A Brief History of Borders in Ajo, AZ

Ajo, Arizona sits about 43 miles from the Mexican border. It is a one stoplight town with a population of around 2,500 year-round residents that increases to closer to 4,000 when the snowbirds migrate south for the winter.

Ajo is a town of borders. Prior to the town’s founding the land on which it sits belonged to the Tohono O’odham Nation. The Nation stretched from present day Arizona into Sonora, Mexico. In the mid-1500s, Fray Marcos, a Spanish missionary, leading a small expedition in search of the famed City of Cibola arrived in the Nation. Fray Marcos was followed by Melchior Diaz and the much larger conquistador expedition of Francisco Vasquez de Coronado. Coronado’s men and weapons overpowered the settled tribes on the Nation and the Spanish slowly colonized the entire area.

The Tohono O’odham Nation and the Spanish continued mining on a small scale and Ajo remained part of Mexico for the next 300 years until the Gadsden purchase in 1854. The Gadsden purchase, negotiated between James Gadsden, US Ambassador to Mexico, and Mexican President Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana, ceded 29,670 square miles of Mexican territory to the United States and moved the border southward to follow the courses of the Rio Grande and Colorado Rivers. Not only were people who had formerly been Mexicans become US citizens but the Tohono O’odham Nation was slashed in half, separating families who had lived on the land for generations.

Between 1854 and 1884, Ajo was little more than a staging post. In 1884, Tom Childs re-opened the mines that had been abandoned by the Spanish, and the Arizona Mining and Trading Company established Ajo’s first copper mine. As industrial revolution bought new technology to mining, Phelps Dodge began open-pit copper mining in 1911 and a new set of borders were created. On the ridge, were the grand houses of the mine owners, overlooking the spectacular desert landscape. The lower town was segregated into white, Mexican and Native American sections with the living conditions become progressively worse and the pay progressively lower. When workers attempted to unionize in 1983, Phelps Dodge, following the prevailing anti-union sentiment of the Reagan administration, bought in non-union workers from outside Ajo, but the days of the mine were already numbered. Phelps Dodge shuttered operations in 1985.

Today, there is a new set of borders in Ajo. They are harder to define because many of them are no longer based on geography, race or economics. New housing for Border Patrol families sits next to winter homes of snowbirds. Edgy’s REB Supply is across the street from the American Citizens Club, which, contrarily to our current perception of the name, was founded by, and is still mainly a meeting place for, Mexican Americans. Humanitarian Aid workers and Border Patrol agents park next to each other at Olsen’s grocery store. Year-round and part-time residents gather at the library to use the wifi. Despite their physical proximity, borders are ever present and seemingly more insurmountable between them than the fence that marks the arbitrary boundary between the US and Mexico.

Nearly 200 years since Gadsden cut their land in half, the Tohono O’odham are still fighting to re-unify their Nation. If we continue to create more and more literal and figurative borders between us, will our children and their children still be fighting to break them down in 2220? Better, perhaps, to remove them now. #sinfronteras

Sources:

Ajo Chamber of Commerce

US Department of State, Office of the Historian

US Historical Markers

How the Raccoons got High

On Sunday, my first time as a solo facilitator with No More Deaths, I selected the South Growler Mountains for our water drop. We packed up the truck with water, beans, blankets, trail snacks and socks, checked the maps and GPS and drove down into the desert.

We made easy going of the first mile and half, straight out across the gravelly sand, across a few shallow washes and through a grove of cholla. As we neared the foothills of the mountains the terrain became rockier, the washes deeper and the cholla were replaced by a mix of organ pipe cactus, palo verde and creosote.

On dropping down into a particularly deep wash we found an evident migrant rest stop with blankets, clothing, used tins of food and empty black water bottles, which are issued to migrants in Mexico. As we searched the area, we spotted a trail of ATV dust headed straight for us. Quickly climbing out of the wash we set ourselves up behind a palo verde tree and took out our snacks and personal water bottles. We discussed how to handle the coming interaction. The only question from Border Patrol that you legally have to answer is “Are you a US citizen?” We agreed that we would not answer any other questions.

