was returning after only six months. She couldn’t say it wasn’t she who went in and out the last time. “I had no logical reply.” She was placed on the first plane back to Manila, losing the cost of her ticket and her visa.

She could not re-apply. “I had a record already.” Somehow she found a connection, an airline employee who worked with a travel agency. The fee was kind of shocking - “two hundred thousand pesos!” Where to get the money? The house was hocked again, for P250,000. “I wanted to leave the 50,000 for the children.”

Off to Mexico

The agency made her use her unmarried name. It applied for a visa for her—but not to the US, to Mexico. What that meant escaped her. “I thought we would then fly to Los Angeles,” she said. She would be traveling with three other women and they were all to act like they were relatives on a family vacation, maybe mother and daughters. The airline employee’s husband met them in Mexico City. “First thing he did was collect our tickets,” said Aling Prosing. “I suppose the return ticket would be cashed in, even though we paid it.”

For seven days, they did the tourist stuff, making their way toward the state of Sonora which flanked the US border. In Sonora, the husband collected them from the hotel, piled them into a car and they were off. “We kept driving and driving and driving.” She didn’t know they were heading for Agua Prieta, which had become a hub for “illegal” entry into the US since border patrols were beefed up at traditional crossing points.

At Agua Prieta, the husband collected 200,000 pesos from each. Then he handed them over to a “guide.” He was swarthy, not very tall but very muscular and also very quick and rough in movement. He led them to an underground drainage pipe. The Agua Prieta opening was supposedly sealed by a corrugated steel sheet but the lower end had been pried up. “I had to lie on my back and slither my way in,” Aling Prosing recounted. Inside, it was pitch black. “No variation like shadows or grays; just black as black could be. I twined my arm around the guide’s arm and seized hold of his jacket’s lapel. I wrapped my hand in it.” Why? “He was moving so fast. We could barely keep up. What if he ran off into the dark? We’d get lost there.”

Tucson, Arizona

They walked for hours. Aling Prosing felt river rocks under her feet, smelled the pungency of things submerged that had dried. Even during their short breaks, she would not release the guide. Near dawn, they reached another opening—but this was 30 feet overhead. They would have to clamber up rocks. She made the younger women go up first, then begged the guide to push her up. “I didn’t care what part of my body he pushed against—my behind, my you-know… ” All her muscles trembled, her heart pounded. Exhausted, she pulled herself out of the hole, collapsed on the ground and found herself looking at a highway. And there was a car with headlights flashing off and on. Her companions had rushed off, leaving her prostrate. It was 147 miles to Tucson, Arizona.

It would be that way between her and the three women. After an overnight rest, they were taken to the Tucson airport. “I needed some dollars but they wouldn’t change my pesos. I never saw them again,” she said.

Six months later, a sudden heavy downpour overflowed the Agua Prieta drainage pipe. Five men and one woman drowned. Three men, two women and a 3-year-old managed to ride out the flood by clinging to a ladder inside the tunnel.