fotos

I've been out of Nogales for nearly a week now. I've had some space to decompress and process while with family, and think of how to keep working with immigration/border issues from Walla Walla. I'll keep you posted.

View from the apartment in Nogales AZ. The houses on the hill are all in Nogales Mexico.

Section of the Nogales wall from the Mexico side. The mural depicts Santa Muerte (Saint of Death) underneath the "Eye of Providence" that is on U.S. currency. Above the wall is a Border Patrol surveillance tower.

Grupos Beta, the Mexican federal agency that provides aid to migrants, places water in the desert South of the border for those who are crossing. Some walk through desert country for days before even reaching the wall to cross.

On the drive out to the desert camp in Arivaca.

A note left by a traveler in the desert camp this summer:

"A rainy and cold day like today I give thanks to God .

Because he put me in the path where I found refuge and I learned that in the darkest and most ugly [times/places] there is an exit a ray of light. To whoever made this camp thank you for helping us.

Every harvest has its fruit."

Road taken by monsoon

Labeling gallons of water for migrants on a water-drop hike near Arivaca. Photo by Katy Brandes.

From a patient we treated one afternoon at the camp: "Thank you for your attention. May the Father protect you. Very hospitable/friendly."

Desert camp med tent and kitchen tent infront of the Twin Peaks.

This is David [name changed] - he's from Honduras and is traveling with a group of other young Hondurans. He first claimed to be 17, then admitted to 15. We think he is headed back home after a failed border-crossing, but it's hard to be sure of anyone's plans here. David is a sweetheart, a goofy little kid. I wish he were home, playing soccer, waiting for the school year to start. But he's been traveling from Honduras with hopes of work in the U.S., and back in Honduras he'll be working the coffee fields.

Friends at Transportes Reforma

Christ figure at the shelter in Nogales Mexico, with detention center bracelets along the arms. [The pink ones are from Maricopa County]. Photo by Katy Brandes.

Photo by Katy Brandes.

8.18

Tomorrow afternoon I leave the border for Tucson, and I’m not ready. I’m just starting to learn this place, just starting my work.

The other night I dreamt that we had been blocked out of Nogales, Arizona and Sonora. We had crossed a border or wall and weren’t allowed to come back. I was crying. I spoke in fragments of English and Spanish and confusion. I didn’t want to leave yet, I wasn’t ready to go. We stood staring at the gate. All we had left of Nogales was a pile of paletas [popsicles] melting on the table.

Operation Streamline [or] Factory Justice

[Background:

Operation Streamline is a federal initiative to expedite mass deportations of thousands of Mexican and Central American citizens from the U.S. It’s a form of “zero-tolerance” enforcement that processes undocumented people through federal criminal court and penal system (as opposed to detention or offering them civil voluntary departure [which involves signing a form admitting to one’s illegal entry, being cited, and being driven to the border, without going through the criminal system]). The goal of Streamline is 100% prosecution of undocumented peoples through the federal system.

Those who are charged with crossing the border for the 1^st time receive a misdemeanor and up to 6 months in prison. Those who cross again, “illegal re-entry,” are charged with a felony and can receive a 2-year max prison sentence. If someone charged with illegal re-entry has a criminal record (for example, if they’ve already been convicted of the illegal-reentry felony) they can be sentenced for up to 20 years in prison.

Streamline operates on daily en masse hearings. 70 to 100 people are tried on the same day, at the same time, in the same room. In Yuma AZ and Del Rio TX, one attourney may represent up to 40 defendants per day. (The Tucson sector refused this ratio and one public defendant represents no more than 6 people per day).

The whole process – the client’s meeting with their attourney (which lasts max 20 min here in Tucson), their initial appearance, the arraignment, the plea, and the sentencing all occur in less than 12 hours.]

After the desert, we went to witness the trial of 60-70 people through Streamline at the U.S. District Court of Arizona, Tucson.

The courthouse is sterile – white and beige, flat, high ceilinged, glass and metal and linoleum. A 5-foot tall U.S. seal is illuminated in the front of the courtroom.

Before I even see the defendants, I hear the shackles. No, not handcuffs. Shackles. Their cuffed hands are tethered to a chain cinched around their waist, and their ankles are in manacles. The slightest movement causes their chains to chirp and jangle and clatter. Their hands are pulled towards their navels, as if they’d broken their wrists. They hobble when they walk. Several are injured – one man’s hand is in a cast, another can hardly walk on blistered feet. Last week, a man was refused treatment for a broken femur until he was processed by the court.

The accused are packed into the audience and the jury box. They are wearing stethoscope-shaped ear buds that translate the proceedings into Spanish. They are wearing the clothes they were arrested in. They have not been allowed to shower. Their belts have been removed, and they are unable to pull up their pants because of their bonds. They are stripped and denied their dignity; they are publicly humiliated and shushed.

The first five are brought to the front. They don't speak Spanish or English, rather they speak indigenous languages. There are no translators for their languages, thus they wouldn’t be able to understand the proceedings. They are dismissed and their charges are dropped “without prejudice.” An attorney pats his client gently on the shoulder as he leaves, offers “bueno suerte.” The only woman of today’s sixty-plus defendants shuffles out of this group, crying, her ankle-chains clanking, and I feel like everything inside my chest has dropped six inches.

The rest of the defendants are tried with two charges: 1) illegal re-entry after deportation (a felony). 2) evading examination or inspection of U.S. immigration (a misdemeanor). In these cases, a “plea bargain” is offered: in exchange for pleading guilty to the misdemeanor, the court will drop the felony charge, and the individual is sentenced to a maximum of 180 days in prison.

The prosecutor is sifting through a stack of manilas nearly two feet tall. The U.S. Court Marshall is slouching behind his desk near the exit, texting. As the officials speak in English, a woman murmurs the translation into a microphone. The Spanish echo-whispers in a constant stream around the sound-proof walls.

Mid-sentence, the judge turns away from the defendants to pour his coffee while the legal terms casually pour from his mustached lips. He has said these words hundreds of times and he will say them thousands of times more. His speech is memorized.

“…You agree not to appeal that sentence to a higher court…”

“…what you have done wrong…”

“…If any of you feel like you are being forced, obligated, or intimidated in any way, please let me know by standing…”

The judge calls seven men to the front at a time. He asks them each the same rapid thread of questions down the line:

Are you a citizen of Mexico?

            Si.

Were you found in ____[place] on _____[date]?

            Si.

Were you previously denied admission, excluded, deported, and removed from ____[place] on ____[date]?

