Cantú’s unwillingness to cry indicates that he has become accustomed to suppressing his emotions as a result of his emotionally taxing work on the border. This, in turn, hampers his ability to live a full human life, for instance by crying for an injured friend. In addition, the contrast between the unceremonious deaths of migrants on the border and Morales’s condition in a hospital, surrounded by friends and family, speaks to the different value given to human lives depending on what side of the U.S.–Mexico border a person comes from.