The ATVs came closer and we could hear the Border Patrol agents shouting to each other as they looked for us on the other side of the wash. Finally, one agent called out, “I got eyes on them!” and drove through the wash to where we were sitting. “What are you doing out here?” He asked. We sat silently for a couple of minutes, he waited. “Are you all US Citizens?” While I could probably get away with saying “yes” to the citizenship question, I always answer “no” because I want in some small way to challenge the assumption that all white people in the desert are US citizens. He asked about my documents, then got back on his ATV and left. We sat for a few minutes, waiting for them to be far enough away that we considered it safe to return to the water drop.

After making our first drop we continue to follow the wash up into the mountains and found a well-used trail, with historic and recent trash of all kinds, winding up a saddle. At the top of the saddle we reached the Cabreza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge fence. There was no sign of the previously established water drop, based the strong signs that the trail was being used regularly, we decided to place an experimental drop just below the saddle and check on it in a couple of weeks.

The sun came out as we made our way back down to the pass, following a different wash from the one we had made the first drop in. As the sunlight filtered through the mesquite it glinted off something metal. IT’S A 20 POUND BRICK OF WEED! A very old, very moldy and much chewed upon brick of weed, but still a brick of weed! The buds were tightly packed together and wrapped in tin foil, which had been torn open and the brick chewed at, likely by a combination of raccoons, rodents, birds and insects. Judging by the amount of weed that had been eaten, there were some very stoned animals in the Growlers.

We had a good day. It had everything you could ask for in a day, good exploration of trails, a worthwhile water drop and a little desert surrealism….as the sun set we left the remainder of the brick for the raccoons so they could “wake and bake.”

Don't Leave Your Bag Unattended...

I have been back in the desert for a week now. At first it was a slow adjustment, leaving behind my regular type life for real this time and not knowing where the desert would lead me.

On my first day, we found a homemade backpack constructed of cardboard, burlap sacking and string. These backpacks are often used to carry marijuana bricks across the border and finding it led to a conversation about the difficulties of unraveling the border narrative of the drug trade. 

On the Mexican side of the border, most if not all, the crossings are controlled by the cartels. Migrants who cannot afford to pay the cartels for passage across the desert are forced to carry drugs in full, or partial, payment for a coyote’s (guide) services provided by the cartel.

Here in Ajo, the crossing is the longest of any point on the border, up to 70 miles of uninhabited national parks, US army and Bureau of Land Management land. The dangerous nature of the crossing means that the cartels charge the least to cross and that the migrants who cross here are often the least able to afford the crossing fee, therefore they are forced into carrying drugs in lieu of cash payment.

On the US side of the border, this reinforces the right-wing narrative that all migrants are drug smugglers. It is a disingenuous narrative, designed to provoke fear in the US population and to criminalize people who have been displaced through violence, climate change and economic insecurity. A person who has left their homeland though fear of gang violence, walked thousands of miles in search of basic safety and arrived in Sonora only to find that the cartel crossing fee exceeds any amount they could possibly muster, who then agrees to carry a brick of marijuana across the border is not a “drug smuggler.” An unwilling “mule,” maybe, but not a smuggler which implies repeated commercial interest in the drug trade.

For now, the desert is leading me to help these migrants, the ones who do not garner sympathetic news stories or spark crowd-funding campaigns. I am looking for a place to stay in Ajo and to play a small part in humanizing the border for those most in need.

Sin Fronteras

You cannot visit Arizona without visiting Mexico, until 1854 Arizona was Mexico! On our last Saturday with No More Deaths we packed into the car and drove down to Nogales to cross the border. The streets of Nogales, AZ were quiet, the only activity was in the parking lots and a small strip of shops changing money and selling Mexican car insurance. It took less than 5 minutes to walk across to Nogales, MX, where suddenly Nogales came to life. The town was bustling with people, traffic, souvenir markets, street vendors (selling everything from small appliances to popsicles) and dentists. The dentist offices were piled on top of other, each with a big sign advertising their services; it almost made me feel like I might need some work done and that somehow by not going to the dentist I was not getting the full Nogales experience.

One street in Nogalas, MX was practically empty, the one that runs parallel to the border fence. To call it a fence seems inaccurate, it is more of a barrier, 25ft iron posts dominate the skyline and are topped with rectangular iron sheets. On the Mexican side artists have decorated the barrier with graffiti and arts installations and commemorated loved ones who have lost their lives at the border. Through the gaps you can see the deserted streets of Nogales, AZ and the cameras, motion detectors, vehicles and watch towers of US Border Patrol.