            Si.

Did you make Application 2 and receive permission from U.S. government immigration officials in order to be here?

            No.

"Si – Si – Si – No."

"Si – Si – Si – No." 

"Si – Si – Si – No."

Then the bucket-brigade of pleas:

“Culpable.” “Culpable.” “Culpable.” “Culpable.” “Culpable.” “Culpable.” “Culpable.”

Meanwhile, the waterfall of chains, the murmur of Spanish breathing from the microphone like a secret.

One man breaks the standard pattern of responses:

[Judge]: Were you told by your attorney upon your last deportation what would happen should you re-enter the U.S.?

[Defendant]: My attorney said if I came I came back I would have 3 months in jail.

The man is sentenced with 165 days, twice the sentence he was told to expect.

Another man protests; he did apply through Application 2, but he didn’t qualify. He was told his request for political asylum was “invalid.” He may well be killed upon return to Mexico, but he didn’t qualify for asylum on the proper form. Perhaps he didn’t pass his Credible Fear exam.

Another starts to plea, “But I was here 5 years –,” and is interrupted:

“____ is a very competent attorney. I have no doubt he would tell you what would happen if you re-entered. What do you think would happen to you if you try to enter again? Do you think it would be a misdemeanor or a felony?” the judge pelts. The judge chastises him aggressively, like a schoolmaster to a sullen student. My hackles rise at the tone of his voice.

The clamor of chains quiets in units of seven men as the accused are tried and the room empties. They are led out the door like cattle. Someone likens the procession to a slave-market.

When an individual broke from the script of silence/si/no during the proceedings, I wanted to hear them speak. I wanted them to be given the space to explain why they crossed and to share what they may have suffered. I wanted to them to be allowed to tell the well-known traumas: my family is hungry; I can’t find work; my child/mother/sister/wife needs surgery; I’m afraid for my life; my wife and kids are U.S. citizens; I was brought to the U.S. when I was two, Mexico has never been my home. I wanted them to be granted the right to be treated as fellow human beings with their own complicated stories and motives. The judge neglected tell the accused of their right to allocute, neglected to ask them if they had something to say to the court. He neglected to allow them their voice. The court, the process, the federal system neglects to recognize the accused as human beings. The court, the process, the federal system tears their dignity from their skin and sends them hungry, hurt, and vulnerable to a border-town that may be more hell than home.

¡Miralo!

Quick preface or afterword to Operation Streamline and the prison system related to deported/detained persons.

Notes from the Desert (8.10 - 8.14)

8.10

Being back in the desert feels like settling into the arms of a second family, re-meeting one of my Places. The Sonoran Desert in monsoon season is loud. During the day, rain, cicadas, flies, and layers of bird calls – chirps and caws and trills and warbles and cries. At night, the wash behind our camp is a riot of bullfrogs, leopard frogs (which sound like a croaking goat), crickets, coyote, and the jets that fly low overhead. It was raining fat drops as we drove in to camp from Tucson. Sections of the road had flooded. The acacias, mimosas, snakeweed are erupting into green, the soil is fine and dark and damp.

The desert camp is outside of Arivaca, the oldest continuously-inhabited town in Arizona and home to the oldest bar (La Gitana) in the state. The No More Deaths camp is eight years old and sits on private property of a friend a few miles out of town. There’s a med-unit tent-and-trailer and a kitchen tent-and-trailer, a shade tent over the tables, a few campers/trailers for storage and sleeping, two poop buckets, and plenty of space to bed down outside.

The work: we drive and hike out to trails and leave gallon-jugs of water, cans of beans, and clean socks at sites people may pass through frequently. At camp, we are open to people who pass through – we provide them with food, water, and give them medical attention. Medical care often means cleaning and bandaging people’s blistered feet (from hiking in weather too hot for too many miles in too-small shoes), and treating for dehydration (water, electrolytes, rest).

8.11

Today the monsoons poured down in full. Most of the routes to our hikes were flooded, so we went on some short water/food drops. Along the trails are empty gallons of water, open cans of beans, worn-out socks, jackets and backpacks and pants left behind. There is a constant presence of people passing through, but rarely do we meet people in the desert (– those crossing the desert are trying to avoid Border Patrol and, as such, would rather not be seen if they are not in need of immediate medical care. And even then, many won’t call out for help for fear of being deported).

At one of the stops, we found “detention bracelets” on the side of the road – temporary handcuffs of black rope and a ziptie-like plastic piece. It’s upsetting to see evidence of conflict, traces of confrontation left behind.

Near camp we helped a neighbor gather mesquite pods, which he grinds into flour and sells in Tucson. The flour is sweet, almost like tamarind. The neighbor is rough, a sun-soaked conspiracist with a couple of trailers (6, actually), two dogs, and a compassionate and cantankerous way of being.

8.12

This region is a conflict zone. There is a tangible, constant tension. There is a persistent undertone of fear. During the day we go on “patrol” to provide basic, basic humanitarian aid (food, water, medical). Those not hiking during the day “hold it down” at camp. The flies buzz mad in the mid-day heat. Today a neighbor to our east was shooting (non-malicious target-practice, I believe) and the sound was ricocheting off the hills to our west. Border Patrol vehicles are everywhere, and a BP vehicle will frequently pull up to the road that our camp is near and watch our camp for hours. Yesterday, when one was parked across from camp, a volunteer pointed toward the car and the vehicle rolled behind a cluster of trees. The camp has been raided by Border Patrol several times, even though camp is on private property.

Several individuals from another humanitarian aid group out here have advised NMD to do as they do and bake cookies for Border Patrol, “ally ourselves with them.” Literally – they bake cookies. I don’t intend to villainize a group of people, nor do I want to speak in a language of enemies and allies. However, baking cookies for Border Patrol officials to create a superficial political “alliance” with the organization that is causing and escalating violence and the deaths of thousands of people along the border does not sit right with me.

The burst backpacks, broken detention bracelets, gallons of water that have been slashed, the surveillance towers of the “virtual wall” that sprout out of ranch lands, the increased deployment of more Border Patrol and National Guard throughout the desert… me inquieta…

After a long day, we went into town tonight for a folk jam on the porch of the Gadsen Coffeshop. About 6 or so guitars, my one uke, a handful of harmonicas, and a washtub bass. The man to my left hasn’t worn shoes in the past 10 years. Another has walked the perimeter of Texas. Much, much needed music, and good company.

