Near the Border, A Trail of Tears

Denver Post
OPINION
Near the border, a trail of tears
By Chandra Russo
6/14/2009

It is the threatening hour of the day. At just 10 a.m., we plod on in 100 degree heat under a vicious sun. Even the desert insects have stopped their rattling below the dry burn.

I sip at my water bottle. I find it difficult to quench my thirst without filling my belly to sloshing. My lips are chapped. My joints ache as we continue into our fourth day.

About 50 of us are walking the Migrant Trail, a 75-mile trek over seven days through Arizona's border lands. We follow the general path taken by so many migrants forced into this remote, brutal desert. We begin in Sasabe, Mexico, a mile south of the border, and head toward Tucson, traveling just east of the Baboquivari range and the Tohono O'odham Nation.

Despite the discomfort, I recognize the immense beauty of this place, stark peaks, fierce but glorious cacti flowering everywhere. The land is saturated with the rich history of peoples and fragile ecosystems that have made this place home for centuries.

The Migrant Trail began in 2003 with about 20 members of this border community. After years of setting out water in a helpless attempt to curb migrant deaths, having recovered far too many human remains, these 20 wanted to experience the journey and expose the daily reality out here. They commit to walk yearly until the deaths stop.

In the years since, many have joined them. This year, five students and their professor from Manitoba, Canada, have come to learn more about the other U.S. border. A French sociologist has driven from California, motivated by his own immigration experience and the immigrant students in his classroom. Many are called by their faith to walk — an Argentine missionary living in the Mexican town of Altar, a nun from Chicago, and a Franciscan monk who walks in his robes.

This is my second year on the Migrant Trail. I was invited in 2007 to better understand human rights issues on the border. In returning, I am reminded of the urgency of fixing the nation's broken immigration system.

Our walk comes at a conspicuous political moment. A week ago, 700 people from around the country convened on Washington to meet with Congress, demanding a comprehensive immigration reform package be passed within a year. Yesterday, hundreds packed into a church in Northglenn as Colorado Congressman Jared Polis and Illinois Congressman Luis Gutierrez heard testimony from families torn apart by our immigration system. And this Wednesday, President Obama will pull both parties together to push this same idea. This reform has the potential to save lives.

Here's the bottom line when it comes to sealing our southern border: It doesn't work.

In the decision to cross to the United States, economic forces and familial ties trump walls, material or virtual. Since the mid-90s when we cut off the urban crossing points of San Diego and El Paso, and began implementing the latest in military technology, the number of undocumented in the country has more than doubled from 5 million to 12 million. While the most aggressive and expensive border enforcement has forced migrants into ever more perilous crossings, thousands of deaths have proven to be no deterrent to those facing dehumanizing poverty at home.

Pointing to a recent decline in immigration to the U.S., we see that the economy, not border policy, is the determining factor. Any measurable drop begins about four years ago, when our economy began to decline. There were no dramatic shifts in border policy at that time, making it obvious that fewer job opportunities are what stemmed the flow.

After being out here myself with all the comforts we are afforded as walkers, what is surprising to me isn't that people have died. It's that anyone makes it at all. I remark at this as we pass abandoned backpacks along Route 86, signs of migrants who likely survived many days in the desert to be picked up by vehicles.

We look back over the terrain we have walked on our final morning. "Our killing fields," offers a nurse who regularly resuscitates migrants near heat stroke in her hospital.

There is a policy fix for this. We can allot a realistic number of immigration visas so that needed workers and families can safely cross between countries. We can rethink the way we police our southern border.

Already this year, 79 of the dead have been recovered. The season of death, deep summer, has not even begun.

Chandra Russo is communications coordinator at the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition (CIRC), based in Denver

David McCabe also posted some beautiful pictures from the Walk at the following link: http://www.dsmccabe.com/David_S._McCabe/Photos_From_the_Migrant_Trail.html
Tony put up some amazing pictures as well at http://www.tsjugephd.com/PCC_Courses/Migrant_Trail_2009.html

The Migrant Trail Thanks YOU!

