For people who don't travel internationally for work, such travel can sound glamorous.

The image is often of first-class flights, high-end meals, expense accounts, top-quality hotels, and nice vehicles with drivers.

Well, it ain't always so. In fact, it ain't even often so. Yesterday, I went to Mexico again for the umpteenth time this year. With emphasis on "teenth." I have lost track of how many times I have been this year, but it is probably between 15 and 19.

Here's glamour for you: Last night my dinner was a tuna sandwich of questionable age and origin, and a pack of Fig Newtons, both of which I bought at a gas station near Camp Pendleton and ate while I was driving home in a rental car.

I left the house at 7:45 am yesterday, drove to Tijuana, Rosarito, and Ensenada, and spent the day with our partner looking at potential sites for our Mexican affordable housing development program.

Along the way, I met hungry dogs and beggars, and was reminded that in Mexico, catalytic converters are as rare as a three-headed snake...so your choices are (a) breathe the toxic fumes belching from buses, trucks, and cars, or (b) don't breathe.

I got the rental car back to LAX at 11:30pm or so, and Holly very generously came out to pick me up (after she had already done her daily round trip of 107 miles!) saving me a trip on a rental company bus to the LAX terminal, and then waiting at the terminal for a taxi. This is really not intended to be whining; I like my job a lot and am lucky to have it...it was just a long-a**ed day yesterday.

Earlier in the evening, as I waited an hour and a quarter in the border crossing line, I was contemplating immigration.

I was wondering about the following: Poor people who intend to sneak across the border to the US often pay "Coyotes" (human smugglers) thousands of dollars to guide them on an incredibly risky trip across a remote area of border-area dessert, where people who are not caught by the Border Patrol often die from exposure, starvation, etc.

But why don't these folks pay for Mexican travel documents, legitimate or otherwise, that would allow them to come into the USA as a "tourist" from Mexico? Then, they could do what they normally do if they survive their trip here: either work without papers, or buy forged papers to get a higher-paying job.

I am not an expert on buying fake travel documents in Mexico, but I know for fact that papers can be had, legitimate or otherwise, for far less than the $3,000-$6,000 that is paid to the Coyotes. Think about how easy it is for Mexican business people and wealthy citizens to come into the US for business or vacations. (It's very easy; I know several of them who do so with regularity.) They simply have travel documents that poor people do not have. But those travel documents, if procured legitimately, cost only about $200.

The easy one is a Mexican Passport. All citizens in Mexico can get one if they have the peso equivalent of about $100. There hard one is a Visa granted by the US Embassy; it's also about $100, but you have to "prove" that you are not going to stay in the US to work. This can be done with Mexican paystubs, diplomas, etc. I guarantee you that for less than a couple thousand bucks in Mexico you could get some great "papers" to show that you are absolutely coming back to Mexico after your US vacation. And you could buy a very nice outfit to wear for your trip to the US Embassy.

I am not trying to encourage fraud here; I am simply asking a question: After someone has already decided to break the law to come into our country, why do they pay a huge premium AND literally risk their lives to run with a "Coyote", when they could simply secure papers that would enable them to walk across any border check point, proudly show their papers to a US Border patrol agent, and say, "I am coming to the USA to visit my friends for a week!"

I could speculate on some of the answers (fear, lack of knowledge on the process, and illiteracy), but I have gone on long enough here. Sorry, I can't resist one last point: With respect to fear, which should be more frightening: dying of thirst and hunger in a desert, or getting caught with fake papers at the border?