Shura's Artifacts

A baby bottle... a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt... The Diary of Anne Frank in Spanish... The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous... shoes, purses, water bottles.

Shura Wallin, one of the founders of the Green Valley/Sahuarita Samaritans, displays these items lost by persons trying to cross the desert on Arizona's southern border to enter the United States.

"Why would people leave these things behind?  Why would they be dying out here?" she asks in her public lectures, prompting people to imagine the desperation of persons who try to cross the deserts south of Tucson.  

See more photos by clicking on this link:

https://picasaweb.google.com/102150538747404124091/ShuraSArtifacts?authkey=Gv1sRgCJLq4MTu2avWHg

In less than one year, 214 people died in two counties south of Tucson (October 1, 2009, to July 31, 2010).

The Samaritans make daily drives into the desert to leave water bottles and aid people who are lost or left behind by the group they were walking with.

Those who survive but are arrested and deported may show up at an aid station in Nogales, the border city split into US and Mexican halves.

"You ought to see his shoulders: indentations, almost ulcerating" from being forced to carry heavy loads of drugs, reports Shura of one immigrant.  

Coyotes (smugglers) in business for themselves have been replaced by coyotes controlled by drug smuggling gangs, who force migrants to carry heavy loads of marijuana or other contraband.

"Many have burlap straps over their shoulders... about 50% carry weapons because if they have no drugs at the end of the line, they will be shot and killed," she explains.

Other deportees have blisters on their feet.  "I'll wash your feet and put salve on them and bind them up for you," say the volunteers at the aid station in Nogales.  

They advise deportees not to risk their lives by trying to cross again, but many say, "I don't have a choice."

They may be trying to rejoin family members in the US or they may be desperate to feed a family in Mexico by earning money they can send home.

What can you do?

Write to your US Senator and ask him or her to vote for the immigration reform bill written by the bipartisan group of eight senators and now receiving hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Code 500 in Texas

Marcela died crossing the Arizona desert.

129 people were found dead trying to cross the US-Mexico border in 2012 in just small corner of Texas: Brooks County near the Gulf of Mexico, south of Corpus Christi.

Yes, border crossing has decreased, but deaths near the border are increasing.

Thank you to the Wall Street Journal for a comprehensive report today on this human side of the border problem.


"The tiny county, population 7,200, accounts for more than a quarter of suspected illegal immigrant deaths along the entire U.S.-Mexico border last year," reports Miguel Bustillo.

"Code 500" is the term for discovery of a dead body.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323820304578412561295471882.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_3


Those who will grudgingly vote for immigration reform hold up "a secure border" as their prerequisite.

No border can ever be 100% secure--look at the Berlin Wall.

But increasing numbers of migrants will lose their lives, redirected into the most remote and dangerous places for crossing, as we ratchet up the supposed security of our borders.

Is 500 deaths per year the price we are willing to pay for having more secure borders?  

What is so valuable in our nation that we must protect it at the cost of human life?

Let's go back to a friendly border where visas are required at all the ports of entry, but there are no walls and no effort to hunt down people who cross a mile or two from the stations.

Instead, all we need to do is increase penalties for employers who hire people without green cards.

Yes, drugs could more easily get through a porous border, but the "war on drugs" is another area for reform to decrease loss of life.  

We repealed the 18th Amendment to take alcohol sale and distribution away from gang control in the 1930s and reduce the associated death and crime.  (See the 2011 NPR documentary Prohibition by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick.)

If we made border crossing easier and set up treatment clinics for access to drugs that are now illegal, today's Mexican gangs would have no source of income.  The government of Mexico could improve its economy and public safety.

Bottom line: many lives would be saved.