8.13 *[heads up: this entry contains stories of sexual violence]

We had several guests in camp today. They’d been walking in the desert from 11 days from Nogales, and are turning around to go back to Mexico. They were if fairly good spirits, not too dehydrated, and amazingly un-blistered. They were sweet, grateful, and helpful and I was glad we could feed them and provide them with a few gallons of water. We cooked up a monster pot of beans tonight for all our guests. The youngest of the group had never crossed before, but it was another’s 6^th time traveling through the desert.

We also had several guests tonight from Angeles del Desierto [Angels of the Desert]. The Angeles is a group of volunteers from Mexico and the SW U.S. who search for missing persons and bodies of loved ones in the desert.

In the past few years, the number of people crossing the desert has decreased, yet the number of deaths has increased. The occurrence and severity of violence has increased. More and more, young kids in Mexican border towns are being forced to smuggle drugs to a pick-up point in the U.S. – traffickers threaten their families if they don’t comply.

The number of disappearances has increased, especially of “mujercitas” (young women, as told by the Angeles). Mujercitas who are crossing the desert and living in border-towns or the Tohono O’odham Reservation, are being kidnapped and raped and/or forced into prostitution.

The Angeles described to us the “rape trees” they frequently encounter on their searches. A rapist hangs the torn under-clothes of the woman/en he has violated in the branches of a tree like a trophy and scatters the contents of her toiletry bag over the sand.

After describing the escalation of violence towards people crossing the desert, one of the Angeles brought over three backpacks they’d recovered on a search today and emptied the packs on the table.

One Guatemalan coin. A white bra stained and scraped by gravel and sand. A tangle of torn underwear.

These are not abstract, theoretical victims. We sat at the dining table with the blatant evidence of rape, the under-clothes torn from these women, glowing in headlamps and moonlight on the dining table. The battered, violated, raped, and perhaps murdered or prostituted women were nearly with us. This violence is another slouching beast of the border wall. I have no words to express this injustice and rage and trauma and hurt.

On rhetoric [note: a BIG DEAL]

The words we use can strengthen or can dis-empower. Most often, the rhetoric of immigration from the U.S. media and federal government disempowers, alienates, and criminalizes those leaving Mexico and Central America for the US, to a severe and frightening degree.

The volunteers I’ve been working with are very deliberate in the way they speak about the border region. The following is a general list of terms I’ve heard through public media, federal reports, and discussions, and a response to each. (The list moves more-or-less from most disturbing phrases to terms that seem more accurate to refer to people who are crossing through the desert).

“Criminal alien” – Just writing this phrase is upsetting. The word ‘alien’ renders a person foreign, a non-person, in a category of sub- or other-than-human. Most sources that use ‘alien’ will avoid using the words ‘person’ or ‘people.’

‘Criminal’ has a whole mess of assumptions that go along with it, and often implies that the person(s) referred can and will cause harm to you or your property. In reality, most of the “criminal” records of people crossing refer to multiple deportations – once someone has been deported once, they are technically “criminal” under U.S. law. The act of re-entering the U.S. after one deportation is a felony.

“Illegal alien” – A human being, a person, cannot be illegal. You can commit an illegal act, but you yourself cannot be branded ‘illegal’ for your existence. The status of ‘illegal’ denies the validity of those peoples’ sufferings and their right to be heard. (Many, many people have discussed the use of ‘illegal’ in more depth and with more eloquence).

(alien – see above)

“Illegal immigrant” – (illegal – see above) ‘immigrant’ refers to someone who “comes to live permanently in a foreign country.”** Immigrant assumes the intent and the background of the person(s) referred to. The case may be that someone is coming to the U.S. to work for a finite period of time, and thus are not coming to live permanently (so, then, they are not an “immigrant”). Also, many people who are now being deported have lived in the U.S. for 10, 15, 20 years. Or they’ve lived in the U.S. since they were 2 years old and their parents never applied for/obtained citizenship for them. They may identify as U.S. American. They may have no memory of Mexico. Crossing the desert into the U.S. may be their returning home to their families and/or hometowns. Thus their journey is not to a foreign country, but back home. Also, the term immigrant is a few degrees away from “person” “people” etc., creates a distance between the audience and the person(s) discussed, and can function as a euphemism.

“Migrant” – refers to someone who moves regularly in order to find work.** This is a little more inclusive than ‘immigrant,’ as it doesn’t imply where home is to the individual and does not imply a certain duration of stay. However, it only refers to those seeking work and isn’t a comprehensive term for everyone moving through the border region or living in the U.S. without citizenship.

“Undocumented person” – simply refers to a one’s lack of citizenship in the U.S. It may be refer to traveling in the border region or to someone who has been living in the U.S. for years. It doesn’t imply their motives, the country/ies they identify with, or intentionally alienate them from a U.S. citizen with documents. What I find most useful about the term is that it translates to different social/political groups of people without need for much explanation and is not particularly offensive.

“Walkers” – Several people at the desert camp use this term to refer to people who are crossing through the SW desert. It’s intended to be a peaceful, non-assumptive term to refer to someone traveling through. However, it takes some explaining outside of organizations like this, and something about the word ‘walker’ seems exclusive or off to me.

“Travelers” – Similar use and intention of “walker.” The word “traveler” is meant to be more inclusive and break down the barrier/distinction between someone who is in the desert as an aid-worker, volunteer, or permanent resident and someone who is traveling north from Mexico. We can all be considered “travelers” in whatever literal or metaphorical context you’d like, and is a term that implies solidarity with those who are crossing north. It also doesn’t assume the citizenship status and intention of those in the desert.

“Economic refugees” – I wish this were more common. A majority of people crossing the border from Mexico into the U.S. are leaving homes where their families are starving, where jobs are unavailable, where their agricultural land has been bought by foreign corporations. Most people fleeing a scarcity of resource are impoverished by the aftershocks of NAFTA. “Economic refugees” doesn’t refer to all people who cross, but it recognizes that most people are traveling through the desert because their basic human needs are not being met to survive in their home country, and acknowledges the border dynamics as a humanitarian crisis.

“Asylum-seekers” – Asylum refers to fleeing persecution and/or violence, and those seeking asylum from Mex or Central America are already within the U.S. Similar to economic refugees; asylum-seekers acknowledges the increasing violence in Mexico and the people who are fleeing drug violence, gang violence, domestic violence, starvation, etc. It is rare (nearly impossible) for a citizen of Mexico or Central America to be granted asylum in the U.S.

