Designed to Kill: Border Policy and How to Change it (Crimethinc)

This article is from the Crimethinc. reading library. I imagine it'll be printed in Rolling Thunder. It is definitely worth a read, really well written, and covers so much ground regarding the issues. If this piece of writing had existed 5 years ago, i probably wouldn't have felt so compelled to start my own writing on such subjects.

There are a few things I would've said differently, but one thing i especially wish it would've addressed more was the way the border impacts indigenous communities on the border. I think this is such an important piece of the puzzle, especially when so many anarchists and other anti-authoritarians support others' fight for Comprehensive Immigration Reform which would only contribute to more border militarization.

Designed to Kill: Border Policy and How to Change it

For a number of years now I’ve worked in the desert on the Mexican-American border with a group that provides humanitarian aid to migrants who are attempting to enter the United States—a journey that claims hundreds of lives every year. We’ve spent years mapping the trails that cross this desert. We walk the trails, find places to leave food and water along them, look for people in distress, and provide medical care when we run into someone who needs it. If the situation is bad enough, we can get an ambulance or helicopter to bring people to the hospital. We strive to act in accordance with the migrants’ wishes at all times, and we never call the Border Patrol on people who don’t want to turn themselves in.
During this time I’ve been a part of many extraordinary situations and I’ve heard about many more. Some of the things I’ve seen have been truly heartwarming, and some of them have been deeply sad and wrong. I’ve seen people who were too weak to stand, too sick to hold down water, hurt too badly to continue, too scared to sleep, too sad for words, hopelessly lost, desperately hungry, literally dying of thirst, never going to be able to see their children again, vomiting blood, penniless in torn shoes two thousand miles from home, suffering from heat stroke, kidney damage, terrible blisters, wounds, hypothermia, post-traumatic stress, and just about every other tribulation you could possibly think of. I’ve been to places where people were robbed and raped and murdered; my friends have found bodies. In addition to bearing witness to others’ suffering, I myself have fallen off of cliffs, torn my face open on barbed wire, run out of water, had guns pointed at me, been charged by bulls and circled by vultures, jumped over rattlesnakes, pulled pieces of cactus out of many different parts of my body with pliers, had to tear off my pants because they were full of fire ants, gotten gray hairs, and in general poured no small amount of my own sweat, blood, and tears into the thirsty desert. Read more...

No More Deaths: Recent abuse interviews from Nogales

From a No More Deaths Newsletter:

No More Deaths volunteers working in Nogales continue to document and denounce abuses experienced in custody by deported migrants and immigrants. The following interviews were conducted in the last week. Please share these stories with your friends, family, congregation, and community.

• Interview conducted 18 February 2010. Interviewee, man from Sonora, Mexico, requested to remain anonymous. Interviewee reported that while attempting to cross for a second time, after walking for three days in the desert, he and his friend were apprehended by three US Border Patrol agents in green uniforms. The agents apprehended them on 15 February 2010 at approximately 10-10:30am. The agents spoke Spanish. The agents accused the interviewee of carrying drugs and beat him in the head with the butt of a pistol. He collapsed to the ground and was bleeding heavily from the gash in the left side of his head. The agents called an ambulance (presumably a BORSTAR ambulance) which came and brought the interviewee to a hospital. He reported that he received staples in his head at the hospital but when he was released from the hospital he did not receive any papers or documents about the injury he sustained or the treatment he received. He reported that the hospital was small and the doctor who treated him did not have any identification. After being released from the hospital he and his friend were taken to custody in Tucson where they were given deportation papers, in English, to sign. They were given only crackers and juice to eat. They were deported 18 February 2010 to Nogales, Sonora. The friend, who witnessed the assault and was present during the interview, confirmed the interviewee's testimony. At the time of the interview the interviewee appeared to be in a state of shock.
   
• Interview conducted 19 February 2010. Interviewee Bernabel R------ A------, from Guanajuato, Mexico. Mr. R------ is blind. He reported that he was taken into immigration custody in November 2009 in Texas, where he was held for three months before being taken to court in El Rio and deported to Nogales, Sonora. He had lived in Seattle, Washington, for three years and still has brothers there. In custody in Texas all of his papers (for a bank account at Bank of America, his passport, and other documents) were taken. When he asked for them to be returned he was told that they had already been thrown away. He was deported to Sonora, Mexico, in February 2010. He stated that he wanted to report the loss of the documents so that other people would not have to endure similar abuses.
   