Thanks to the generous donations from all the folks at Spirit of Christ, Terri & Cindy with St. Andrew’s United Methodist Church, Mark O’Brien, Paul & Janet Carpenter, Mimzy with the Glennon Heights Mennonite Church, and many many others, the magnificent Tom Kowal will be driving your much appreciated supplies to Arizona for the Migrant Trail Walk!
If you STILL want to support the visionary message of the Migrant Trail Walk and other amazing boarder work consider donating Medical Supplies or Funds to purchase an off road vehicle for No More Deaths!
And read below for coverage of deaths along the border that YOUR donations are helping to PREVENT! Read the article online

This is Maureen Marx from No More Deaths Tucson. We are gearing up for our summer program of a 24/7 presence in the desert, trail-walking, food and water drops and medical care at our camp medical clinic. Here on the border, we are still seeing some migrants in desperate condition with severe dehydration, blisters, broken bones, lacerations and infections. I am new to NMD and have taken on the task of procuring medical supplies and am coming to you with a request. Would you and your Denver group be willing and able to
gather some much needed medical supplies and send them on to us? A wish list is enclosed.
Would you email me and let me know whether the Denver group can do this? If you can do this project, please send the supplies to me at the following address.
Maureen Marx
4902 E. 12th St
Tucson, AZ 85711
520-647-2880
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Maureen
First Aid Supplies Needed for NMD Field work summer 2009
• Oral Rehydration salts / Pedialyte
• **OTC medications: Tylenol, anti-diarrheals, Pepto-Bismol tablets, benadryl, throat lozenges, ointments and salves for pain and inflammation, lip balm
• *Adult care wipes/wet wipes large and portable packages
• *Ace wraps (all sizes)
• *Instant cold packs,
• *Moleskin / Surgical foam tape for blisters
• *Silvadene or similar cream/powder
• *Tagaderm / Duoderm / Second Skin
• *Bacitracin / antibiotic ointments
• Bandage scissors / tweezers
• Tape / Coban wrap
• Non-occlusive dressings
• Telfa / Non-stick dressings
• Hand sanitizer (large and portable sizes)
• Aloe gel
• Universal splints (such as SAM splints)
• Foot care: moleskin, liquid bandage, antibiotic ointment, gauze pads and gauze rolls, telfa pads, coban adhering wrap, tape, nail clippers
• Ankle/joint care: ace wraps (various sizes), lidocaine spray, sports tape, instant cold packs, splints, triangular bandages,
• Wound care: bandages, gauze pads, antibiotic ointment, gauze rolls, tape, wet wipes, prep pads, liquid bandage (spray or brush on)
• Heat Injury: instant cold packs, Rehydration salts, wet wipes, misting spray bottles, aloe gel
First Aid Kits will be carried and used in the field by No More Deaths volunteers who are medical professionals (MD / RN / LPN) or trained and certified first responders (WFR / EMT)
*-These items are especially needed in large quantities
**-Single-use sizes to send with patients are very useful

Dear Friend of Migrants:
No More Deaths, founded in the Fall of 2003, works to end death and suffering on the U.S./Mexico border through civil initiative: the conviction that people of conscience must work openly and in community to uphold fundamental human rights. We have hosted and trained thousands of volunteers to provide aid to migrants at our desert camps and border aid stations.
The desert is unforgiving and to do this important work, transportation is imperative. We are committed to reaching remote parts of the Arizona backcountry accessible only by rough "roads" on which even the Border Patrol dislikes driving. Therefore, we are asking for your support in purchasing an off-road vehicle to be used in accessing these rough “roads,” as well as for transporting volunteers to desert camps and border aid stations.
We believe it is essential to be able to provide hu¬manitarian aid to people regardless of their citizenship or legal status. Our work is done with transparency and integrity. We hope to see the end of the deadly economic and border policies soon–but we will con¬tinue to provide aid until there are no more deaths.
Thank you for your generous support!
Sincerely,
The Volunteers of No More Deaths Tucson and the Migrants Served
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Help make our humanitarian effort more effective…..
This special donation given to No More Deaths goes to support humanitarian aid efforts in the desert and on the border through purchase of an off-road vehicle.
One Time Gift ™ $ 25 ™ $ 50 ™ $ 75 ™ $ 100 ™ Other $¬¬¬¬________
Monthly Pledge Gift $__________ for ______ months
Name________________________________________________
Address______________________________________________
City____________________ State_______ Zip____________
Email _______________________________________________
Checks should be mailed to and made payable to: Unitarian Uni¬versalist Church of Tucson (Memo: No More Deaths/Off-road vehicle), PO Box 40782, Tucson, AZ 85711. For more information, call 520-495-5583 or action@nomoredeaths.org.