It was not always this way. Prior to the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 by the Clinton administration, there was no barrier. People crossed regularly for seasonal work in the US on farmers and in factories. They also crossed back again to spend holidays and special occasions with their families.

Within a year of the passage of the original NAFTA it became clear that the creators had either not given serious thought to the impact of the agreement on Mexican workers or that they did not care about it. As a result of heavily subsidized, cheap US corn flooding the Mexican market and the expansion of large US corporations, for example Walmart and Home Depot, opening big box stores in the country selling cheap goods, Mexican farmers and small businesses owners lost their jobs or were driven out of business. Consequently, Mexican workers did the only thing they could do to provide for their families, they migrated north with the goal of more permanent settlement in the US.

Free movement of people was not part of the NAFTA plan; the goal was free movement of capital not workers.

On October 1, 1994, to combat this increased migration, the US government launched its new policy of Prevention Through Deterrence in San Diego with the first physical barriers on the border and hiring additional Border Patrol agents. The goal of Prevention Through Deterrence was to curb migration by Mexican workers by forcing them to risk their lives crossing in the deadly deserts of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. Between 1994 and 1997, Prevention Trough Deterrence expanded rapidly long the border with additional fencing being erected, increased Border Patrol manpower and checkpoints up to 100 miles north of the actual border.

Over the past 24 years, more than 10,000 migrants have died in the desert as a result of Prevention Through Deterrence and many thousands more have gone missing, fallen victim to people smugglers, or been separated from their families though detention or deportation. By all measures, the human cost of NAFTA, ignored by the drafters of the original agreement, on Mexican workers and families has been immense.

Fast forward to 2018 and the Trump administration is currently trying to renegotiate NAFTA. Given Trump’s overwhelmingly nationalist, anti-immigrant stance it seems unlikely that his administration’s proposed agreement gives any more thought to its impact on Mexican workers than Clinton’s did.

Two of the mostly widely reported proposals in the new NAFTA are the requirements that 75% of new car content be made in North America (ie the US, Canada and Mexico) and 40 to 45% of content be made by workers making $16 per hour. Ostensibly the goal of this second provision is to force car manufacturers to bring jobs back to the US and hire white US citizens. That is not the only possible outcome. How could this provision could impact migration on the US-Mexico border?

Firstly, the US could see an increase in Mexican migration similar to that which occurred in 1994. Car manufacturers could open new factories in the US to comply with the $16 per hour wage requirement. This would lead to job losses in Mexico and workers, already skilled in those jobs, and facing shrinking employment opportunities at home, crossing the border with the knowledge that their skills are needed in the US and the hope that they will be paid well should they be able to secure a job.

Secondly, if car manufacturers move factories to Canada, the US could become a “gateway” country. Mexican workers faced with job losses at home might decide to risk the long journey to Canada. The US could find itself hosting caravans of migrants crossing its southern deserts, continuing across the plains of the mid-west and attempting to cross its norther border in harsh, cold winter conditions, while also facing a Canadian government berating it to do something to stop them. While there would be a kind of delicious irony in this scenario for the chattering classes, it would undoubtedly result in many more migrant deaths and family separations.

Lastly, car manufactures could decide to pay workers in Mexico $16 an hour. This might make economic sense when factoring in the costs of building new factories and hiring and training a new work force in the US. This would make wages in the auto industry disproportionately high compared to wages and cost of living in the rest of the Mexican economy. Within Mexico, it would increase inequality and possibly, ultimately, cause the type of gentrification we have seen in the US due to the increasing disparity between wages for workers in the middle and working classes. It could, ironically, also result in a reverse migration where US workers head south, through the desert, to cross the border in search of a better life in Mexico. The role of organizations like No More Deaths would be reversed from assisting migrants who have already crossed the border to preparing those getting ready to start the journey from Arizona.

All of these scenarios create new challenges for migrants, they all lead to long, dangerous journeys, hardship and upheaval for families, and greater inequality. If there must be a North American Free Trade Agreement, then it must include freedom of movement for people as well as capital. Only by opening the borders and allowing human beings to move across them as freely as car parts, money and technology can the US, Canada and Mexico create an agreement that does not cause people to risk their lives through migration and result in more families creating memorials to their loved ones at the Nogales border barrier.

