Magnificent adobe homes, offering stunning mountain views, dot the foothills overlooking Tucson. Modest one-story stuccos in Central Tucson are adorned with beautiful cactus gardens paying homage to the desert landscape. The desert provides inspiration for those whose creative juices are stirred by its stark beauty, but for some the Arizona desert is a place of suffering and thwarted dreams. Migrants illegally crossing into the U.S. must navigate their way through a stretch of unforgiving desert and mountains, aptly called “The Devil’s Highway,” before reaching civilization.
Since January of 1999, more than 3,000 people have died in the Arizona desert, mostly from dehydration. Some have been murdered by hunters, vigilantes, drug cartels; others killed by animals; some die of hypothermia in the winter, when temperatures can dip below freezing. Migrants of all ages are fleeing extreme violence and poverty in Central American countries. They leave with little more than hope for a better life, and a blind faith in those who extort their last pesos with false promises of safe passage to the “promised land.” Unlike many of us, they cannot prepare for their journey by purchasing expensive hiking boots, medicines, sunscreen and other protective gear.
On a recent trip to Tucson, I volunteered with Humane Borders, an organization formed in 2000 to provide water stations on desert routes traversed by migrants, in order to prevent deaths caused by dehydration and exposure.
Humane Borders also works with the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office to create “death maps” that mark the locations of where people have perished in the desert, and when possible, their identities.
On Fridays, we checked seven water stations, identified by tall blue flags, waving in the cold morning breeze. At each stop, a volunteer unlocks the water barrel — locked because vigilantes have poured gasoline and turpentine into the water — and tests the water with eyes, instruments, and ultimately a taste-test. Water that has been used is replenished. At one station, somebody had stolen the barrel, while during the previous week’s run, volunteers replaced a water barrel riddled with bullet holes.
A volunteer showed me several sites where crosses had been erected where human remains had been found. Alvaro Enciso, a Tucson artist, bears witness to the dead by creating wooden crosses marking the places of the fallen. He has erected more than 900 crosses, replacing many that have been vandalized. Encisas calls his project “Where dreams die.” Before we moved on, the volunteer spoke to the dead: “I’m sorry you had to suffer. I hope you’re in a better place.”
We were instructed to keep an eye out for “artifacts,” such as a backpack, a shirt, a plastic bottle, an empty can; testaments to invisible suffering.
Our driver recounted the story of a migrant he encountered. The man had hoped to reunite with his brother in Alabama. Border Patrol agents had located his group, catching all but him. After being hunted all night with helicopters, dogs, and border patrol trucks, he could no longer go on and ended his journey with a request that the driver call the Border Patrol.
On Mondays, we crossed into Mexico to deliver water to Grupo Beta, a humanitarian arm of the Mexican government, providing water and medical help to migrants. While filling their tank, we noticed a Medivac helicopter landing in a field behind the U.S. border crossing. We later learned that a pregnant, undocumented woman had been discovered on the side of the road, abandoned by her group. She was airlifted to a hospital in Tucson.
Perhaps nothing seems more twisted than the punishment of Good Samaritans for trying to save human lives. Four humanitarian aid workers from another Tucson organization, No More Deaths, were found guilty in January on misdemeanor charges of leaving gallons of water and pallets of beans in a restricted area of Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge in January 2018, an area frequented by migrants.
They face a maximum penalty of six months in prison and fines of $250. Scott Warren, a University of Arizona geography instructor and No More Deaths volunteer, was also arrested in January 2018 and faces felony charges for “harboring undocumented migrants” by providing “food, water, bedding, and clothes over three days” to two border crossers, reported The Progressive. Shortly before these arrests, No More Deaths released a report alleging Border Patrol agents had intentionally destroyed aid left for migrants.
As I rode my bike through the hills and valleys of Tucson, I noticed signs in front yards that read, “Humanitarian Aid is Never a Crime — Drop the Charges.” Even those who live high in Tucson’s foothills are disturbed by the tragedies taking place so close to home.
“If giving water to someone dying of thirst is illegal, what humanity is left in the law of this country?” asked one of the No More Deaths volunteers, Catherine Gaffney, in a statement.
The Trump administration is waging war against those who aid immigrants. Whether it’s Scott Warren in the Arizona Desert or recently deported Pioneer Valley immigrant activist, Eduardo Samaniego, compassion has become a crime in this country.
Sara Weinberger, of Easthampton, is a professor emerita of social work and writes a monthly column. She can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.