Please do respond to this if you are upset by my interpretations or my logic is off/flawed/unclear. I hope this has been useful.

** from Word Reference Online English Dictionary

8.16.2011 (back from the desert)

'Morning all!

I have a lot to cover after this last week; we've spent the last six days in No More Death's desert aid camp on ranch land outside of Arivaca AZ. We've been hiking and placing water and canned food along frequently used trails, and providing medical aid to those who come through camp. Now I'm back in range, but before jumping into the last few days I wanted to share a poem by Robert Frost that I've been mulling over.


Mending Wall by Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours."

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

"Why do they make good neighbours? Isn't it

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offence.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,

But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, "Good fences make good neighbours."

8.7.2011, on a lighter note

Tonight I am joyfully exhausted. It was our day off, and I woke up early to watch the sunrise over the Patagonia Mountains, wrapped in a blanket and barefoot on the sidewalk. This evening, a friend/fellow volunteer and I started digging up the side yard to plant a garden. The soil is packed and dry. We ripped up the grass that clenched the top gravel layer and broke up chalky, caked layers of calcium carbonate. We started sprouting eggplant, zucchini, cucumber, habañero peppers, tomatoes, amaranth, and basil, and planted native Tepary beans, a traditional legume of the Tohono O’odham people of southern Arizona. For dinner we cooked up a big pot of blackbean stew with ancho chiles, epazote, cumin seeds, along with fresh guacamole and hot corn tortillas. I’m mulled in a night of good food and good company and recharged for morning’s work. 

8.7.2011, heads up - it's heavy

The following is the historical and political context to the border wall and our work here that I’ve picked up in the past few week or so. To me, it all comes in to play at today’s frontera. I’ve tried to stay concise and engaging, but I ramble some and it may be rough. Please let me know if corrections are needed.

Conquest to Mexican Revolution (if you’re short on time or attention you may want to jump to "Pre-NAFTA")

Several hundred years ago, native groups traveled all through meso-america (current-day Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, etc) and the Northern part of N America, i.e. Navajo-lands in the West and Dakota land in the Mid-west. Turquoise, abalone, corn, cocoa, feathers, shells, etc. were traded back and forth through the whole continent, and marriages were made cross-continent for political alliances and trade relationships.

In 1519, Spaniards flooded Mexico city and conquered the Aztec civilization and tierra de México in two years, enslaving the indigenous population.

Jump ahead nearly 300 years to Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla. Miguel was a creole [Spaniard parents, but born in Mexico], a Catholic priest, and a compassionate, riled-up radical. He challenged the power of Spain and of the church, questioned the immaculate conception and laws of celibacy. He danced, he drank, he had a lover and several children. He raised silkworms and grew grapes, and worked with indigenous and mestizo communities to help them find independence from colonial economic systems. In 1810, Miguel gathered up a rebel army of indigenas, mestizos, intellectuals, liberals, and campesinos (farm/field-workers) and revolted against colonial rule, igniting the Mexican War of Independence. The revolution developed and changed hands for the next 10 years, until independence from Spain was won in 1821.

In 1836, fifteen years after independence from Spain, the territory of Texas separated from México and became a US state in 1845. Following Texas, in the Mexican-American War in 1946 the US invaded the territory of current-day CA and NM. The US swarmed and captured Mexico City and forced the Mexican government to sell the US its territory from CA and NM into the Pacific coast region, all in the name of our holy Manifest Destiny.

At the start of the Mexican-American War our endearing Walt Whitman, to my great disappointment and disillusionment, wrote in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“Miserable, inefficient Mexico – with her superstition, her burlesque upon freedom, her actual tyranny by the few over the many – what has she to do with the great mission of peopling the New World with a noble race? Be it ours to achieve this mission!” [taken from: Nevins 2002]

Southern NM and the territory of AZ fell into US hands under Santa Anna’s rule soon after with the Gadsen Purchase of 1853, for the US to complete a transcontinental railroad to California.

The 1910 Mexican Revolution sprouted against the rule of Porfirio Diaz. Pancho Villa, Emiliano Zapata, and Venustiano Carranza are the admired figureheads of the revolution, and in the middle of a fluctuating government, Carranza became president in 1915. If I’ve lost you in a muddle of history, note this: under Carranza the Mexican Constitution of 1917 was created which, in Article 27, redistributed land from the hands of wealthy elite hacienda owners into communally owned, agriculturally-focused ejidos [community-organized land commons].

The ejidos were established “to create new agricultural centers, with necessary lands and waters; to encourage agriculture in general and to prevent the destruction of natural resources, and to protect property from damage to the detriment of society.” [Article 27, 1917 Constitution of Mexico].

Alrightee – so the 60-second preface of a history of Mexico is established.


Pre-NAFTA to Present

I’ll start the border-wall story a hop before the turn of the 20th century.

In the late 1880s, immigration back and forth from U.S. to Mexico was generally unregulated. In fact, the U.S. concern at the border in the 1880s was immigration of Chinese populations from Mexico into the U.S. In 1882 the U.S. passed the Chinese Exclusion Act to ban/bar people from immigrating from China to the US to work. The US had previously encouraged Chinese immigration into the U.S. as poorly-paid laborers for building railroads, but when the railroad work was completed, the US rejected Chinese citizens. [Note: this pattern will be repeated].

February 14, 1904 Immigration Act establishes the first formal border patrol along the U.S. Mexico border – several men patrolling on horseback, not much more. [Nevins p28].

The Immigration Act of 1917, in response to immigration through Ellis Island, etc., begins to formalize the immigration process into the US, requiring an $8/person tax of entry and a literacy test [Nevins 195]. Later on, developments like the requirement of a passport and quotas of specific nationalities sprout from this act.

1924, the U.S. Border Patrol is established for additional security on the U.S.’ land borders. During prohibition, Border Patrol focused on preventing booze traveling into the U.S. from Canada and Mexico. During the depression, thousands of Mexicans and Central Americans were deported from the U.S. to Mexico in the US government’s response to high unemployment rates. Here, the Border Patrol turned more of its attention to preventing illegal immigration into the US from Mexico [Nevins 30].

During WWII, though, the US immigration attitude flipped. With US working-age/-class men overseas at war, thousands of Mexicans were brought into the US to fill that job vacuum in Eisenhower’s guest worker Bracero Program.

