September 4, 2006 • VOL. 44, NO. 15Oakland, CA

Volunteers from No More Deaths have created a shrine of items abandoned by migrants and
fou nd along the Papalote Wash trail near Arivaca, Arizona. They entitled it, Our Lady of Papalote.

Berkeley teacher joins group depositing food and water along Arizona border

By Bill Joyce
Special to The Voice

The litter along the dusty desert trails of southern Arizona tells the tales of the thousands of the invisible travelers who rest by day and walk by night to defy the summer heat.

Next to a tumbleweed lies a child’s shoe bearing the trademark “Everlife,” dropped perhaps in a mother’s rush to squeeze into the waiting van of a coyote. Nearby, an “American Sport” backpack rests in the stingy shade of mesquite, a lonely momento of the deadly game of crossing the border to find the job that awaits you, if you survive.

Deeper down the canyon in one of many dry washes where it’s so easy to lose your way, piles of empty water bottles, sports drinks, along with spent cans of tuna and spam lay next to abandoned clothing, stripped off in the summer heat.

Twice daily, at dawn and in the late afternoon, I walk with a dozen volunteers along the Papalote Wash near the “No More Deaths” camp outside of Arivaca, Arizona, 15 miles from the Mexican border. In groups of three or four, we look for migrants who have lost their way.

We call out as we walk, “Hola, amigos!
Tenemos agua, comida, medicamentos. Somos amigos de la iglesia. No tenga miedo. No somos la migra.” (“Hello, friends. We have water, food, and medical supplies. We are friends from the church. Don’t be afraid. We are not the Border Patrol‘). Hearing no reply, we set water bottles on the trail.

“It’s good that we see no one,” says long-time No More Deaths camp leader, Jim Walsh. “That means no one’s in trouble. We see people when they’re tired, hungry, dehydrated, or when their feet are too sore and blistered to continue.”

Response to desert deaths
Walsh has been working with “No More Deaths,” an alliance of Tucson-based church and humanitarian groups, since it came together four years ago in response to the deaths of 300 migrants who perish in the desert each year. Amnesty International estimates that over 3000 people have died along this route since 1994.

An abandoned backpack hangs from a low-lying mesquite tree.

A discarded shoe lies on the desert sand. Volunteers often finds jeans and other pieces of clothing left by migrants as they cope with the intense desert heat.

Volunteers search for discarded clothing where documents such as birth certificates and passports are often found. They leave jugs of clean water so migrants will not have to drink from cattle troughs and ranch ponds. BILL JOYCE PHOTOS

In Altar, Mexico, bedding for guests is stacked on shelves at the Community Center to Aid Migrants and the Needy, sponsored by the Archdiocese of Hermosillo, with support from Catholic Relief Services. CNS PHOTO/PATRICIA ZAPOR

The Rev. John Fife, pastor emeritus of Southside Presbyterian Church whose “underground railroad” for Central American refugees in the 1980’s is credited with starting the Sanctuary Movement while earning him a five-year probation on federal charges, will be a camp host for two weeks in the late summer.

The Arivaca camp sits on the property of noted children’s author and three time Caldicott honoree, Byrd Baylor, who last year retrieved the body of a migrant who had died just down the road from her property.

The Samaritans, volunteers who include many retirees, collect and bag “migrant packs” of energy bars, drinks and canned food which they leave along trailside routes near dirt roads that lead into the desert.

Humane Borders distributes water in large tanks to over 80 sites marked by tall blue flags which the Border Patrol pledges not to monitor. Nevertheless, a Border Patrol vehicle keeps a daily vigil on the ridge above the water station that sits next to the No More Deaths camp near Arivaca.

Legal implications
One year ago, two 24-year-old volunteers, Shanti Sellz of Iowa and Daniel Strauss of New York, encountered eight Mexicans making the desert crossing through the Papalote Wash. Three were vomiting and seemed to be seriously dehydrated. According to the established practice, the volunteers called a nurse who contacted a doctor and, on their recommendation, proceeded to medically evacuate the migrants.

Although such actions had occurred routinely in the past, including several instances when the Border Patrol allowed the participants to proceed, this time the volunteers were detained. Sellz and Strauss were arrested and charged with two felonies related to “transportation in furtherance of an illegal presence in the U.S.”

These are the exact charges that would become federal offenses under the House immigration bill sponsored by James Sensenbrenner. Their trial in federal court is scheduled to begin Oct. 4. Their legal team will include retired Arizona Supreme Court Justice Stanley Feldman.

Since then and in wake of the national immigration debate, the Border Patrol presence has doubled and the National Guard is taking its position.

As is the local custom, we wave as we pass their vehicles on every dirt road we drive on our way to our daily patrols. Several times, evidently having tripped sensors placed along paths, we are buzzed by helicopters who circle over us in remote stretches of canyon. During an early evening drive to the border, nine of the 10 vehicles passing in the opposite direction are border patrol SUV’s, followed by two National Guard Hummers.

Border Samaritans
The next morning we meet two young men in their mid-20’s. Lost and weary, they have turned up at a neighbor’s door. In one of the countless examples of the hospitality that you find in the otherwise inhospitable desert, the neighbors, a Vietnam vet and his wife, make breakfast and feed the young men before calling the Border Patrol.

As we return from the morning patrol, we see the young Border Patrol agent shyly escorting the young men to his vehicle. The two have called it quits after wandering two days and nights in the unforgiving heat.

