DOCSLIB.ORG

No More Deaths: Direct Aid in the US-Mexico Border Zone Sophie Smith, Editor

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
No More Deaths: Direct Aid in the US-Mexico Border Zone Sophie Smith, Editor AGAINST the DAY No More Deaths: Direct Aid in the US-Mexico Border Zone Sophie Smith, Editor These essays were written just before the onset of the Trump administration. Since the time of writing, many of the direct aid projects described here have become more imperiled. Over the past several months, for example, the lon- gest standing desert medical clinic run by No More Deaths has come under attack by the US Border Patrol with the cooperation of the US Attorney’s offices. Aid workers are also now being denied access to multiple public lands jurisdictions, enduring escalating levels surveillance and intimidation by numerous federal and state agencies. In this context, it is becoming increas- ingly clear that the powers that be are working to disrupt the provision of basic necessities to those facing state violence and death in the Southwest des- ert. At the same time, white supremacy is on the rise in the borderlands. Right-wing paramilitary groups conducting armed vigilante patrols are becoming more organized and emboldened. From multiple sides, the human- itarian efforts of nongovernmental organizations are facing new threats. With criminalization and federal prosecutions on the rise, the border strug- gle is now taking place in a political landscape of heightened tensions. We thus find ourselves writing in a moment of danger—for those in the border region, as well as for migrant peoples and communities across North America and around the world. For those of us living and working on the border, one thing is clear: the protection of migrants, refugees, families, and community members in the borderlands will not be guaranteed by the politicians and lawmakers. Rather, to disrupt the atrocities on the ground we must continue innovating and defending the work of direct aid. Sophie Smith Arivaca, Arizona August 2017 Downloaded from https://read.dukeupress.edu/south-atlantic-quarterly/article-pdf/116/4/851/518870/011_deaths.pdf by DUKE UNIV-PERKINS LIBRARY user on 08 February 2018 AGAINST the DAY Sophie Smith Introduction: No More Deaths Podrán cortar todas las flores, pero no podrán detener la primavera. They can cut all the flowers, but they can never stop the coming of the spring. (My translation.) —Pablo Neruda Over the past twenty years, the wilderness of the southwest United States has been transformed into a deadly arena for those attempting to enter the United States without documentation. The clandestine crossing is now gov- erned by a militarized homeland security establishment and a widening set of exploitation industries that bank on the deepening of human tragedy. In the mix, volunteers with the humanitarian organization No More Deaths have been working to offer a critical measure of care and protection to migrants and refugees who find themselves stranded in the backcountry.1 Every day in the arid deserts of southern Arizona, border activists and rural residents undertake concrete efforts to provide food, water, and medical care to those caught out in the struggle for survival. While the name “No More Deaths” expresses a political aspiration, aid work in the border region is in truth a highly pragmatic undertaking, as small humanitarian organizations cannot ultimately guarantee the protection of all those who enter the vast geo- graphic expanse of the border territory. Nonetheless, providing on-the-ground assistance has developed into a powerful practice, ethos, and, arguably, a poli- tics in the region—one that prioritizes direct antiracist intervention as a means of contesting the daily harms dealt by the border security regime. The essays presented in this installment of Against the Day are authored by activist-scholars who have substantial experience working with The South Atlantic Quarterly 116:4, October 2017 doi 10.1215/00382876-4235062 © 2017 Duke University Press Downloaded from https://read.dukeupress.edu/south-atlantic-quarterly/article-pdf/116/4/851/518870/011_deaths.pdf by DUKE UNIV-PERKINS LIBRARY user on 08 February 2018 Smith • Introduction: No More Deaths 853 No More Deaths to provide disaster relief on the ground in the Sonoran Des- ert of southern Arizona. Amid growing concern over the Trump administra- tion’s designs for wall building and deportation, we offer a picture of the deadly play of immigration and enforcement already taking place on the bor- der. Our writing goals are ultimately transformative: to provide a closer view of the contemporary border struggle and to protest