The Bracero Program lasted from 1942 to 1964, but was interrupted in 1956 by “Operation Wetback,” a massive deportation program of undocumented Mexican laborers/immigrants. Nearly 500,000 people fled the U.S. in fear of persecution from the Operation. Over 130,000 people were deported to Mexico in the course of a year, representing the largest deportation by any U.S. president at the time. **

1980 Sanctuary Movement starts in response to refugees from the Guatemalan Civil War and El Salvador Civil War.***

1982 the IMF and the World Bank, with pressure from the US, offers Mexico (in a depression) monetary aid under the conditions that Mexico must agree to a series of [neoliberal] economic reforms, essentially: 1. Remove social programs and cut social spending, 2. Privatize government-owned businesses, 3. Decrease tariffs on foreign imports.^

A few years later, the US, Canada, and Mexico went into negotiations for NAFTA, or “North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement.” The agreement was mostly pushed by the U.S. to protect its investors in Mexico and to take advantage of cheaper labor and weaker environmental regulations south of the border.

On January 1, 1994 NAFTA went into effect. On January 1, 1994 the EZLN (Zapatista National Liberation Army) declared war against the Mexican government and declared its protest of NAFTA.

Remember Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution from before? (27 - the creation and protection of ejidos [communal lands]). Under NAFTA, Mexico had to rewrite Article 27 and end the ejido system, opening up the traditional, communal land to foreign investors. In the original constitution, “Only Mexicans by birth or naturalization and Mexican companies have the right to acquire ownership of lands, waters, and their appurtenances, or to obtain concessions for the exploitation of mines or of waters.”

The ejidos had been the fundamental structure of agricultural communities – their means of income, their sustenance, their community common ground was all based in communal land ownership. When NAFTA was implemented, this land became privatized. The Mexican government had done away with the majority of its social spending, so subsidies, aid, social programs simply disappeared in rural communities.

With the removal of tariffs, the US started exporting super-subsidized grains, namely corn, into Mexico. These US grains, US corn, was vastly cheaper than Mexican corn. Naturally, the US corn out-competes the local Mexican corn, and Mexican corn (and other crops) farmers go out of business. They are forced to sell their land (often to foreign investors/corporations) and move into urban centers looking for work; many try to cross al norte to find work in the US. The Mexican agricultural economy was/is completely disempowered by the importation of cheap US corn. Corn is in nearly every Mexican meal. It is a dietary staple, a cultural staple, the foundation of a historical national identity; the Maya are known as “peole of the corn.” Corn is a symbol of life, of sustenance, of cultural inheritance. For the agriculture of Mexico to be forcefully flooded out by subsidized corn from the US Midwest is insult after insult upon injury after injury. (I rant; many people are much more aware of agricultural dynamics between US and Latin America, please correct me if I am spreading misinformation).

I digress. Back to border.

From 1993 – 1997 a series of border fortification projects occurred that intensified security and Border Patrol action in popular, urban areas of migration. Operation “Hold the Line” in El Paso TX, Operation “Gatekeeper” in San Diego CA, Operation “Safeguard” in AZ, Operation “Rio Grande” in TX. The language of these operations alone is military, war-like, implying an invasion or siege pressing against the border from the south. These operations were intended to block migration from Mexico into SW US cities and to divert migration towards the hottest, driest, most rural parts of the US desert. The formal statement of this is “prevention through deterrence.”

The strategy of “prevention through deterrence” was introduced in “Border Patrol Strategic Plan: 1994 and Beyond, National Strategy,” published seven months after NAFTA went into effect. The plan states that under prevention through deterrence, Border Patrol aims to “achieve a rate of apprehensions sufficiently high to raise the risk of apprehension to the point that many will consider it futile to continue to attempt illegal entry” [US Border Patrol 1994].

With this strategy in mind, the Border Patrol predicted that “with traditional entry and smuggling routes disrupted, illegal traffic will be deterred, or forced over more hostile terrain, less suited for crossing and more suited for enforcement” [U.S. Border Patrol 1994]. In other words, people crossing illegally into the U.S. from Mexico will no longer be able to cross in urban, populated areas with resources (water, shade, transportation, etc.) for basic human needs, due to increased border security through the aforementioned operations (Gatekeeper, Safeguard, etc). Instead, migration will be funneled into Southwest desert landscapes, where people attempting to cross are likely to become lost in the mountainous, wild terrain and die from dehydration and/or heatstroke. The prediction is that migration will be herded to desert lands and people will die from environmental factors; the prediction is that these deaths will prevent others from crossing.

The plan recognizes that, along the border, “…the searing heat of the southern border effect[s] illegal entry traffic as well as enforcement efforts. Illegal entrants crossing through remote, uninhabited expanses of land and sea along the border can find themselves in mortal danger” [US Border Patrol 1994]. Border Patrol also notes that “violence will increase as effects of strategy are felt.” [Bold not included in original text.]

The “indicators of success” of “controlling the Southwest border” include:

• “political pressure to loosen border” [note that this political pressure is not necessarily from the Mexican government, US political interests, or international pressures – simply that there will be protest]
• “potential for more protests against immigration policy”
• “increased alien smuggling fees” [increasing prices of hiring a coyote or a pollero]
• “inquiries from U.S. employers of undocumented workers” [which may imply that a decrease in undocumented migrants to the US may be a point of concern to the health/function of US employers dependent upon migrant labor]
• “more violence at attempted entries” [the shock of this one speaks for itself]
• “improved public perception” [of the effectiveness of the Border Patrol]

Furthermore, on a point of rhetoric, not once does either Border Patrol border plan (1994 or 2005) refer to undocumented migrants as people, or even simply migrants. They are referred to as “aliens,” “illegal aliens,” and “illegal immigrants,” distancing them and dehumanizing them. This language is cold and unemotional, which allows the report to discuss the deaths of real, feeling, valuable human beings in a factual, detached manner through euphemisms and suggestive wording.

Today’s Border Patrol policy, 17 years later, lives and maintains this strategy and these expectations [see: 2005 National Border Patrol Strategy: Office of Border Patrol by US CBP].

Today’s border wall, the past 17 years, has been developed, enforced, and reinforced with the expectation that death and violence will occur along the border. In fact, an increase in violence and increase in public protest are official measurements of success. As in, more violence, more death, more dissent means that the Border Patrol is doing it’s job well and the border is unfolding according to plan.

In a report from the Congressional Research Service last year, an analyst and specialist in immigration policy writes that “…border crossings have become more hazardous since the “Prevention through Deterrence” policy went into effect in 1995, resulting in an increase in illegal migrant deaths along the Southwest border” [Haddal 2010].