• Interview conducted 19 February 2010 collectively with three women who were held in custody in Tucson from 17 February 2010 to 18 February 2010. One of the women, from Chiapas, has three children in Chiapas, aged 8, 10, and 12. She stated that she was attempting to cross for the first time in order to find work to support her children. She was taken into custody in Tucson and brought to streamlining at the Tucson courthouse. She stated that guards pushed the detainees who were chained and could not walk quickly. She stated that one guard held her nose in front of the detainees and said they smelled. Another interviewee stated that when she was apprehended with a group in the desert a Border Patrol agent accused them of carrying drugs and threatened to shoot them. The third interviewee reported that guards shouted at them and used racist language. She gave the name of one agent in particular in Tucson, Mr. J. V------, who was especially abusive. All three women reported that they had their clothes taken from them and were held in extremely cold temperatures while in custody.

Four-Year High for Border Deaths

The rate of border deaths are now at a four-year high

Migrant deaths in the Tucson Sector are the highest in four years, and a border activist expects that number to grow next year.

The Border Patrol reported that 208 bodies of suspected illegal immigrants were discovered in the sector in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30; 171 deaths were reported a year earlier.

The Coalicion de Derechos Humanos counted about the same amount, which means the Border Patrol's numbers might be becoming more accurate.

The number was unexpected because all sides agree that fewer illegal immigrants are crossing the border because of the poor economy in the United States.

“All the reports have shown that crossings have dramatically decreased, yet the deaths go against that,” Garcia said. “This tells you we were right all along. An increase of military and police-natured responses lead to more deaths. Even though less people are crossing, more people are dying.” (Source).

A lot of the crossings are taking place in dangerous mountainous areas where the trails are hard to follow, and traveling takes longer because of having to climb and not being able to go directly north. Migrants are traveling these routes because less Border Patrol are in the area, probably because they know that this area is sort of a geographical wall itself.

This is further evidence that a man-made wall will only increase deaths, as people will attempt to cross no matter the obstacles.

The obstacles and dangers have gotten worse because of the funnel-effect- the result of more militarization and security in urban and flatter areas which are safer to cross.

Let us keep in mind that people fighting for Comprehensive Immigration Reform are mostly promoting continued or increased border security. Let the thought of every fallen body be kept in your heart, and let it remind you that border security is not an option. Down with the border!!!

To do something directly on the border, contact No More Deaths.

No More Deaths Volunteer Rejects Sentence, Charges US with Human Rights Violations

Walt Staton, the No More Deaths volunteer who was recently sentenced for "littering" near the border, has been given a new sentencing hearing after sending a letter to the judge opposing the punishment. His letter stated, "The simple truth is that US border enforcement strategy intentionally leads to the suffering and death of migrants - a clear violation of human rights...."

This past August, Walt received a sentence "consisting of a year of unsupervised probation and community service. He was ordered to complete 300 hours of trash pickup on public lands within a year. He was also banned from the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge during that time (Source)."

This case has received much media attention, and hopefully will continue to do so, with this message of the reality of the security practices having created a tunnel effect by securing areas like San Diego/Tijuana, El Paso/Juarez so that migrants have little choice but to travel across areas of the border that are much more dangerous. In addition, even in these areas with no walls (yet), migrants have to choose trails that keep them more hidden from Border Patrol, and sometimes have to switch routes, which increases the chances of getting lost or worse.

In the time since Walt was charged, and just after thirteen more people got tickets, I was also able to see the area that a lot of the migrants have to travel through, while volunteering myself for No More Deaths. Although we were not on the Buenas Aires Wildlife Refuge, which is where NMD volunteers have been ticketed, I was not too far from there. Some of these areas are so mountainous that they can easily get lost or get hurt, taking days to get just a few miles north- if they make it at all. Although I had assumed that we would be in flat terrain with cactus and the chaparral, we were in rocky areas where trails are hard to follow (imagine a trail leading to the top of a bunch of rocks and you can't see the trail forward and you can't go north- where do you go next?). The heat of the summer made it many times worse. We were told by one group of migrants that their guide had told them it would only be a few hours to get to Phoenix from the southern side of the border. We saw them a couple days into their journey, one a seven year old boy, three of them sick, alternately in the summer desert heat and the drenching rain.

