The Illegal Alien Theme Park

Theme parks are for entertainment, rides and adventures, but in Mexico the adventure you "enjoy" is a simulated illegal crossing of the U.S. border:

EL ALBERTO, MEXICO - Sirens wail, and Rosa Estrada charges down a dirt path, down the side of a mud bank, then picks her way silently across the stinking, swampy earth.

"Get under the bushes!" someone barks in a whisper in the blackness of the night. "Immigration is coming!"

Twenty Mexicans scramble to the ground, crouching among thick branches and brambles.

"Hello, this is border patrol," booms a voice in English. Red and blue lights streak the sky overhead. In Spanish: "Are you Mexicans? It's too dangerous to cross the river. Remember your kids and families at home."

Ms. Estrada lies still, breathing quietly.

She is not on her way to "El Norte." About 700 miles from the US-Mexican border, she has paid $18 at a park in the central state of Hidalgo that offers a simulated experience of a migrant crossing.

Welcome to Mexico's take on adventure tourism, a five-hour trek that goes well past midnight. Residents pay to walk in mud past their ankles, balance on ledges – in pitch black – that drop steeply, and sprint across corn fields, kicking up dirt and rocks as they run from fake US border patrol officers dressed in camouflage.

The park was begun by the Hñahñu, an indigenous community in El Alberto that has been decimated by immigration to the US. Bernardino Martin, El Alberto's municipal leader, says the attraction has been criticized by some people as a training ground for would-be illegal immigrants.

This is little more than boot camp for wannbe border crossers. Otherwise, there's no reason for people to shell out money to participate.