An Education in Border Injustice

Sojourners
An Education in Border Injustice
by Helene Slessarev-Jamir 02-06-2009
As I sat in the federal court room in Tucson witnessing the sentencing of over 60 people who had been caught crossing the border between the U.S. and Mexico without proper documents, I thought about the Mathew 25:31 text in which Jesus speaks of the judgment of the nations based on their care of “one of the least of these” Before us were almost 60 men and four women, all but one were young, with dark complexions that resembled those of the indigenous people I had encountered in southern Mexico the summer before. These beautiful, handsome people were being treated as disposable people – neither the Mexican nor the U.S. government wanted them. Here they stood with chains around their wrists and ankles after having risked their very lives in a desperate attempt to cross the border in search of a livelihood.

I had brought seven of my seminary students to the border just south of Tucson for a week-long experiential class on immigration. I live in the Los Angeles region c one of the epicenters of new immigration to the U.S. – attend a predominantly immigrant church, have been writing on immigration related issues for some years, and had been active in the 2006 campaign for comprehensive immigration reform. But none of that quite prepared me for what we witnessed at the border. It was here that I truly confronted the atrocities of our current enforcement system that has transformed the border with our neighbor Mexico into a militarized zone. Beginning in 1994, one year after President Clinton signed NAFTA, the U.S. Border Patrol implemented what is known as Operation Gatekeeper, which sought to fortify border crossings in the more urbanized regions of the U.S.-Mexico border, thereby forcing migrants to cross in the desert where the border patrol asserted it could more easily apprehend them. The result has been to force migrants into ever more remote regions of the desert, resulting in over 1,200 deaths in the Arizona desert alone.

We went out into that desert with Humane Borders, one of several humanitarian organizations actively seeking to save migrant lives by placing water stations in the desert. These volunteers and others seek to live out Isaiah 49:10:

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

While in the desert we visited a small makeshift shrine erected at the spot where a woman had died. The barrel was dilapidated, perforated with bullet holes, yet inside were a set of praying hands with some artificial flowers and broken rosary beads scattered on the desert floor around it. We stopped, held hands, and prayed together not knowing how many others were facing death somewhere in that same desert at that very moment.

Just walking short distances in the desert gave a sense of its vastness, where a person could easily become disoriented and lost unless one followed some distinct markers. Many of the migrants coming from southern Mexico believe that it is a short walk from the border to Phoenix, not realizing that it is actually 178 miles.

A conversation with a Latino pastor whose church overlooks the border on the U.S. side gave us an intimate look at the migrants’ point of view. He told us that many Mexicans want to cross for only short periods of time and then go home, while people from Central America have often paid three times as much to reach the border and therefore want to stay in the U.S. longer. He described how a group of women, wet and hurting, came to his church. They had been hiding in a tunnel under the border for three days after their coyote abandoned them. Saying, “There is a difference between moral law and legal law,” he gave them food and clothes even though it is illegal to assist someone crossing without documents. He knows of many immigrants who dream of going home, but they have sold everything to raise the money to come to the U.S. and so have nothing left to go home to.

We also crossed into Mexico twice to visit with both American and Mexican people of faith who are aiding migrants after they have been deported. No More Deaths, an all-volunteer organization, has documented daily human rights abuses by the border patrol and ICE by conducting interviews with hundreds of deportees arriving at their aid stations. We learned that despite millions of dollars having been pumped into the Border Patrol during the Bush administration, there has been absolutely no oversight of their conduct either by the Department of Homeland Security or Congress. We finally found a sign of joy after reaching a small lunchroom run by a group of Catholic nuns just a short walk from the border at Mariposa. Although still shaken by their days in custody, the people who greeted us there seemed more relaxed and relieved to once again be safely within Mexico. Here they could regroup and decide their next steps

While we walked across the border, there were lines of trailer trucks lined up waiting to cross into Mexico. We must realize that traffic runs in both directions – today the U.S. is importing guns into Mexico that have fueled the violent drug wars that are now raging through that country. We also heard stories of coyotes who traffic both humans and drugs, forcing migrants to carry drugs into the U.S. on their backs; if caught, the courier will face years in U.S. prison.

By week’s end our hearts wept at all we had heard and seen. I can no longer support so-called legislative compromises that will countenance the continued militarization of the U.S. border with its neighbors. Those of us in the immigrant rights community must insist on the creation of lawful avenues of entry that will allow people who wish to work in the U.S. to do so legally, without them being tied to one particular employer as is generally the case with guest worker programs. We must demand that the U.S. uphold international human rights standards in its treatment of migrants. Si se peude!