No More Deaths

Katie D.

January 2, 2009 - 11:41 AM

This summer 183 people died quietly, without official remark or remorse. They were unwanted, unwelcome. They died on the path of hope of home and a better future. They came, like many of us do, to a difficult choice in their lives, and they chose the road they believed best for themselves and their families, and for that choice they died alone in the desert.

Those 183 people were migrants, trying to cross the Sonoran Desert in Arizona. They were "illegals," Central Americans leaving their homes to search for a better life in the United States. They are part of the Over 300 migrants who die each year on our border. They are silent deaths. They die from dehydration or hypothermia, starvation and snakebites. Their numbers increase as Border Patrol policies push migrants away from easier routes into the dangerous mountains and long desert routes.

This is not a question of immigration policy at heart. It is a question of a person's right to life. It is a question of US policies that create situations of desperation, both on the individual and on the nation wide level. We allow these people to die. Each of us.

This summer I spent a few days on the border with a group from my Colorado church, learning from and working with a humanitarian aid organization called No More Deaths. On the Mexico side they staff a rest station with food and medicine for men and women who were caught by Border Patrol and then deported over the border, left without resources and often with minor to severe foot injuries and dehydration. In Arizona NMD staffs a permanent camp in the desert, where migrants can come for food, water, and medical help. Staff from this camp also hikes the trails looking for migrants in trouble and placing water caches for them to re-supply.

My group of ten spent five days down in the desert. We were a group studying "Just Faith," or how Christian principles should be applied to issues of social justice in the world. First we recieved basic information about the issues from the people who work with migrants and the immigration issues, and then we traveled into the desert to see for ourselves.

We began our trip in Tucson, in Gene's house. Gene is one of the leaders of No More Deaths, a retired pastor who is passionate about issues of social justice and has spent years working in the Southwest on issues of human rights. From him we received a background on the immigration question, with an emphasis on the experience of individual people within the larger realities of migration from Mexico and Central America. We talked about US economic policies that have created such glaring international inequalities between our nation and that of our neighbors, in which our relationships have been consistently exploitive and damaging for the other parties. Our system of Free Trade has meant that small corn farmers in Mexico have had to compete with US- subsidized corn that is sold for below their production cost and has devastated small Mexican towns. This one factor combines with a myriad of others to create a system that offers little hope to many Mexican workers: their traditional means of livelihood has been completely wiped out, not just where they have always lived, but everywhere in their country. Often their choices become joining the massive wave of migration to Mexican cities or to border factories that produce goods for US corporations, or making a dangerous and possibly deadly trip across an international border that could mean prosperity for themselves and their children.

This situation is repeated all over Central America. People are nearly hopeless, but have seen images of the American Dream: of the opportunities that await those who are willing to work and sacrifice for a better life. And so they come.

Our group headed down across the border to a town called Mariposa, one border town where Border Patrol deports the migrants they catch. While there we talked with Mexican officials, staff for the border medical facilities and soup kitchens, and with migrants themselves. The general feeling in that town is one of near despair: for many people the trip to the US was their one shot, for which they had used whatever small savings they had, plus borrowing money from neighbors and friends. Their families count on money coming home soon, and most migrants have no money to even phone home, much less make the trip.

We then went to Altar, a town that many migrants use as a jumping-off point in their journey: the place where they meet up with coyotes (human smugglers), and groups with whom they will be making the crossing. We had a meal at a Catholic migrant shelter, and spent the night there. In the morning we went to the town square to talk to more people preparing for the crossing.

My Spanish was invaluable during this part of the trip. Most of the adults we traveled with had little or no Spanish skills, so our official translator was very busy. I had the opportunity to talk to individual people about their experiences. The men we talked to (women migrate as well, but in smaller numbers and we did not meet any) were all sad: those who had been caught and deported, those who were setting out, those who had had hopes of migrating but had run out of money or other resources. Men talked about the lack of work at home, the complete lack of options for sources of decent labor. I would ask if they were afraid of the desert, and they usually told me they were very afraid: of the distance, of the heat, of the snakes. They were sad to leave their families: aging parents, new babies, places they were familiar with and comfortable in. They expressed fear at entering the US and sadness at leaving their homeland.

Over and over I wondered what choice I would make in their circumstances.

The next day we hiked the migrant trails in Arizona. We drove out into the desert to leave large caches of water along a highly frequented trail. Then we set off with backpacks full of food packs and water bottles and first aid. Being a Spanish speaker, my job was to shout out into the desert as we walked , advertising our presence to any migrants who might be hiding, waiting out the day in whatever shade they could find, waiting for night to fall so they could continue their three-day journey into Tucson. I shouted with all the love and friendliness I could muster: compañeros, compañeras, somos un grupo de No Mas Muertes. Tenemos agua, comida, y medicina. Si necesitan ayuda, estamos agua para ustedes... "Friends, comrades, we are a group called No More Deaths. We have water, food, and medicine. If you need help, we are here for you..."

One voice, at least, of welcome into the country.

I'm going back for spring break this year. I hope to go with a group of students from the Wesley Center, a campus United Methodist group. I'll go and stay in the desert camp for a week: wrapping ankles, washing feet, hiking trails in the desert. I'll hear stories and share mine: share the information that there are those of us here in the US who can put aside political concerns and look at the suffering before them and choose to lend a hand to their neighbor. Because every dead body in the desert is a part of our collective identity as a nation. And I therefore feel strongly that it is important for me to go, to witness, to lend aid. And then to return and speak to what I have seen.

Compañeros, compañeras...Friends, companions.