Another Deadly Summer

If you peruse the archives of this site, you’ll see many posts from me agonizing about the constant drumbeat of death that occurs in the desert as the summer heat blazes and economic policies continue to pull humanity to El Norte. This summer has been particularly deadly:

The bodies of six illegal immigrants have been found in the past three days along Arizona’s stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border, continuing a deadly summer in the desert.

Law enforcement officials recovered two bodies each on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday as the scorching summer heat continued. Temperatures have reached 100 degrees or higher in Southern Arizona each of the past 13 days, said National Weather Service meteorologist Gary Zell.

From Oct. 1 through July 31, Border Patrol agents in the Tucson Sector had recovered the bodies of 161 illegal immigrants, an 18 percent increase from the 137 bodies found during the same time last year, said Mike Lee, Border Patrol Tucson Sector spokesman. The sector stretches from New Mexico to Yuma County.

Arizona Daily Star (emphasis mine)

Where’s Obama? Where’s Janet? This human rights catastrophe is happening in a jurisdiction that she has overseen since 2002; first as Arizona’s governor, now as the Secretary of Homeland Security.

They are no better than George W. Bush on border policy.

Rhetoric-wise there is a difference, but that doesn’t muster any clout when you have people stripping off their clothes out of desperation to escape the scorching sun. The American people find it easy to blame border crossers for their own deaths. “They had it coming.”

Yet they ignore the maquilas that sit conveniently on one side of an imaginary line so that brown skinned workers can produce goods for pennies on the dollar. Mujeres being raped and disappeared by the thousands in Juarez. Pollution that infects the workers and those living along watersheds – all in the name of economic stability for those privileged enough to be on the benefitting side of the T-account.

Where is the change, Mr. President? Secretary Salazar recently gave positive signals to humanitarian groups, but how will that translate to a shift in paradigm and treatment of our brothers and sisters south of the line?

Even as this shell game continued, Ed McCullough and several other No More Deaths volunteers were invited to meet with Jane Lyder, assistant secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks. The message they toted back to Washington, D.C., was simple, says McCullough, a retired dean of the UA College of Science, and the group’s official cartographer: “We told them there were people dying in the desert, and the primary cause of death was heat-related problems related to the lack of water. And we told them that we wanted to put water out.

“Secretary Salazar came in about 15 minutes after the meeting started and talked about his concern with what’s happening to the migrants in the desert,” McCullough recalls. “He said he’s had a general concern about immigration problems for a very long time. He also said there were laws among the various government agencies, and anyone proposing what we’re proposing would have to work within the law.”

McCullough says he and the other volunteers left the meeting with a sense “that they wanted to work something out with the humanitarian groups.”

If that’s the case, it does signal a mood for compromise. But this is precisely where the rubber hits the road.

Hawkes was out of town and unavailable for comment. But in a recent interview with the Tucson Weekly, he made his position clear. When asked whether No More Deaths will be allowed to put out water, he replied: “Not the way they want to do it. But they can drive around the refuge and hand out cups of water all they want.”

Tucson Weekly (emphasis mine)

Unfortunately, that is the situation we face as long as Washington does nothing to end the funnel of death along la frontera and the economic instability that keeps currency in Latin América dependent upon the whims of the greenback.

 

No More Deaths Seeking Summer Volunteers

Tucson-based human rights organization No More Deaths/No Más Muertes is accepting applications for the 2008 summer season. Volunteers are required to attend a Sunday training session as well as commit to at least one week of participation in their worthy work. There are four main categories of opportunity:

• Desert Patrols: Provide humanitarian aid and maintain a constant presence in the Southern Arizona desert
• Aid Stations: Provide humanitarian aid and information and document human rights abuses in Northern Mexico (Requires Spanish skills)
• Advocacy Projects: Work on current campaigns in Phoenix or Tucson
• Material Aid Coordination: Acquire and distribute needed donations from Tucson

The application, linked here (.pdf file warning), must also be accompanied by a written statement detailing your interest in volunteering with NMD, expectations you have for the assistance you’ll provide, and the skills you will bring to the organization.