Sources:
BorderAngels.org
No More Deaths Border History
US Trade Representative NAFTA Fact Sheet

How much is "everything"?

We found Francisco lying in the deep shade of a mesquite tree in a wash on the Growler Pass. He wore a red shirt that had begun to fade to pink, a pair of blue jeans and a strikingly intricate silver belt buckle that would have done any screen cowboy proud.

It was the day of the water line, 24 No More Deaths volunteers divided into 5 teams to place water bottles in a 6 mile horizontal line across the Growler Pass. The Pass is one of the most dangerous places in the Arizona desert, it stretches from more than 30 miles between the Organ Pipe National Monument in the east to the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Bombing Range in the west. There are no water sources, no trails and few landmarks. The goal of the water line was to place a gallon of water about every 50 feet stretching across the Organ Pipe section of the Pass, thereby increasing the chances that migrants would come across at least one gallon when they were in need, and from that gallon they would be able to see the ones placed on either side of it.

I was in Group 3, responsible for the center of the line. We set out for our first GPS marker and then turned west dropping our gallons as we went, covering about 0.5 miles of our designated 1.5 mile section. As we dropped our final gallon we created a GPS waypoint to locate the end of the first line when we returned for the second section.

On our way back to the truck to get the next load of water we found Francisco. We spent about 15 minutes with him before marking his location in our GPS and continuing back. Almost immediately we ran into a group of National Park Service (NPS) Police. (These are not your regular NPS rangers, with wide brimmed hats who want to know if you have seen a bear. These are fully militarized police with bullet proof vests, multiple guns, night-sticks, mace etc).  We gave them Francisco’s location and asked them to help him. Then we drove a little further down the dirt road, reloaded with water and headed back out into the desert to the start of the second section of our line.

We reached the end of our water for the second section at the point where the end of the first section should have been. But wait, where was the end of our first line? We looked around, checked the GPS and followed our previous footprints, no water. Turning back towards Francisco we retraced our steps. He was still there, quiet, under the mesquite. A little further and the NPS police were walking back out to meet us. We asked, “Have you helped Francisco?” “No.” “Did you pick up our water?” “Yes, we picked up some trash in the desert.” Sure enough, in the back of the NPS truck was all the water from the first section of our line.

Back at camp in the evening, I could not stop thinking about Francisco. How did he come to be there, all alone in the wash, with no ID, no backpack, no water? Almost no-one crosses the desert alone. Was he with a group that got scattered by Border Patrol? Their “coyote” may have held his ID and personal belongings as a guarantee for payment. He may not have been able to reconnect with the group being disorientated by the heat, thirst and the vastness of the Growler Pass. Perhaps he was with a group and they took his ID when they went to get help, and he waited patiently for their return.

Aside from the “how” what about the “why”? Did he believe he would have a better life in the US? With all the anti-immigrant policies streaming from the government, the great gulf of inequality in US society and the erosion of the social safety net, did he still believe life in the US was worth crossing miles of one of the most dangerous deserts in the world. Maybe he dreamed of being united with family members already living in the US. He might have imagined a happy reunion with them as he watched the sun set between the mesquite leaves for the last time.

It has taken me a long time to share this story, partly because I didn’t know if it would invade Francisco’s privacy. I think that now is the right time. Nike recently launched an advertising campaign designed to get people to buy $200 sneakers with the tag line, “Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything.” How much is everything? Unfettered free market corporate pursuit of profit and the US government’s border policy of Prevention Through Deterrence resulted in 412 migrants quite literally sacrificing everything in the US border deserts in 2017. This year, as of June 25, 48 migrants, including Francisco, have given their lives in the pursuit of their dreams and their belief that they would have a better life in the US. 

#therevolutiondoesnotgobetterwithcokeornike #waternotwalls

What do you need?

Baboquivari mountain dominates the Arivaca desert in southern Arizona. At 7,730 feet its rocky summit towers over the surrounding peaks. Local legend has it that a group of Spanish conquistadors tried to dig into Baboquivari in search of gold and were swallowed whole by the mountain.