Since 1994, since the implementation of “prevention through deterrence” (rather, death by desert) over 6,000 migrant deaths have been recorded along the border. Thousands more have died in canyons and arroyos and plains and peaks and their remains have not been found.

(If you have read this far, thank you. I believe this needs to be read and shared.)

While in the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC last month, I saw a film on US immigration policy towards Jewish refugees/migrants applying for Visas in early WWII. The US initially refused to offer any exception and/or safe harbor for Jewish refugees fleeing the early Holocaust. In 1937 Dorothy Thompson, an American journalist, wrote of the situation:

“It is a fantastic commentary on the inhumanity of our times that for thousands and thousands of people a piece of paper with a stamp on it is the difference between life and death.”

Several decades later we are reliving and recreating the same brands of cruelties, with different intentions and different victims.

Our immigration policy and our nation’s attitude towards migrant rights and Mexican citizens are unjust and inhumane. Our border policy is in violation with basic (international) human rights. We cannot ignore this.






** This record has been broken by the Obama administration, which in 2010 deported approximately 400,000 people.
Source: Slevin, Peter. “Deportation of illegal immigrants increases under Obama administration.” Washington Post. Monday July 26, 2010.

*** The Guatemalan Civil War (1954-1996) and the El Salvador Civil War (1980-1992) were violent, traumatic wars that resulted in hundreds of thousands of Central Americans seeking asylum in the United States. However, US immigration policy prevented most from gaining asylum status. In response, the Sanctuary Movement formed in the US in 1980 (starting at the U.S.-Mexico border and branching out into the rest of the country). Members of the Sanctuary Movement saw the U.S. government’s refusal to grant asylum as a violation of human rights, and they provided shelter and medical, material, and legal aid to refugees under a philosophy of “civil initiative.” They define civil initiative as “the legal right to directly aid the victims of human rights violations when government is the violator.” Civil initiative organizations act on human rights and international law, are non-violent, and are transparent and in dialogue with the government (for policy reform). No More Deaths is one of the many organizations born of the Sanctuary Movement.

^Tariffs are taxes/fees placed on foreign imports used to protect one’s nation’s economy. (Tariffs make foreign goods more expensive than local goods and, thus, local businesses are favored over foreign).



Haddal, Chad C. “Border Security: The Role of the U.S. Border Patrol”. Congressional Research Service 2010. 2010 August 11.

Nevins, Joseph. Operation Gatekeeper: The rise of the “illegal alien” and the making of the U.S.-Mexico boundary. Routledge, New York NY. 2002.

Office of Border Patrol and Office of Policy and Planning. “2005 National Border Patrol Strategy: Office of Border Patrol by US CBP”. September 2004.

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. “Border Patrol Strategic Plan: 1994 and Beyond, National Strategy.” July 2004.

8.5.2011 Nogales

Last night we went to the alvergue [shelter] just outside of the main road in Nogales Sonora to offer free phone calls to family members and medical aid, etc. The alvergue is on a small backroad up the hill from the center of the frontera town, past a mural of reaching, muscled hands, cacti, and steeled, calm faces lit up by taxi headlights and neon signs.

The shelter can sleep 56 or so in bunks, and more on the floor. They cook up a big pot of soup when a lot of people come in. However, last night, and the nights before, have been nearly empty. There are two main rooms (for men and women), a kitchen area, and a common space. The common area has a TV that runs telenovelas near the altar, which is filled with candles and prayers and is guarded by a 6-foot Jesús figure whose arms are laden with migrants’ ID bracelets from detention/deportation centers. Only six or seven people were in last night. Yesterday was empty at transportes and at the shelter. There are less deportations to Nogales SON this time of year because of the extreme heat; the number of crossings through the desert decreases, yet the risk and fatality of crossing increases dramatically.

One of the men who was staying the night had just come into Nogales that day from another border town. He looked like a regular ranching Westerner; a salt-and-pepper groomed mustache, sun-bleached 10-gallon hat, worn bluejeans, boots, and laugh-lines branching out over cheeks that have seen years and years of sun. He’s lived in the U.S. for 19 years – all his children and grandchildren live in the US. He has no family left in Mexico, but the family still has a house in Chihuahua that he’s trying to get back to. I have no idea his immigration status, but it’s likely he won’t see his grandchildren for years.

Today at Transportes I met a man who has been living in the U.S. for 10 years or so. He has a wife and a young daughter and considers himself American – he told me being in Mexico is strange and uncomfortable. It’s not his country, not his home or his culture. At work, at home, with friends, he speaks English. He only speaks Spanish when calling home to his mother in Mexico. He had papers to work in the U.S., but didn’t have full citizenship to be living there/here. He went to an immigration center to try to petition for citizenship and was incarcerated and deported. His wife, an American citizen, has cancer (which has come back after a remission) and is trying to care for herself and their daughter, who begs for her papa constantly. His wife, he said, is barely coping and is trying to make ends meet while on welfare and becoming more ill. Through the legal process, he expects it will be 10 years before he can return to the U.S., should his papers go through. But by then, who knows how his wife’s cancer and mental state will have progressed, and his daughter will have grown up without a father, with an ill mother in a state of moderate poverty.

Everyone I have spoken with that has been deported has family on the other side of the border; a three-year-old daughter in California, a wife in Oklahoma, a husband in Tucson, a twelve-year-old son in Phoenix.

Transportes Reforma is, like the rest of Nogales SON for most migrants, a waiting room, a space for recovery and transition. And it can be flat out boring. They sit, wait for phone calls, go to the comedor twice a day, play with the grungy puppies, and smack flies with empty water bottles. (So. many. flies.) Yesterday we brought a soccer ball, and we’re hoping to start a small library so people can read while waiting. Today I brought my ukulele, and when the rain hit we all scooted into the back of the shelter and I sang while we waited out the storm. I was able to give a little first aid, which is a comfort, and advice on where to find meals and a shelter to stay in.

Tonight a group of Hondureños may be crossing tonight, and I’m scared for them. One of them is only fifteen years old. Another is seventeen. I don’t know what has pushed them this far north, likely hopping trains to reach the border, and I don’t know if they understand how lethal the desert is. They may have sixty, eighty miles to walk in 90-100°F, from the frontera to the nearest town.

This all feels so absurd. The wall, the border patrol, is like a theater, a militarized front of intimidation that, no matter the millions of dollars that are funneled into increased border security and higher-technology surveillance, will never prevent people from crossing al norte. People in Mexico and Central America are without jobs, without resources, and are suffering (whether physically through starvation or malnutrition, economically, socially, etc.). People (any sentient being, really) will naturally move from a place of little-no resources and suffering to a place of greater resources and the potential for alleviation of suffering, no matter the journey.