Here's an excerpt from an interview with Walt Staton in Splinter Generation about the reasoning behind the tickets.

SG: The fact that they confiscated the water is so upsetting.

WS: It’s such a fundamental thing. When anyone with common sense looks at it says, O.K. whether you agree with immigration policy or not, you have to be a complete crazy wingnut to say I want people to die in the desert. I mean, and it’s a very small minority of people that actually have that stance. You have a federal agency that is now saying our land is going to be a cemetery; we will not allow humanitarians to put water out here; we don’t want to sit down and meet with them; we want people to die. I don’t know, why else. It blows my mind.

SG: I read that patrolling this area is causing more damage than the water bottles ever could.

WS: Oh, border patrol has got all their four-wheel drive trucks, and Hummers, and Jeeps, and they’ve bulldozed all sorts of new roads so they can get into these areas where, supposedly, we’re protecting wildlife. They’ve got ATVs. They’ve got helicopters that are going day and night, that fly real low, and I can only imagine what that does to wildlife. They’ve built the wall right through the wildlife refuge, and nothing bigger than a lizard can get through it. They’re saying we’re trying to protect the wildlife and our refuge, and it’s like ok, show me, because right now you have got border patrol, and helicopters, and walls, and all this stuff all over it. That doesn’t look like a wildlife refuge to me. That looks like a war zone. And it is. It is a war zone.

And my earlier post on the subject: Here.

No Littering Charges for No More Deaths

Sixteen people have been cited recently for leaving jugs of water in the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. Littering, they call it. Funny, you can purchase litter at a store? You can use litter to save your life? This "litter" is being left in areas that migrants are walking through in this horrid desert heat.

I was told that one No More Deaths member, the first to get cited for this "littering", had come upon the body of a girl who had died migrating. Imagine how he must have felt when an officer was ticketing him the next day for trying to prevent the same sort of death for someone else.

No More Deaths members have not only seen the bodies, but they've also seen water jugs slashed and water stations otherwise destroyed by anti-immigrant folks (who else would do it?), who obviously don't care too much about litter.

However, No More Deaths members do care about litter.

Staton said that whenever volunteers take water into the desert they also bring empty trash bags. Along the way they pick up empty bottles, food wrappers and containers, clothes, backpacks and other items left behind by crossers.
In the end, the volunteers probably take out more trash than they are accused of taking in. (Source).

The water drop locations are checked at least once per week to pick up empty jugs and replace the used jugs...No More Deaths believes that US immigration policy based on deterrence is the main source of environmental damage along the border. The policy intentionally pushes migrants into remote, dangerous and environmentally sensitive areas of desert. The response to this trend has been the construction of the wall and the deployment of thousands of Border Patrol agents using 4-wheel-drive trucks, ATVs, helicopters and other vehicles, which destroy the land and disrupt wildlife movement in areas like Buenos Aires. (Source).

One article claimed that the arrests were made because NMD "has been unresponsive". However, according to one of No More Deaths's press releases,

A letter signed by more than 70 human rights, environmental and faith-based organizations and individuals was hand delivered to refuge manager, Mike Hawkes, on June 16 asking for a meeting by July 1. A copy of the letter was also hand-delivered to Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar. Mr. Hawkes responded on Friday, June 26 requesting a proposed agenda and list of participants, but no further correspondence has been received. (Source).

You might be interested to see comments from the types of people who think it's okay for people to die crossing the border, such as this:

This type of behavior is not only destroying our national parks, it's destroying America. When are you people going to wake up and realize that these people are breaking the law?! If we break the law we get punished. These people purposely break the laws and then demand that we take care of them and give them the same rights and respect as us legal US Citizens. Give me a break. It's not about hate or discrimination, it's about the law and what the illegal trespassers are doing and the people who leave out water and food encouraging this behavior is called breaking the law and they all should be punished for it. REPORT TO DEPORT!!! (Source).