the massive loss of life being wrought by US immigration enforcement. Walking in the Wilderness The border is a broken strand of barbed wire lying on the dirt floor of a tran- quil desert canyon. Gray-green mesquite trees reach up from the baking ground. Hawks, ravens, and vultures glide in a transnational network through the long blue sky. Nearby, a dry riverbed betrays dozens of footprints of those who have recently crossed through. Empty water bottles, tuna fish cans, and plastic granola wrappers left over from a nearby humanitarian aid supply drop toss about in the hot wind. Otherwise, all is quiet. To the east, twenty-five-foot metallic poles propped in vertical succes- sion slice a hilly city in two. On the north side sits Nogales, Arizona, dotted with fast food restaurants, gas stations, and taxi stands. To the south, the metropolis of Nogales, Sonora, rises. Colorful adobe homes, churches, and apartment buildings range across the sloping landscape. Downtown, near the colossal eggshell awning of the international port of entry, community members gather on both sides of the border wall to hold hands through the steel beams in the location where a sixteen-year-old was killed by a US Border Patrol agent.2 Graffiti reading SOMOS UN PUEBLO SIN FRONTERAS (WE ARE A PEOPLE WITHOUT BORDERS) defiantly adorns its base. In such binational border cities where the wall has been built, it stands as an impos- ing architectural feat. Outside of urban areas, the construction dwindles into shorter slats, triangular vehicle barriers, and eventually diminishes to thin wire cattle fencing, or nothing at all. Foot traffic flows into the open desert. At present, the specter of wall building on the Southwest border looms large. The protest anthem “no ban, no wall” rings out across the globe as a challenge to the nationalist rhetoric of the Trump administration. For those of us working on the ground in the US-Mexico borderlands, however, the demand for “no wall” is just as perplexing as it is encouraging: this cry to transnational solidarity seems to deny the existence of more than six hundred fifty miles of reinforced barriers already carving up the Southwest landscape. Moreover, what is missing from the national conversation is how Downloaded from https://read.dukeupress.edu/south-atlantic-quarterly/article-pdf/116/4/851/518870/011_deaths.pdf by DUKE UNIV-PERKINS LIBRARY user on 08 February 2018 854 The South Atlantic Quarterly • Against the Day • October 2017 walls already function as a powerful policing tactic on the southern border— one that is not only offensive and expensive but also, and most critically, deadly. This history of walling reaches back more than twenty years to the 1990s—a decade that revolutionized US-Mexico border control. The year 1994 is often remembered as a moment of radical economic liberalization on the continent with the signing of the North American Free Trade Agree- ment (NAFTA). However, beyond economic expansion, 1994 was also a year of radical transformation for US border-enforcement policy. It was then, in anticipation of a new surge of unauthorized labor-driven migration, that the Border Patrol met with Department of Defense tacticians versed in low- intensity conflict doctrine to discuss militarizing the southern border. At the time, officials asserted that sealing off the entire two thousand miles of bina- tional territory and achieving a 100 percent apprehension rate of unauthor- ized border crossers would be “an unreasonable goal” (US Border Patrol 1994: 6). Instead, the Border Patrol adopted an enforcement strategy called “prevention through deterrence,” which would regulate undocumented migration by making the crossing increasingly dangerous (6). The concept was a geographical one: historically, most undocumented border crossings cycled through urban areas where, at the time, it was rela- tively easy to enter the United States without inspection. In 1994, the Border Patrol decided to shift the flow of unauthorized immigration away from bor- der cities and into remote wilderness areas just inside of the US interior. The agency resolved that it would build walls and concentrate personnel and sur- veillance technology in and around urban ports of entry as a means of deflect- ing unauthorized migration out into the open desert. In effect, to enter the United States, people without papers would be “forced over more hostile ter- rain,” where they would have to endure multiday treks on foot through a treacherous landscape (12). The Border Patrol predicted that many would “find themselves in mortal danger,” being cut off from civilization, resources, and rescue in the backcountry (2). By transforming the