Death count rises with border restrictions
Officials: Crossers now trek farther to dodge security
By Brady McCombs, Arizona Daily Star, Tucson, Arizona | Published: 05.17.2009
Illegal border crossers face a deadlier trek than ever across Arizona's desert.
The risk of dying is 1.5 times higher today compared with five years ago and 17 times greater than in 1998, the Arizona Daily Star's border-death database shows.
That's a significant increase considering the initial spike of deaths in Arizona occurred in 2000-02.
Through the first seven months of fiscal year 2009, there were 60 known deaths per 100,000 apprehensions in the area covered in the U.S. Border Patrol's Tucson Sector. That's up from 39 known deaths per 100,000 apprehensions in 2004.
The increased risk of death parallels the historic buildup of agents, fences, roads and technology along the U.S.-Mexico border, calling into question one of the Border Patrol's mantras that a "secure border is a safe border."
Even with 3,300 agents, 210 miles of fences and vehicle barriers, and 40 agents assigned to the agency's search, rescue and trauma team, Borstar, illegal immigrants are still dying while trying to cross the Border Patrol's 262-mile-long Tucson Sector.
Border county law enforcement, Mexican Consulate officials, Tohono O'odham tribal officials and humanitarian groups say the buildup has caused illegal border crossers to walk longer distances in more treacherous terrain, increasing the likelihood that people will get hurt or fatigued and left behind to die.
"We are pushing people into more deadly areas," said Kat Rodriguez, coordinating organizer for Coalición de Derechos Humanos, a Tucson-based group that tracks the deaths. "When enforcement goes up, death goes up. We've been saying that for years."
Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada and Sgt. David Noland, the Cochise County Sheriff's Office search and rescue coordinator, say body recoveries in their counties show that people are trekking through increasingly remote areas.
The Border Patrol doesn't stop anyone from coming; it only shifts the locations where they cross, said Rev. Robin Hoover, president of Tucson-based Humane Borders. His group's maps show that bodies are being found farther away from principal roads and water sources each year.
"The presence of the Border Patrol makes the average migrant hungrier, thirstier, more tired and sicker," Hoover said.
Border Patrol officials point to their rescue efforts as evidence that their presence prevents deaths rather than causes them.
"Our presence is greater; we are getting to these people sooner," said Robert Boatright, deputy chief of the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector. The agency rescued 160 people through mid-May, compared with 151 at the same time last year.
He attributes the continued rise in deaths to better recovery methods and more thorough record-keeping.
"When somebody loses a loved one, a lot of times we're getting better information back and going back and finding those," Boatright said.
The agency concentrates its agents and rescue teams in the desert west of Sasabe, where most of the bodies are found, to move them out of the most dangerous areas, he said.
"I'm not driving them to a more hazardous location," he said. "I'm driving them toward Nogales." Flawed statistics
Nobody knows exactly how many people try to cross the border illegally through Arizona.
There is no magic laser counter strung across the U.S.-Mexico border, and no agency estimates how many people get past the Border Patrol.
That leaves the Border Patrol's apprehensions as the best, albeit flawed, indicator of the flow of illegal immigrants.