Thousands of people die along the border each year, many of injuries and dehydration in the desert, some from violence and exploitation of a migrant’s vulnerability. Thousands of people cross each day. Over 30,000 people are sleeping in US detention centers every night en route to deportation.

Oof, so much more to write of but so little time to be sleeping – more on this soon.

hasta pronto,
madelyn

8.3.2011

We cross the border (back into the U.S.) every day with no less difficulty than walking around a puddle, past gates of jello and toothpicks. Today I passed by the border patrol officer with out a single word – he swiped my passport card, nodded, and I passed through the gate. It feels so off, so surreal, to walk through with such ease when we spend all day working with people whose entire lives are shadowed by, pinned by, blockaded by the border wall. It’s nearly impossible for them to obtain a visa.

Today, at Transportes, I was joking with a few friends and they asked my age. “Diecinueve, dice? No, no puede ser. Tienes vienteseis, vientesiete años. No estás tán joven. [19? No, can’t be. You must be 26 27, you’re not that young]” They wouldn’t believe my age, so I showed them my ID for my birthdate – driver’s liscence and passport card. We joked, them checking my papers – “but, you’re not wearing these glasses now – how do we know it’s really you?” (Once they accept I’m 19, I become la niña, bebé del grupo, tan chica. I’m Magdalena, la niña y un mango [slang for a pretty woman]). When they were holding my passport card, I felt so sad and so frustrated. That card, that U.S. identification, is like gold. Unattainable, unbelievably valuable. Many would do almost anything for US citizenship.

Tonight, after work, we (volunteers) sat down to reflect and decompress from the past few days. We talked for a while about choice. We all have come here by choice. I’ve chosen to be here. I can choose my education. I can choose where I want to live. I can choose my occupation. I can opt to turn down a job opportunity. I can choose not to work. I can choose to live with my family or apart from them. On a daily-life level, I can walk into the kitchen or out to a restaurant and eat what I feel like eating.

I would not choose to give up any of these privileges; I list them to note that many people do not have these choices. They eat when they can find food or whatever is cheapest. They grab the first job they can, even if it’s only for $60 a week at a maquilador. Since I can choose pretty much my entire life-path and lifestyle, I need to understand what a privilege this is and how to use these many privileges and options to provide options for those who don’t, and may never have, the same range of opportunities.

Tonight one of our friends from Transportes may be trying to cross to el norte. It’s jarring, unsettling – I’m starting to make friends with the migrants/travellers at the shelter and the comedor. It’s easy to forget when chatting with them that they’re all looking/waiting for an opportunity to cross the border to get back to their families or to make it back home in southern Mexico or Central America. I can’t understand what it must be like for him; in dark, on desert ground through agaves and cacti, past shadows of border patrol (whether actual or imagined), the potent fear and tension. From my position in the world, I will never be able to understand that desperation, that drive, and that fear.

After reflection tonight we sat and played ukulele and guitar a while, made nettle tea, sang. A bit of R&R was comforting and called-for. And for now, sleep, an early morning at the comedor tomorrow.

Hopefully soon, I’ll post a general timeline of border history.

Un abrazo y hasta pronto,
madelyn

First crossing, 8/1-2

Lo veo tan dificil no pensar y escribir in español, pués, en spanglish, everything I write is in images and cuentos cortos (short stories) and back-and-forth lenguajes (languages). I am full and buzzing with histories and smells and welcoming faces and tired feet and injustices and policies and words words words words. I’ll do my best to share bits of the last two days in a semi-fluid/coherent manner.

[Disclaimer: Some of this includes stories of violence, and younger and/or sensitive audiences may want to read tentatively. Also, much of this is for my own processing, bear with me.]

8.1

The signs on Interstate 19 from Tucson to Nogales AZ are in kilometers, as it’s an international speedway, yet the speed-limit signs are in mph. We arrived at the apartamiento mid-morning in Nogales AZ. It’s simple and small and full of dense books, light-hearted sun-soaked volunteers, spanglish, rich warm colors, good whole food, and history on the walls, shelves, refridgerator door. There are four of us new volunteers who are working on the Nogales project. Two are a couple that worked for the past few years in El Paso, TX in Asuncion House, which is a shelter and resource center for migrants from all over. The other volunteer is a young woman from New York, whose mother is from Puerto Rico. She worked with human rights cases in Colombia for a year or so and is involved with migrant issues, especially from Latin America. There are a few other long-term volunteers living in the apartment (or in-and-out). Our neighborhood is hilly, and flows downhill into Mexico. There’s a cat and two kittens visit our laundry-line occasionally.

As soon as we’d dropped our things off we walked down to the border and into Nogales SON*. We cross at “Garrita #1,” the next gate over from “Mariposa,” where the majority of deportees used to be dropped off. The road we walk along traces the border wall for a few blocks – in this stretch, the wall is a made of tall posts, about the thickness of an alder tree, one after another, with about 6 inches between each post. The sidewalks are cracked and cramped, the buildings and storefronts are painted in bright easter-tones and signs are hand-painted over doorways. There’s a man that peels and dices nopales, or palms/leaves of prickly-pear cacti, on one corner by the gate, mangos con chili, tortillas de harina. Up the hill from the road, in neighborhoods, trash trickles down slopes in a slow avalanche that looks almost delicate from a distance. The smells waver from chili or tortillas to rancid waste to cloro, or bleach, of a clinic.

We stopped at the center for Grupos Beta, the Mexican government’s federal migrant aid organization in Nogales. GB informs people who plan on crossing of the risks, provides resources and transportation to medical care for deportees/migrantes, and does search and rescue in the mountains just north of the border.

Next stop along the road – Transporte Reforma, a federally-funded bus station and shelter where we provide medical aid, phone use, and recovery of property from Border Patrol. We walk through the bus pull-in to a shaded-common area that seats about twenty-or-so people. A parrot hangs from a corner, a golden street puppy takes turns sleeping and playing at people’s feet. Mostly, it’s a safe(r) place to wait. There’s not much to do, but when we arrive it’s nice to spend time, listen to stories and the off-tune serenading of the resident barber with the communal guitar.