 

Southern Arizona Human Rights Organizations

Here are some grassroot organizations that are doing admirable work in the southern part of the Grand Canyon State that relates to the human rights facet of immigration and border policies in the U.S.:

Border Action Network

Border Action Network formed in 1999 and works with immigrant and border communities in southern Arizona to ensure that our rights are respected, our human dignity upheld and that our communities are healthy places to live. We are a membership-based organization that combines grassroots community organizing, leadership development, litigation and policy advocacy.

No More Deaths

No More Deaths is an organization whose mission is 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. Our work embraces the Faith-Based Principles for Immigration Reform and focuses on the following themes:

• Direct aid that extends the right to provide humanitarian assistance
• Witnessing and responding
• Consciousness raising
• Global movement building
• Encouraging human immigration policy.

Humane Borders

Humane Borders, motivated by faith, offers humanitarian assistance to those in need through more than 70 emergency water stations on and near the U.S.-Mexican border.

“They will neither hunger nor thirst, nor will the desert heat or the sun beat upon them. He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water.”

— Isaiah 49:10

Coalición de Derechos Humanos

Coalición de Derechos Humanos (“The Human Rights Coalition”) is a grassroots organization which promotes respect for human/civil rights and fights the militarization of the Southern Border region, discrimination, and human rights abuses by federal, state, and local law enforcement officials affecting U.S. and non-U.S. citizens alike.derechos humanos logo

Our goals include:

* Strengthening the capacity of the border & urban communities to exercise their rights and participate in public policy decisions.
* Increasing public awareness of the magnitude of human rights abuses, deaths and assaults at the border resulting from U.S. policy.
* Seeking changes in government policies that result in human suffering because of the militarization of the U.S. border region.

Samaritan Patrol

Who or what is it? Samaritan Patrol ( a.k.a. Samaritans) are people of faith and conscience who are responding directly, practically and passionately to the crisis at the US/ Mexico border. We are a diverse group of volunteers that are united in our desire to relieve suffering among our brothers and sisters and to honor human dignity. Prompted by the mounting deaths among border crossers, we came together July 1, 2002, to provide emergency medical assistance, food and water to people crossing the Sonoran Desert.

Feel free to add to the list in the comments below and I will update the post.

 

Bodies – Bodies Everywhere

Keep stalling, Congress. You seem to have no problem having blood flow from the result of your inaction (see Iraq)

Officials discovered three bodies of illegal border crossers late Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning, including a 33-year-old woman whose 10-year-old son was with her.

With the latest three bodies found, the Border Patrol has recovered at least 16 bodies in the Tucson Sector in July, bringing its fiscal-year total to at least 132. From Oct. 1 through June, the agency had reported 116 border deaths in the Tucson Sector, down slightly from the 119 at the same time the year before.

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With everything in limbo, it appears that women and children are making the trek north in greater numbers to unify their families. My deepest condolences and prayers to those left behind that will suffer from the losses.

Please.
Please.
Please consider a monetary donation to No More Deaths and Humane Borders

 

16 Bodies in 18 Days

Heat Advisories are in full-effect across the state, and the deaths continue.

Border Patrol agents found the body of a 26-year-old Mexican woman Monday afternoon about 60 miles southwest of Tucson on the Tohono O’odham Reservation, the 16th body of an illegal border crosser found in the past 18 days.

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Humane Borders and No More Deaths could use some support to fight back against this humanitarian crisis.

 

The Woman at the Well

Tears – all I have are tears.

The U.S. Border Patrol rescued an illegal immigrant Tuesday trapped in a 30-foot-deep well on the Tohono O’odham Nation.

The woman had climbed down to find water for her sister and her three nieces.

The five had been walking through the desert with four others for several days when the 29-year-old woman, her sister and her sister’s daughters, age 6, 10 and 16, stopped because they had run out of water and were too weak to continue in the 112-degree heat, said Border Patrol spokesman Sean King.

linkage

Five women making their way to El Norte – only to find that the promised land was only a mirage. Instead of prosperity, what they found was dehydration; instead of survival, they were met with bee stings and anaphylactic shock.

And still, no compassion from some quarters of U.S. society.

Once again, an incident that could have been avoided has she not been doing something she was not supposed to be doing in the first place. The only people I feel sorry for in this case are the Border Patrol agents who had to be incinvienenced with this bullplop.

Until enough people “Get It” that the magnetic force of migration is due to utter desperation – the darkest night of the soul – the inner-most circles of mental hell – and not just some American™-prismed view that border-crossers don’t respect our laws, then the deaths will continue unabated.