migration trail into a potentially deadly ordeal, the agency reasoned that others would be dissuaded from attempting the journey. In sum, the Border Patrol speculated that tacti- cally enhancing the dangers facing border crossers would diminish the over- all rate of unauthorized migration into the United States, amounting to a policing program of relative prevention through aggressive deterrence. Over the last two decades, reinforced walls have gone up in and around border cities, and vehicle barriers have been scattered around the desert to Downloaded from https://read.dukeupress.edu/south-atlantic-quarterly/article-pdf/116/4/851/518870/011_deaths.pdf by DUKE UNIV-PERKINS LIBRARY user on 08 February 2018 Smith • Introduction: No More Deaths 855 force migration to flow on foot through the most rugged regions of the southwest borderlands.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Trumpfronterizo the Influence of Trumpism on Socio-Economic Cross-Border Flows in the San Diego – Tijuana Bi-National Metropolitan Area
    Trumpfronterizo The influence of Trumpism on socio-economic cross-border flows in the San Diego – Tijuana bi-national metropolitan area Nadim van Minnen Radboud University Nijmegen | s4801431 1 Trumpfronterizo The influence of Trumpism on socio-economic cross-border flows in the San Diego – Tijuana bi-national metropolitan area Front page background sources: Autodesk, 2018. Own figure, 2017. Wikimedia Commons, 2017. Master thesis Nadim van Minnen Radboud University Nijmegen | Nijmegen School of Management Department of Geography, Planning and Environment MSc. Programme Human Geography: Globalisation, Migration and Development Thesis supervisor: Dr. Lothar Smith Nadim van Minnen [s4801431] [email protected] 10 July 2018 Radboud University Nijmegen 2 PREFACE This thesis was written as an integral part of the Master program of Human Geography and the track Globalisation, Migration and Development at Radboud University Nijmegen. This master thesis is the final assignment that needed to be completed in order finish this study, and therefore to receive my degree as a Master of Science. As can be seen in the methodology chapter and the conclusion, as well as annex 4, there were some small problems while doing this research, mostly due to the bi-national nature of this research. However, everything turned out alright in the end as I gathered plenty of information in order to make valid and informed statements regarding the issues at play in this thesis. A major thank you therefore goes out to my informants and expert interviewees for sacrificing their valuable time, their expertise and their willingness to participate. Without them and the useful information they provided me, I would not have gotten what I wanted out of this research.
    [Show full text]
  • La Gran Marcha: Anti-Racism and Immigrants Rights in Southern California
    La Gran Marcha: Anti-Racism and Immigrants Rights in Southern California Jenna M. Loyd1 Department of Geography, Syracuse University 144 Eggers Hall, Syracuse, NY 13244-1020 USA Email: [email protected] Andrew Burridge Department of Geography, University of Southern California, 416 Kaprielian Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0255 USA Email: [email protected] Abstract Millions of people across the United States took to the streets in spring 2006 to protest repressive immigration legislation, demand just immigration reform, and seek justice in daily life. This article has two aims. First, we seek to intervene in the popular immigration debate, which denies racism and claims to be concerned only with law-and-order. Second, we analyze (im)migration politics in relation to national racial formations. That is, racialized immigration policies do not exist apart from a racially stratified citizenry. We rely on the concept of social death to trace state policies of immigration and criminalization as key sites of interracial and transnational struggles against racism and for justice and liberation. Thus, we seek to elucidate possibilities for anti-racist alliances and social change. We conclude with a discussion of the ways in which we see the immigrants rights movement connecting with other struggles for social justice, and the implications that 1 © Jenna M. Loyd and Andrew Burridge, 2007 La Gran Marcha: Anti-Racism and Immigrants Rights in Southern California 2 concepts of national racial formation and social death have for the movement against global apartheid. KEY WORDS: immigrants rights, racism, national racial formation, social death, criminalization, militarization, United States “Immigration politics also surfaced in California’s gubernatorial race … with Gov.