Grabbed a quick lunch at “Taqueria El Chino,” most delicious tortillas de maiz I’ve ever eaten, quesadilla con queso blanco y rebollo (cabbage) y cebolla y cilantro y salsa…

Today, during our walk and later training, we were constantly reminded that it’s easy for us to get comfortable here. It feels safe – we are protected by our stance as a non-violent humanitarian aid organization, by our American citizenship, by our social class. The people we are working with, however, do not have those protections. Nogales SON is not a safe place for any of its inhabitants. As migrants, without their papers and/or without resources, they are all vulnerable and easily taken advantage of.

We left Nogales SON from the Mariposa gate. We passed by the wall, where major reconstruction is taking place. A volunteer who has been with NMD for a while said the wall used to alternate between cheap chain-link fence and scrap metal of old runway material and tankers leftover from Operation Desert Storm. Where they used to sit for a taqueria for lunch near the gate, they would see people running through gaps in the fence in broad daylight. Border Patrol would wait by the holes to catch them, and another would run behind them while their back was turned. It seems so surreal, other-worldly, absurd. The reconstruction of the wall is a stone wall that’s enclosed by a mesh fence on each side, which is roofed as well. This reconstruction is part of a $220 million stimulus package to increase security along the Mariposa port of entry.



8.2

From our apartment we can see the border wall from the back yard. Tonight, another volunteer and I stood at the laundry-line in the yard and watched the lightning flash against the papaya sunset, over the hills of Sonora. The clouds are purple-gray and leaning towards AZ, the breeze is nearly balmy and satin. The border wall is lit up garish by spotlights that compete with the incoming storm. From here, three blocks from la frontera, the wall seems crude and irrelevant. This, north of the border, feels like the same city, like it ought to be the same city.

This morning I went to the medical clinic across from the comedor (soup kitchen) with Jacobo to learn how the clinic runs. There’s a nurse who is there full-time, and volunteers go in and out. Jacobo’s been working there since January as an EMT and will be there a while longer. Most of the patients they receive are migrants/ recently-deported, and the majority of cases are dehydration and moderate to severe blistering. In one case in the past few months, a man who had been walking in the desert for days had blistered and worn the soles of his feet down to the muscle. Another man had come in with severe burns along his whole back. The clinic isn’t sure of the truth of his story, but he told them that the pollero* he was with tried to rape his sister – when he tried to protest/fight the pollero, the pollero poured alcohol on his back and lit him on fire. This may not be the exact story, but no matter the details, the abuse is real.

For the trauma that passes through the clinic, the soup kitchen, the shelters, the people who volunteer there long-term are jovial, loving, un-calloused, welcoming. After the shift, we sat and had helados de piña de chile y tamarindo, or pineapple-chili and tamarind popsicles, and Coca-Cola (which is absolutely everywhere, like water, like Big Brother).

The comedor can house 120 people, but lately, they’ve had a drop in people coming for food – today, only 40 or so breakfasted (generous plates of tortillas de harina [wheat flour], carne asada, hominy, spiced rice, and a drink of blended oats and orange juice). The comedor is run by the Kino Border Initiative, a Jesuit refugee service, and we help out in the morning. The people who eat have received tickets from Grupos Beta, the Mexican government’s migrant aid service in Nogales SON*. Most of them have been recently deported. There are some longer-term clients with mental health disorders, which largely go untreated along the border.

While waiting at the comdeor before the clinic opened this morning, I met a woman who had been deported from Phoenix. Eva** has a partner and two children (citizens of the US) in Phoenix, a two-year-old and a baby. Hardly three minutes after meeting one another, she told me of her deportation, the separation of her family. She won’t bring her two little ones to Mexico because the medical care and education is inaccessible and unaffordable for her niños in Mexico. She has 4 or 5 other children (I’m still working on catching details in Spanish) from a previous marriage which, I believe, had been an abusive relationship. Those children, ages 4 to 14, are currently in foster care and have suffered physical and sexual abuse in day-care and unstable foster care homes. Her 4-year-old is currently in line for a kidney transplant in Tucson. She told me of the the cigarette burns on her 7-year-old’s hand with a sad but calm face, as someone who can’t afford to dwell on trauma. Her strength, her bravery, is for her children. She had a job in a maquiladora (border factory) working for 150 pesos (less than $15) a day, and found an odd job or two at a restaurant. This piece of her story, a fifteen-minute clip of conversation she shared with me, is a constant story, repeated daily, hourly along the border. Separation, poverty, and abuse are the common experiences here. I’m upset, and impassioned, I’m hurt, I’m infuriated by the abuses I’ve heard of, yet I’m not depressed, I’m not unproductively angry. The people who volunteer and work and live here recognize the trauma and keep working, knowing that the only appropriate response is to support, aid, help, stand in solidarity. People move forward, they are fueled by stories.

In the late morning, we headed over to Transportes Reforme, a migrant aid center that is a bus-stop, common area, and has beds to stay in. At Transportes we help people report items that weren’t returned to them by Border Patrol or ICE, provide two cell phones for them to call family, offer basic medical care, and just chat. It’s mostly men at transportes, but there are a few women, occasionally women with children, and at times near-“adults” (so, 16- or 17-year olds). Most have been deported in the last few days or weeks, but some have been in Nogales SON for months, either waiting to cross the border again or to get back home to Honduras, El Salvador, or some other place. Today we hung out with people from Guanajuato, Mexico City, Chiapas, Honduras, Guatemala, la Yucatan, Kansas, Ohio, Phoenix, Los Angeles… “home” is all over the map, on both sides of the border. Along with the other services NMD provides, we interview and record human rights abuses. One man who was interviewed today was beaten by cartels upon his release from deportation because he refused to carry a backpack of marijuana. This was his 5th time crossing. They broke several of his ribs and he couldn’t walk for three weeks. He has a daughter in Georgia and will likely try to cross again.

Tonight has been an evening of rest and reflection in our homey apartment. I already feel comfortable here, am so thankful for this community and this space. I can hardly wait to go back to the clinic tomorrow, hopefully I’ll be of more use. I’m already looking forward to seeing again the people I’ve met the last few days, continue conversations, learn maya from a friend at transportes, laugh a little. But for now, I’m dog-tired and about to become incoherent.

With esperanza y cariño y amor,
madelyn

p.s. – if you want more information, stories, facts, dates on any issues I’ve written about, I’m happy to go into more detail or connect you with resources.



*pollero - human smuggler, opposed to a coyote, who guides people through the US desert

*Nogales SON – Nogales, Sonora, Mexico (to distinguish from the bordertown Nogales, AZ, USA)

**name changed for protection