It's flawed because apprehensions represent an event, not a person, and don't distinguish whether someone has been caught once or multiple times.
The apprehension figures show a clear downward trend in the Tucson Sector, the busiest on the Southwest Border, with the captures dropping 35 percent from 491,771 in 2004 to 317,696 in 2008. This year's numbers through April are down 31 percent from the same time in 2008.
The Border Patrol points to the gradual decrease as evidence that fewer are crossing. That theory is backed by several other indicators of a slowdown, including Mexican census data that show fewer people are leaving the country.
Yet the number of bodies found hasn't followed that downward slope.
The body count has remained in the same range between 2004 and 2009, yo-yoing between 180 and 230 per fiscal year, the Star border-death database shows.
The bodies of 86 illegal border crossers have been discovered from the beginning of fiscal year 2009 - Oct. 1 - through April, compared with 75 at the same time last year. The hottest and most deadly months for migrant deaths are still to come.
The Arizona Daily Star's border-death database only goes back to October 2004, but using the Border Patrol's death totals, which have long undercounted the number of deaths, the risk of dying has increased 17 times, from three per 100,000 apprehensions in 1998 to 51 per 100,000 apprehensions in 2009.
But Dr. Bruce Parks, chief medical examiner at the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner, cautions that the yearly counts may not accurately represent that year's total, because many in recent years have been skeletal remains that could be people who died in previous years.
Each year since 2004, the total number of bodies found in the form of skeletal remains has accounted for a larger percentage of the total, increasing to 25 percent in 2009 from 4 percent in 2004, the Arizona Daily Star database shows.
Even without the skeletal remains, though, the number of bodies found per 100,000 apprehensions has increased from 38 in 2004 to 50 in 2009.
And some of the people found as skeletal remains could have died months earlier within the same year, especially if death occurs in the summer, when heat speeds up decomposition, said Jerónimo Garcia, a representative of the Mexican Consulate in Tucson who handles the identification and coordination of the remains.
Skeleton found in August
One of the skeletons found in 2008 was the remains of Juana Pastrana Villanueva, a 57-year-old woman from Acapulco.
On Aug. 6, 2008, her remains were found about 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, in the northern part of the Tohono O'odham Reservation.
A jacket near the body contained the identification of a man from Acapulco. When Mexican officials contacted his family, they said he was alive in the United States.
He told them the body was Pastrana's.
He left his ID in that pocket because Pastrana wasn't carrying any ID, and he wanted to make sure her family knew she was dead. He knew authorities would call his family.
Pastrana was supposed to cross the border somewhere north of Altar, Sonora, around mid-July of 2008.
Her remains were found three weeks later southwest of Casa Grande. She likely walked for at least six days to get there, or she might have been picked up and driven north before being dropped off again, Garcia said. The medical examiner determined Pastrana died of hyperthermia, or heatstroke, the most common cause of deaths among illegal border crossers discovered in Arizona.
Contact reporter Brady McCombs at 573-4213 or bmccombs@azstarnet.com.
Read the article online