    [Show full text]
  • Threatening Immigrants: Cultural Depictions of Undocumented Mexican Immigrants in Contemporary Us America
    THREATENING IMMIGRANTS: CULTURAL DEPICTIONS OF UNDOCUMENTED MEXICAN IMMIGRANTS IN CONTEMPORARY US AMERICA Katharine Lee Schaab A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY August 2015 Committee: Jolie Sheffer, Advisor Lisa Hanasono Graduate Faculty Representative Rebecca Kinney Susana Peña © 2015 Katharine Schaab All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Jolie Sheffer, Advisor This project analyzes how contemporary US cultural and legislative texts shape US society’s impression of undocumented (im)migrants and whether they fit socially constructed definitions of what it means to “be American” or part of the US national imaginary. I argue that (im)migrant-themed cultural texts, alongside legal policies, participate in racial formation projects that use racial logic to implicitly mark (im)migrants as outsiders while actively employing ideologies rooted in gender, economics, and nationality to rationalize (im)migrants’ exclusion or inclusion from the US nation-state. I examine the tactics anti- and pro-(im)migrant camps utilize in suppressing the role of race—particularly the rhetorical strategies that focus on class, nation, and gender as rationale for (im)migrants’ inclusion or exclusion—in order to expose the similar strategies governing contemporary US (im)migration thought and practice. This framework challenges dichotomous thinking and instead focuses on gray areas. Through close readings of political and cultural texts focused on undocumented (im)migration (including documentaries, narrative fiction, and photography), this project homes in on the gray areas between seemingly pro- and anti-(im)migrant discourses. I contend (im)migration-themed political and popular rhetoric frequently selects a specific identity marker (e.g.
    [Show full text]
  • Final Letter to Senate Dems Ahead of Vote-A-Rama August 2021
    August 6, 2021 Dear Senators: We, the undersigned 213 organizations, respectfully urge you to SUPPORT provisions in the FY 2022 budget reconciliation package that establish a pathway to citizenship for immigrants, and to OPPOSE any harmful anti-immigrant amendments to the package. Based on amendments filed during the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 vote-a-ramas earlier this year, we anticipate that some Senators will file amendments that will aim to deny immigrant families a pathway to citizenship and will double down on harmful policies to construct the border wall, block unaccompanied children from protection, exclude immigrant families from health and safety net programs, and criminalize immigration in ways that disparately impact Black and brown immigrants. We urge you to consider that a vote in favor of any controversial anti-immigrant amendments would be a vote against immigrant communities who have been and will continue to be key to the robust economic recovery of the country. We specifically urge you to vote against amendments on the following topics: Funding for further buildup of dangerous infrastructure at the border and the border wall: Border interdiction is already funded at all-time highs. Funding for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has ballooned by over 30% over the past 5 fiscal years from $13.2 billion to $17.4 billion. The number of Border Patrol agents nearly doubled from Fiscal Year (FY) 2003 to FY 2019. Since 1993, the annual budget of the Border Patrol has increased more than ten-fold, from $363 million to nearly $4.9 billion. It would be irresponsible to transfer additional funds for construction of the border wall, additional border agents, or invasive technology when these agencies are already funded at historic highs.