Imagine a situation where you had absolutely nothing. The system had completely screwed you and your family out of livelihood. Do you do what you need to do to survive? Or do you just give up?

I respect those who choose to cross the barren lands of their ancestors because they have chosen to live.

If you have some discretionary funds, please consider sending a donation to No More Deaths and Humane Borders – two organizations that understand that there is a disastrous human rights crisis occurring everyday in the Sonoran Desert. They are providing water stations and dignity to the victims of this economic war.

Your support is truly the difference between life and death. Especially now that the summer has arrived with a vengeance.

 

I Believe That’s Called A Mandate

Hey, if George can claim one based on a 50.7%/48.3% poll, and terrorize 100% of us as a result of it, then what is Congress waiting for?

While Congress and the White House remain divided over what to do with the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living in the USA, a new poll shows the American public appears to have reached a consensus on the question.

A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken last weekend found that 78% of respondents feel people now in the country illegally should be given a chance at citizenship.

linkage (emphasis mine)

Atrios is “utterly astonished” at the numbers, and to be honest, it is somewhat surprising to me that it’s that high; but one of the biggest gripes that those of us connected to the info hub had/has is the complete lack of balance within the political debate.

It is, as Nezua aptly describes, La Lente Blanca – The White Lens – working in overdrive.

BECAUSE OF THE SUBTLETY OF THESE SYSTEMS that privilege those perceived to be “White,” it takes an actual about-face in translation, a swivel of the mental lens to become aware of the lens, itself. It requires a dramatic change in orientation, we may even say a breaking of the lens. The very tool of analyzation has been perverted to channel distorted information, because (again) were sane humans to meditate upon the situations required today to continue the American lifestyle, they would be shocked and disgusted. If I return to the train metaphor, I could say that were the passengers to actually sit up and look out the window, they would be horrified at the corpses along the ground. But the line to our hearts has been detoured past mirrored cul-de-sacs so that we can only see beautiful scenery.

When I started blogging a couple of years ago, I knew that a big part of the message I wanted to get out to whomever stumbled upon my words would be to tell the stories of those who are trampled by our immigration system. Personas como la familia Dominguez-Rivera y muchas mas que no tienen nombres.

The dry river beds of the desert Southwest run with the blood of innocent people everyday, yet the power structure of the U.S. is being dragged, kicking and screaming, into action to address the issue. It’s like being caught in a continuous loop of the storyline in The Running Man, where reality is treated like a game yet the death is real.

Ironically, some of the cast members are the same.

So what needs to happen now? Aside from hauling in a defibrillator to the U.S. Capitol and shocking the Suits and Pearls out of lethargy, it is important to support the work of those agencies and coalitions that are in our communities making sure that families are not separated, basic human rights are upheld, and the dignity of the roots of those affected by the power games are honored. Groups like the Border Action Network, Coalición de Derechos Humanos and No More Deaths.

It wouldn’t hurt to get out into the street on May 1st either.

 

Humanitarian Award to No More Deaths Duo

This is great news, especially for those of us who seek to bring the human rights aspect of immigration reform to the forefront of the debate.

Two young humanitarian volunteers cleared of human-smuggling charges have won a human rights award for their work aiding distressed migrants along the Arizona-Mexico border.

Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss, along with the humanitarian group No More Deaths, will receive the Oscar Romero Award for Human Rights at a ceremony in Houston on April 22.

Sellz, 24, and Strauss, 25, were arrested July 9, 2005, while driving three illegal immigrants from the desert near Arivaca to a temporary health clinic at a church in Tucson. If convicted, the two could have faced a 15-year sentence and $500,000 fine.

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The award is being given by the Rothko Chapel out of Houston, Texas which has this to say about their mission:

For the last 32 years, the Chapel has provided diverse programs to engage audiences intellectually, artistically, and spiritually. This institution has distinguished itself by addressing issues and concerns before they were generally recognized and popularized. The Chapel has stressed the importance of human rights by issuing awards to exceptional individuals or groups of people not generally well known, who have distinguished themselves by their courage and integrity.

Congratulations to Shanti and Daniel, as well as the entire No More Deaths organization, for this opportunity to promote your mission of human rights. Through the telling of the stories, the humanity and desperation of immigrant economic refugees is not lost in the din of today’s political discourse.