They will be shuttled to a nearby bus where they may receive water and a pouch of refried beans. Once the bus is full, they will be dispatched to a processing center, perhaps the world’s largest such center, located ten miles west of Douglas, Arizona.

They will be asked their names before their hands are placed on two balls as they are photographed. Their photos and fingerprints will be scanned nationally to check for outstanding warrants and internationally to see if their images match terrorist profiles.

They will next be placed in a holding cell where food and water is inconsistently available, until the next shift change when they will re-board buses for the final trip to the border. They will be dropped off and told to walk to the other side.

Mexican authorities will question them to separate out migrants from Central America who will be deported by bus to their home countries. The Mexican nationals will be released at the next shift change, free to consider crossing again or returning home.

No More Deaths, working with local groups on both sides of the border, has expanded its operations to establish Migrant Resource Centers at two border towns.

In Agua Prieta, a freshly painted storefront sits next door to the Mexican holding cell.
Deportees are welcomed by volunteers from No More Deaths and local churches, cooperatives, and government agencies. Migrants are given food, water, and a place to rest besides information about local shelters and other sources of support. They receive medical aid, mainly clean dressings for badly blistered feet, and transportation to local clinics if necessary.

Seeking the lost
Occasionally a parent, brother or sister shows up seeking information about a missing loved one. The Mexican Consulate in Douglas offers support, including helping family members track down missing relatives. While private citizens may not request information about detainees from the Border Patrol, the Consulate can and makes this service available to the Migrant Resource Center.

Jose Cruz has made a flyer with a photo of his missing brother, Ernesto, who attempted to cross 21 days ago. The Consulate inquires with INS, but as is often the case when detainees routinely give false names and carry no documents, there is no record. A volunteer offers to post the flyers in nearby Bisbee where Ernesto last called home. Jose is grateful for the effort, although the Consulate tells us privately, “with his brother missing for 21 days, it doesn’t look promising.”

A week later and 40 miles to the West, a similar scene is played out at the Migrant Resource Center in Nogales. Here a makeshift tent at the border offers mild respite from the 110 degree heat.

A recent $5000 donation bought 19,000 bottles of water which is stored 2 miles away in a downtown office. Water, migrant packs, sandwiches, tamales from a local church are dispersed to deportees who are released daily at this busy checkpoint. The beefed-up border patrol which has shut down immigration along the Papalote Wash has pushed migrants to try riskier crossings to the west, swelling the numbers of migrants released at Nogales to 500 a day.

Here the local participation is emerging. Angelica and Susana, local high school girls who responded to a call for volunteers on a Nogales radio station, count and greet the returning migrants. College students from the U.S., many with religious affiliations, scramble to staff this station for 24 hours.

With the aid of a Tucson attorney, testimonies of mistreatment at the hands of the Border Patrol are taken. Some people bid a quick “gracias” for the water and sandwich as they move hurriedly back to the city.
A line forms at the lone pay phone.

Some call home to ask for money either to return or to try the crossing again; others make collect calls to the U.S to explain what happened.

Several linger, confused at what to do next but thankful to have a second sandwich.

One man painfully peels off a sock to reveal blistered feet. Sara, a seminarian from Atlanta, tentatively treats the wound. Three-year-old Lupe playfully giggles at her mother’s side as they wait for an aunt who has yet to be released. Jesus, 15, is jittery from his two days and nights in the desert and one day in custody. He emphatically tells his older brother that he wants to go home.

Twenty-six-year-old Jose Luis, who works as a framer in Tucson, tells us he’s made the crossing here at least 100 times. This time he was returning from visiting and taking care of his parents to rejoin his wife and five-year-old daughter who will shortly start kindergarten. “I’d rather stay in Mexico,” he says, “but when the $90 a day is what I earn in a week here, what choice do I have?”

A father and teary mother approach the tent. Their son has been missing since September. Micah, a college student from Texas, takes down the young man’s name to check with the local consulate.

The exodus of Mexican migrants to the U.S. accelerated when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect in 1994 and continues to hit campesinos the hardest.

Mexican farmers can’t compete with subsidized U.S. crops which have flooded the Mexican market. Survival drives poor Mexicans, many from Chiapas, first to the border to find work at the maquilidoras. As more and more of these low paying jobs move to Asia, the lure of relatively higher paying U.S. jobs becomes irresistible.

Construction of the wall at the border near San Diego as part of Operation Gatekeeper pushed the migrant path east to the Arizona desert. This new ground zero, with a beefed up Border Patrol and National Guard back-up, has momentarily dammed the flow of migrants along the Papalote Wash, pushing crossing paths more dangerously to the east and west.

Ricocheting streaks of heat lightening across the night sky follows a parade of puffy clouds forming a brilliant sunset as Byrd Baylor leads us to the site where the young man’s body was found last summer. The 82-year-old author and “landlady” for No More Deaths, lives alone, save for road runners and birds that drop by for snacks, and still likes to sleep outside.

She stands by the pile of rocks that hold up the cross which marks the spot. Her generous laugh, which sounds more like a sweet sigh, is silent now as the relentless march of migrants begins again beneath the stars.

(Bill Joyce is a member of the Father Bill O’Donnell Social Justice Committee of St. Joseph the Worker Parish in Berkeley and a teacher at Cragmont School in Berkeley.)

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