The Migrant Trail: We Walk for Life

The Migrant Trail: We Walk for Life
May 26-June 1, 2008

A 75 mile walk from Sásabe, Sonora, MX to Tucson, AZ
The precarious reality of our borderlands calls us to walk. We walk together on a journey of peace to remember people, friends and family who have died, others who have crossed, and people who continue to come. We walk to bear witness to the tragedy of death and of the inhumanity in our midst. Lastly, we walk as a community, in defiance of the borders that attempt to divide us, committed to working together for the human dignity of all peoples.

For Immediate ReleaseMay 30, 2008Contact: Kat Rodriguez, Stephanie Dernek: 520.561.2427
Press Conference:Migrant Trail Arrives in Tucson to Testify About Border ExperienceSunday, June 1, 200811:30amKennedy Park, Ramada #3 Tucson, Arizona
Tucson- An international group participating in the fifth annual Migrant Trail Walk from Sásabe, Sonora to Tucson, Arizona will arrive on Sunday, June 1st. The 75-mile Walk will culminate in a press conference, followed by a community gathering at Kennedy Park in Tucson, Arizona. The Migrant Trail, a Walk through the most traveled corridor on the Arizona-Sonora border, sponsored by a coalition of nineteen organizations, bears witness to the thousands of women, men and children who have lost their lives in an attempt to provide a better future for themselves and their families. "The deaths of more than 5,000 women, men and children are the direct result of our failed and unconscionable U.S. border policies," says Jodi Read of Mennonite Central Committee. "We, as people of faith and conscience, are called to make this journey together as witnesses, to be the voices that our migrant brothers and sisters no longer have." For the last five years, this collaborative effort has joined friends and allies from across the country and from international backgrounds for a one-week experience through the Sásabe corridor, where most crossings occur and the vast majority of bodies are recovered along the Arizona-Sonora border. An act of solidarity, the Walk is a means of bearing witness to the death and devastation that has resulted from the violence, division, and xenophobia in response to the mass migration that has resulted from failed border and trade policies. "I recently returned from Juarez/El Paso where the militarization, violence and death toll increase daily. I am impelled to action for those I met and for the migrant community in Chicago, Illinois," says Stephanie Dernek of 8th Day Center for Justice and Chicago New Sanctuary Coalition, who has made the journey for the last three years to the Arizona border. "I walk the Migrant Trail to be a witness to the human rights violations, unjust and racist border/immigration policies. I walk in remembrance of those who died in the journey and to recommit myself and my community to work to bring about justice and peace for the migrant." The Migrant Trail Walk will begin the final 6.7 miles of their journey at 9am at the BLM campsite on Ajo Way and San Joaquin Road. Participants will be welcomed home at Kennedy Park with speakers, music, food, and testimonies from participants and supporters. This event is free and open to the public.

The Migrant Trail
c/o Arizona Border Rights Foundation
P.O. Box 1286 Tucson, AZ 85702
Tel: 520.770.1373Fax: 520.770.7455
www.derechoshumanosaz.net

Tom Kowal on the Migrant Trail Walk

Statement by Tom Kowal from Denver, at the press conference in Tucson at the end of the 5th Migrant Trail Walk, June 1, 2008:

There is a reason why we are here. We are here in memory of the 5,000 women, men and children who have died in the past 14 years on this border. These brave people committed no crime. They came across this desert because they need to feed their families. They died because the US laws are broken. These laws are unrealistic, inhumane and lethal. They serve only those who would exploit other human beings, and those who seek to divide us.

We are one community – somos un pueblo. So when these brothers and sisters -- these friends and neighbors -- suffer and die in the desert because the safe routes have been closed by failed policies, we all suffer this loss.

And so Coloradans For Immigrant Rights, the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition and the American Friends Service Committee stand here in witness to those sacrificed in this killing field. We mourn with their families and we call for reform. We call on our government to end this evil madness; to immediately pass humane and realistic comprehensive immigration reform; to reprogram the billions of dollars being wasted on border militarization to human needs.

It is not too much to ask to stop the killing and to begin healing our border communities.
~ Tom Kowal

Reflections on the Migrant Trail Walk, by Tom Acker

I recently returned from a symbolic journey. In the materialistic, pragmatic context of most of our lives, we tend to disregard those things which transcend our daily existence. But here I am writing to you, dear reader, of a place in which what are usually disquieting abstractions, life and death, are tangible constants. They are seen in bleached bones of animals, circling vultures, stupefying heat and dusty dry arroyos. These are elements that accompany you if you venture outside the air-conditioned comfort that most of the inhabitants seek in southern Arizona.

The hidden side of the folkloric Southwest border is deadly. The reality of the desert becomes a horrific and epic awakening for those unfortunate individuals that make up the thousands that attempt to traverse our hemisphere’s most forbidding region: the Sonora Desert that straddles both sides of the Mexican-U.S. border.