    [Show full text]
  • Harvest-Of-Empire-Teacher-Guide
    Table of Contents Introduction to Teachers Guide by Director, Eduardo Lopez How to Approach this Guide Credits Big Ideas & Virginia Standards of Learning Lesson Summaries Annotated Synopsis of Film Lesson 1: Finding Commonalties across Time & Place: Themes of Immigration across History ESL Differentiated Lesson 1, Compare and Contrasting Immigration Experiences Lesson 2: The Changing Face of America – Digging into Data Lesson 3: Refugee or Immigrant? The Case Study of El Salvador Lesson 4: Fact Checking the Immigration Policy Debate Lesson 5: Government Reaction to Immigration- No Laughing Matter Appendix of Resources for Lessons HARVEST OF EMPIRE Introduction to Unit of Study by Director, Eduardo Lopez “We are all Americans of the New World, and our most dangerous enemies are not each other, but the great wall of ignorance between us.” Juan González, Harvest of Empire The rapid growth of the nation's Latino community has sparked heated national debate over immigration, yet the reality is that many of us know little about the true roots of migration or the powerful forces that brought so many immigrants from Latin America to the United States. Based on the landmark book by journalist Juan González, the award-winning documentary Harvest of Empire explores the hidden history of our nation's Latino community, and takes an unflinching look at the role that U.S. military actions and economic interests played in triggering unprecedented waves of migration from the Caribbean, Central America and Mexico. From the wars for territorial expansion that gave the U.S. control of Puerto Rico, Cuba and half of Mexico, to the covert operations that imposed oppressive military regimes in the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador, Harvest of Empire unveils a moving human story that is largely unknown to the great majority of citizens in the U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 June 30, 2021 Honorable Joseph R. Biden, Jr
    June 30, 2021 Honorable Joseph R. Biden, Jr. President of the United States 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington, DC 20500 Dear President Biden: We, the 105 undersigned organizations, write to express our alarm and disappointment that your administration is reportedly considering plans to continue to use the unlawful Title 42 expulsion policy to block and expel adult asylum seekers for at least two more months and may use punitive measures such as ankle monitors and expedited removal in processing families. Not only does the Title 42 policy violate U.S. refugee law and treaties, but it also endangers people seeking U.S. protection, with over 3,250 kidnappings, rapes, and other attacks on people expelled or blocked at the U.S.-Mexico border since you took office. This number rises every day your administration fails to end this policy. We urge your administration to fully rescind this policy for all populations, comply with U.S. refugee law, and ensure that Black, LGBTQ and other adult asylum seekers, many of whom have been turned back or expelled at ports of entry, as well as families and children, have swift access to the U.S. asylum system. Many of our organizations have repeatedly called on your administration to end the Title 42 expulsion policy and restart asylum processing for people seeking refuge. Rational, science-based measures, recommended by public health experts exist to mitigate COVID-19 concerns and safely process asylum seekers at the border. The use of Title 42 – described as a “Stephen Miller special” by a former Trump administration official – was implemented over the objections of senior Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) experts and has been widely discredited by epidemiologists and public health experts who have confirmed it has “no scientific basis as a public health measure.” These experts provided detailed recommendations for the safe processing of asylum seekers to your transition team, the CDC, and other officials in your administration.
