Thousands of people risk their lives crossing the Badlands from the NUSA every month; each man, woman and even child undertaking the expensive, illegal and perilous journey to take their shot at reaching the land of wine and honey.
The collapse of the USA and the subsequent reunification wars had done little to help the ailing prospects of Middle America; its lands were suffering from Desertification, failing infrastructure and roving bands of Warlords.
President Myers may have ushered in a reconstruction period, but there wasn't enough money and interest in helping the little guy.
Night City offered those little people an opportunity, a glimpse at a quality of life that their generation will never possess in the NUSA, and where there was hope, scum found opportunity.
Coyotes are worse than your average ganger, and though you might be exaggerating, you held them in the same contempt as you did the Raffen Shiv; they were brutal creatures.
It didn't matter if you paid good coin; if you were a man, your end destination was either a sweatshop or organ harvesting plant.
For women, it was much worse, rapings, forced prostitution, the lucky ones were turned into Dolls, and the unfortunate would end up starring in some scavenger snuff film.
Yet, that was not why Night City cracked down so hard on illegal immigration; it was spiralling crime, overstressed infrastructure and constant outbreaks of plague, all hampering the City's ability to grow.
So that's why they hired Arasaka, and you were partly here, to ensure these souls and their dreams of a better tomorrow ended before they reached the freeway.
They flinched and cowered beneath the one-eyed gaze of your machine gun; you must have looked like a monster straight out of a NUSA propaganda flick, a black-clad stormtrooper, here to brutalise America on behalf of their Japanese paymasters.
The Slav and the American were already in deep discussion, confident you had a handle on the illegals, whom the Slav threatened with a gruesome death if they tried to make a run for it; they argued over the kneeling form of the Coyote.
Then, they were silent; the only thing you could hear was the engine of your vehicle, the harsh desert winds that scratched and pelted the huddled masses of illegals, and the sand crunching underfoot of the Slav as he walked up to you.
BANG
You jolted in your position, shifting the machinegun to point at the source of the sudden gunshot, staring wide-eyed at your American co-worker; submachine gun holstered and who stood with a one-round lighter handgun, his face masked beneath a balaclava staring at the Coyote's corpse.
It was not a pretty sight; the man had pressed the gun right against the weaponless prisoner's head before discharging, the trapped gasses expanding outwards through his skull and creating a more gruesome exit wound; bits of skull and brain matter painting the sands a few feet ahead of the cooling body.
"Hose them down, yes?"
The Slav's request was cruel, inhumane, and absent of compassion, but spoken in a tone you would use when asking a co-worker to buy you some coffee when they went on break; the lives of these illegals mattered little to them.
"What the fuck?"
You admit you were put off-guard; you had never been in this situation before; yes, you've discharged a gun before, and yes, you've probably killed a man in one of the few firefights you've participated in, but you've never shot it at an unarmed man, and these illegals weren't a threat to you!
"If no, we wait a day until transport arrives, fill in paperwork, wait till another truck comes to clean wreckage, then fill paperwork on that; and then finally go back, for only a hundred eddies bonus? Not worth it."
In the media, amongst your co-workers, it was said that many illegals never made it to the detention facilities, that the thousands collected by Arasaka every month were of the tens of thousands actually interdicted.
How many corpses were left to be buried by the sands and eaten by scavengers, all because it wasn't profitable to arrest them?
It was another brutal reminder that you weren't a good person, that you weren't on the side that could be construed as Good; the Company tacitly supported this measure and your co-workers, as chummy and friendly as they are, were monsters, one and all.
"Half of them barely look old enough for college!"
You splutter out an excuse, second-guessing your partner's decision, your hand moving off the trigger as you stare at the Slav's steady gaze as he gives you a command.
"Shoot."
You aren't proud of what you did; the church says that killing is a sin; that no greater act can stain the soul more indelibly than killing.
You aren't a religious man, and it has been more than a decade since you've set foot into one, but at the moment, the preachings of that old, balding priest came to the fore.
When you depressed that trigger, hearing the bark of heavy automatic fire that riddled the vehicle with holes and shorn away chunks of metal and aluminium, you heard his disapproving voice at communion echo through your mind.
The bullets did not pierce those Americans; they passed through and, in their wake, left pulped flesh and liquified organs; they only screamed for a few seconds, and the deed was done, their corpses looking less like people and more like the meat prepared for the cannery.
You regurgitated your ration bars at the sight, the smells and the realisation of what you had done, but your co-workers slapped you on the shoulder and cheered you on.
They treated you like a brother, your sinful act marking you as one of their own, a right of passage left unsaid but very much felt.
For all the cheers and warmth of your comrades, never have you felt so vile and wretched than looking over the bloody work you had done.
The thrill of power fades quickly, and the words of your brethren become hollow, but what comes after lingers and is always haunting.