Since October 2007, 52 people have died in the desert (as of June 6th, 2008). They die from dehydration, hypothermia and hyperthermia. These statistics reveal the stark reality that unsuspecting economic refugees face upon encountering this inhospitable region for the first time.

Immigration is an act of desperation. The urgency to leave one’s home arises from the extreme poverty that exists in southern Mexico (the states of Chiapas and Oaxaca are famous for this) and Central America. The verdant rainforest of the Lacandona jungle of Chiapas bears no resemblance to the arid international desert with its cholla cactus and its mesquite trees. Add to the physically demanding geography the Sonoran desert’s socio-political chaos. As lethal as the desert are the gangs of narcotraffickers, human traffickers and those that prey on the ill-prepared migrants, the bajadores. This frightening no-man’s land also harbors stories of unscrupulous Border Patrol agents as well as Mexican border officials.

The migrants connect with traffickers, the coyotes, in the northern Mexican launching site of Altar. These entrepreneurs promise them safe passage across the Arizona desert in exchange for thousands of dollars, usually borrowed from relatives or loan sharks. I, on the other hand, felt well protected. My worries were few as I meet my friends and colleagues from the previous year’s Migrant Trail at the Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson. Among them are members of innovative and courageous groups like Humane Borders, No More Deaths, Tucson Samaritans, Derechos Humanos and Green Valley Samaritans as well as good citizens from colleges, faith groups, and just interested humanitarians. We prepared to walk for 6 days the 75 miles between the Sonoran border village of Sásabe into the increasingly treacherous Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge.

The Migrant Trail walkers are following an natural south-north passage through the Altar Valley with mountain ranges to our east and west. It is as if we were literally passing through an altar where migrant men, women and children are tried to the extreme. It is an inhumane sacrificial altar on which there is a divine struggle between good and evil. In this large expanse of desert, the mistake of taking the wrong arroyo, separating from the coyote, joining up with the wrong groups of fellow migrants is paid for in human lives. In fact, this is sacred ground.

As we approach the outskirts of Tucson we camp in an old quarry which belongs to the Tohono O'odham people. Their disconnection from their traditional Mexican relatives and culture is testimony to the ill conceived immigration policies that castigate this beautiful and rich cultural environment. Many Tohono O'odham people are no longer able to participate in centuries-old events because they lack the recognized documentation necessary to cross at the border check points. Pre-1994, they could move relatively freely between their Mexican and US communities. Now they are prisoners resulting from laws about which they were not consulted.

Arizona currently has the nation’s harshest immigration laws. Colorado follows closely behind. Tucson resident and AZ native, Quaker Mike Gray, observed that the Arizona natives are not the motor behind the state’s cruel legislation. He observes that the influx of Northern retirees from the mostly white suburbs of Chicago and other Midwest areas, unaccustomed to living in multiracial communities, are largely responsible for the anti-Latino changes in the Arizona political climate. The irony in Tucson is the fact that the attraction for these Gringo immigrants fleeing northern winters are the “Spanish” motifs of the sprawling subdivisions popping up through out the desert. Every one of them sports a quaint “Hispanic” name like Corte El Rancho, Miramar, Maria Elena, etc.

I was fortunate, being on vacation, to be able to deliver a car-load of survival packages with varying contents donated by the good people of the Grand Valley to be used by the humanitarian organization No More Deaths at the Mariposa aide station in Nogales, Sonora. NMD ameliorates the suffering of the persons detained by the U.S. Border Patrol and deposited, blistered, dehydrated, disoriented and broken, far from their homes and families. Our shipment was utilized immediately the week we were walking. Jim and his wife Sarah from the Southside Presbyterian Church gratefully received this help from 600 miles north and asked that I convey their appreciation for the support this contribution gives. If you want more information about the border and the humane organizations working there, go to www.nomoredeaths.org/ There you will find more links to organizations affiliated with them as well.

~ Tom Acker is a professor of Spanish at Mesa State College and President of Grand Valley Peace and Justice. He is also a member of CIRC through the Western Colorado Justice for Immigrants Committee.