Aperturas Fronteras

We’ve been here for about two weeks now, and it seems I’ve fallen down on my blogging already, but it’s not for lack of interesting developments. This story seems to sprawl out in all different directions. One source mentioned to me that this movement is factional, and that’s become more and more clear with each person we talk to. Like the Civil Rights movement, different activists have disparate ideas about what can and should be done to improve the migrant situation.

On Saturday, we went to a meeting of the group Derechos Humanos. A group of a dozen or so volunteers were making crosses, painting them white, and writing the names of the victims who’ve died on the border this year. We even got in on the hammering. As they do each year, the volunteers and their friends and families will carry the crosses in the All Souls Procession held in Tucson on November 8. It’s another Mexican tradition that reveres and celebrates the deceased.

As you can see from Rocky’s photos, the volunteers are all different ages, and it was touching that teenagers would come out on a Saturday to do something like this. As the crosses began to collect into great piles, the stark reality of the number of people who died just this year began to hit me. Every one of these people had a family, perhaps children who will never know them. Then, in the storage room, we could see the crosses from all the years before, stacked in boxes like Christmas ornaments.

Kat Rodriguez, the director of Derechos Humanos, has a really different perspective from Dr. Anderson. Although they both want the deaths to stop, of course, Rodriguez would not advocate closing down the border. Both have similar sentiments on how the border is being mismanaged, however. She says:

“The whole strategy was to seal down the traditional crossing points through the urban areas of Nogales, Agua Prieta, Naco, and Yuma. By increasing border patrol in that area, you are shifting people east and west, pushing them into more isolated, desolate terrain, which is how this flow shifted to Sasabe. The majority of people began attempting to cross through what we call the Sasabe corridor, and this is where the majority of bodies were being recovered. Then they built a wall at Sasabe, so people are now crossing through Sonorita, and the Indian nation. These areas are more and more isolated, and it’s less likely that anyone’s going to find them.”

This weekend, Rocky and I will be going down to Nogales, Sasabe, and perhaps into the Tohono O’odham Reservation. Groups like Derechos and No More Deaths usually have volunteers at the border handing out “Know Your Rights” information and also providing food, water, and emergency assistance.

Rodriguez told us that many people ask her why she doesn’t discourage people at the border from crossing—as the most treacherous part of the journey is through the Sonora Desert in Arizona. She explains, “You’re talking about somebody who has already traveled from Chiapas or Guatemala or Oaxaca, sold their land or taken out a huge loan to get here. Do you think my words are going to change their minds after all that? Really? All you can really do is tell them that if you make it to the other side and you’re apprehended, here are your rights. Know your rights. You can go home and light a candle for them, and that’s pretty much it.”

Interestingly to me, Rodriguez is against guest worker programs. And, she makes a good point: “Do you invite a guest in to clean your toilet and make your bed? No! We need a worker program—if we are going to employ people to build our homes, to pick our food, to change our beds in the hotels, we need to consider them American workers, and they should have some rights and protections.”

We also spoke about how our immigration policy should be reformed, and I mentioned Homeland Security, perhaps insensitively. She replied, “That’s the problem, when people want to talk about immigration reform they immediately go to security. The truth is, those two issues are separate. Every country in the world deals with immigration, it’s just the inflow and outflow of people. Security is a different issue, and I think the biggest success of the right and the Bush administration is that everyone has given in to this marriage of homeland security and immigration.”

Furthermore, Rodriguez says that if the immigration quotas were addressed, there would be no need for heavy security on the border, because people would much rather enter legally. They are already paying a $1,500 to $3,500 fee to a coyote on average, so why not pay that fee to the US government instead?

As it is now, entering legally is very difficult. Many countries have backlogs of people waiting to get in—these wait times can be 15 to 20 years. “We have a schizophrenic border policy. We want them over here, we’re slapping them over there, we need them to work over here, we’re punishing them over there,” Rodriguez says. “I mean give me a break, let’s stop being hypocritical. Acknowledge where our labor comes from, regularize it, and give them a legal choice.”

What’s significant is that despite all the differences in ideology, what’s universally acknowledged down here is that the current border patrol system is extremely inhumane. When I mentioned to Rodriguez that I had hope that Obama would do something to change this, she shook her head and replied, “I don’t. He’s talking to all the same people that Bush did.”

Reflecting on the lack of patrol in the desert areas, she said “They reasoned that the desert would kill anything that crossed it so they didn’t need a wall. They planned for death to deter people. Our government actually factored death into our strategy to control the border. That’s absolutely abhorrent, but it’s true.”