    [Show full text]
  • Immigration 2021: Hope Vs Reality the View from the LWV of San Diego the Current Status of Immigration Issues
    Immigration 2021: Hope vs Reality The View from the LWV of San Diego The current status of immigration issues LWVSD has keen interest: on the border in a bi-national region Changes since Biden’s inauguration: hope for policy changes much flux and uncertainty ahead much confusion for thousands in limbo at the border LWVUS Positions on Immigration Promote reunification of immediate families Meet the economic business and employment needs of the United States Be responsive to those facing political persecution or humanitarian crises Provide for student visas Ensure fair treatment under the law for all persons In transition to a reformed system, support provisions for unauthorized immigrants already in the country to earn legal status LWVUS Priorities 1/2021 Comprehensive Immigration Reform: Permanent path to citizenship for DREAMers Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders Essential workers & their families Reduced detention Protect the basic human rights of immigrants Immigration Basics: Ways to Come In • Temporary visa: work, travel , student • Guest worker: H1A guest workers, H2B seasonal workers (increased in 2021); H1B special skills • Residency visa (green card): family or employer sponsorship • EB-5 visa: Immigrant Investor Program ($1.8 million invested in US business) • Claim of asylum: credible fear process • Refugee status • Citizenship: birthright or the process of naturalization can start after 5 years Federal Agencies in the Immigration, Asylum & Deportation Process Department of Homeland Security: Citizenship & Immigration
    [Show full text]
  • The Material Culture of Migrant Life at the U.S./México Border
    University of Arkansas, Fayetteville ScholarWorks@UARK Theses and Dissertations 8-2013 The aM terial Culture of Migrant Life at the U.S./México Border Consuelo Helen Cano Crow University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd Part of the Archaeological Anthropology Commons, and the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Crow, Consuelo Helen Cano, "The aM terial Culture of Migrant Life at the U.S./México Border" (2013). Theses and Dissertations. 826. http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/826 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UARK. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. The Material Culture of Migrant Life at the U.S/México Border The Material Culture of Migrant Life at the U.S/México Border A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts-Anthropology By Consuelo H. Crow University of Washington Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology, 2010 August 2013 University of Arkansas This thesis is approved for recommendation to the Graduate Council. ____________________________________________________ Dr. William F. Limp Thesis Director _____________________________________________________ Dr. Justin Nolan Committee Member _____________________________________________________ Dr. Kirsten Erickson Committee Member ABSTRACT “The passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement should reduce illegal immigration as the Mexican economy improves." -- Immigration and Naturalization Service Memo 1994” Material culture is the aggregate of physical objects or artifacts used by or discarded by a past culture or society.
    [Show full text]
  • Zero Protection How U.S
    Physicians for Human Rights Zero Protection How U.S. Border Enforcement Harms Migrant Safety and Health January 2019 Contents Acknowledgments This policy brief was written by Kathryn Hampton, MSt, 3 Executive Summary asylum network program officer at Physicians for 4 Introduction Human Rights (PHR), who conducted interviews in El 6 Why are Migrants Paso, Texas and Tucson and Arivaca, Arizona. Dying? The policy brief benefitted from review by PHR staff, 10 Rights Violations and including DeDe Dunevant, director of communications; Harms Committed by Derek Hodel, interim director of programs; Donna Border Patrol Agents McKay, MS, executive director; Michael Payne, in Hospitals advocacy officer; and Susannah Sirkin, MEd, director 12 Rights Violations by of international policy and partnerships. McKay and Customs Officers at Hajar Habbach, MA, program associate, conducted Ports of Entry interviews in Brownsville and Houston, Texas. PHR 14 Afraid to Go to the intern Sarah Stoughton provided editorial and research Hospital: Public Health support. in the Borderlands Former PHR senior anti-torture fellow Sarah 15 Legal Framework Dougherty, JD, MPH and former program director 18 Policy Homer Venters, MD, MS contributed input on this Recommendations policy brief. Former researcher Christine Mehta, MPP 19 What Can Doctors conducted interviews in June 2018 in Los Angeles, Do? California and Tucson, Arizona. 20 Endnotes The policy brief also benefitted from external review by consultant Maryam Al-Khawaja, PHR Board Members Deborah D. Ascheim, MD and Michele Heisler, MD, MPA, and Ranit Mishori, MD, MHS, PHR Asylum Network member and medical expert consultant for PHR’s Program on Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones.
    [Show full text]
  • Fall Newsletter
    To contact, No More Deaths, call (520) 333- 5699 or visit the website www.nomoredeaths.org website the visit or 5699 333- (520) call Deaths, More No contact, To migrants to public attention. It is a ministry of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson. of Church Universalist Unitarian the of ministry a is It attention. public to migrants Shakedown continued Central Americans continued monitors U.S. operations on the border, works to change the “war zone” policy, and brings the plight of of plight the brings and policy, zone” “war the change to works border, the on operations U.S. monitors our partner groups in Mexico, we have decided to focus had left her country overnight. She worked with a youth Tucson, Arizona, NMD provides water, food and medical assistance to migrants walking through the Arizona desert, Arizona the through walking migrants to assistance medical and food water, provides NMD Arizona, Tucson, in on one especially prevalent and dangerous deportation organization and gangs had threatened her life, Miller States and Mexico by mobilizing people of conscience to uphold fundamental human rights. Founded in 2004, in in 2004, in Founded rights. human fundamental uphold to conscience of people mobilizing by Mexico and States practice: dispossession. said. The judge told the prosecutor to help the woman No More Deaths is an organization whose mission is to end death and suffering on the border between the United United the between border the on suffering and death end to is mission whose organization an is Deaths More No The dispossession spelled out in Shakedown ranges apply for asylum.
    [Show full text]
  • Spring Newsletter
    Spring 2016 Edited by Denise Holley Why do people disappear in the desert? By Alicia Dinsmore In June 2015, No More Deaths and La Coalición de Derechos Humanos (Human Rights Coalition) received $10,000 from the Unitarian Universalist Service Com- mittee to write three reports that document how border enforcement policies and practices cause people to disap- pear while crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. The first of these reports, to be released in early summer, focuses on two Border Patrol practices: destroying life-saving humanitarian aid and intentionally scattering groups of migrants during apprehension. No More Deaths has collected nearly four years of data documenting the destruction of food and water left out on trails for people crossing the border. We are currently working with a team from the University of Arizona to analyze the destruction patterns coming out of this data. We’ve also been collecting stories from deported people who get help at a dining hall, shelters and a Mexican agency in Nogales, Sonora. The deportees describe how Border Patrol intentionally scatters groups of migrants, causing people to become separated from their group, separated from their guide, lost and disoriented in the deadly desert terrain. These practices are extensions of the failed border policy of “prevention through deterrence,” which uses the Photo by Sophie Smith threat of death in the desert to dissuade individuals from Volunteers sometimes find slashed water bottles on migrant crossing. The U.S. Border Patrol has been re-branding trails, usually left by other No More Deaths or Samari- itself as humanitarian, claiming that their agents are tan volunteers.
    [Show full text]
  • THE DESERT FOUNTAIN HUMANE BORDERS December 2020
    THE DESERT FOUNTAIN HUMANE BORDERS December 2020 COVER PHOTO: ED MCCULLOUGH HUMANE BORDERS, INC. ARIZONA OPENGIS FOR DECEASED MIGRANTS P.O. Box 27024, Tucson, Arizona 85726 humaneborders.org/migrant-death-mapping/ [email protected] www.humaneborders.org Page 1 HUMANE BORDERS RECEIVES ALFONSO GARCIA ROBLES HUMANITARIAN AWARD On December 11, 2020, Humane Borders received the Alfonso García Robles Humanitarian Award from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), a large public research university in Mexico (350,000 students). UNAM has an office here in Tucson at the University of Arizona. Alfonso Garci Robles was a co-winner of the 1982 Novel Peace Prize for his authorship of the 1967 Treaty of Tlatelolco, which established a nuclear-free zone in Latin America. UNAM recognizes the volunteers and staff of Humane borders “because it has excelled in the realization of work in defense, advocacy, protection or guarantee of the human rights of migrants with vulnerability.” We are delighted that our work, especially that of all of our volunteers, is recognized and meaningful to such a highly respected university in Mexico. Page 2 ABOUT DONATING TO HUMANE BORDERS by Doug Ruopp Everyone knows that southern Arizona has the saguaro dedicated staff and volunteer crew have kept things rolling. cacti, fascinating plants that develop their own shapes (and We are grateful to people from around the country who have personalities) over the years, and they are also amazing for supported us financially this year, and encourage all who are their ability to survive the heat. Young saguaro need water reading this to join us in doubling down and adapting by near the surface to survive, but the drought down here hasn’t donating what you can.
    [Show full text]