There is a trail from Sasabe, Mexico that connects to and follows the Baboquivari ridgeline before dropping down into the valley below. On that trail in one of the saddles 5,400 feet above sea level No More Deaths maintains a water drop for migrants making the perilous journey along the ridge.

On Tuesday, June 26, all the summer and long-term volunteers set out to fill this drop. We packed gallons of water, beans, trail food and socks into the trucks, drove to the closest point at the bottom of the ridge and prepared to climb. There is no trail leading up the side of the ridge, we had to pick our way through mesquite trees in washes, scramble up dried up waterfalls and crawl up sheer slopes of desert gravel and brush carrying up to 8 gallons of water and 2 cases of beans.

I began the day with 3 gallons of water and 2 bags of socks in my backpack. I also carried with me my lunch, personal water bottles, cell phone, passport, Green Card (in case we encountered Customs and Border Patrol), driver’s license, first-aid kit, sketch book and pencils and a bunch of other random small items that accumulate in your backpack during a week and a half in the desert.

The gallons of water were the first casualties of the day, one abandoned at the bottom of a waterfall rock scramble that rose 1,400 feet in under a quarter of mile, the other two left at the top as we clambered through the scrappy trees and rocks.

As I began the final ascent, using the scrub grass to hold on, my feet slipped on the gravelly sand, so the backpack had to go too. I dropped it under a scrawny looking tree, only saving my lunch and personal water bottle. My friend, Naomi offered to carry my lunch, so I would have one free hand to steady myself if my feet lost traction.

Taking the last part of the climb in 100 feet chunks, never looking up to see how much further it was and with Naomi’s patient encouragement I made it to the top of the ridge. From the top, sitting at the water drop I could see the vastness of the desert, the huge distances between the small pockets of human habitation and the main road from Nogales to Tucson with its CBP checkpoint forcing migrants out into the massive inhospitable terrain.

I left my life on Baboquivari. Every official document that proves who I am, my connections to world and my attempts to make sense of my place in it. The mountain said all I need is water and a friend. At the top, having bought no gallons of water, I was nothing more than a friendly presence in the desert, wondering and compassionate for all those who leave more than their material lives on the trails, washes and ridges in their quest for a better life.

Say His Name

Sometime between June 18th and 20th, Cidonio Torres-Reyes crossed the US Mexico border and began the perilous journey across the Arizona desert. On June 21, Mr. Torres-Reyes was apprehended by US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP). He was detained and charged with illegal entry (8 USC 1325) and he was recommended to have his case heard through Operation Streamline.

Operation Streamline is a part of the overall US government immigration policy of Prevention through Deterrence.

The central idea behind Prevention through Deterrence is that by making the border crossing as difficult and dangerous as possible and facing the threat of criminalisation and family separation if caught by CBP, migrants will decide that the rewards are not worth the risk. This policy was inaugurated by the Clinton Administration in the mid-1990s. Knowing the havoc that NAFTA would wreak on Central American small farmers and businesses, the US government took steps to shut down its southern border to people at the same time as they opened it up to corporations. The resulting border fences at towns such as Nogales, El Paso and Sasabe, forced migrants into the harsh climate of the deserts in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

Subsequent administrations from Bush II to Obama to Trump have expanded the scope of Prevention through Deterrence to include militarization of border towns, expanded border surveillance and personnel, family separation and the criminalisation of migrants, including through Operation Streamline.

Operation Streamline was launched in 2005 under the Bush II administration. The program fast tracks migrants through the court system by hearing multiple cases together, often prosecuting more than 75 migrants per day, 5 days a week.

Defendants are bought into the court room in groups of 6 to 8. Each defendant is assigned a pro-bono lawyer who explains the process to them. Each lawyer will represent one defendant in each group, resulting in 1 lawyer representing 10 to 12 defendants during each hearing. In addition to representing multiple defendants, due to the fast track nature of Operation Streamline, often defendants are apprehended by CBP only 1 or 2 days before they appear in court. Therefore, each lawyer will only have 30 minutes to an hour to speak with each defendant they are representing before the hearing begins.

Operation Streamline handles 2 types of immigration cases. First, illegal entry (8 USC 1325) is a criminal misdemeanor with a maximum sentence of 6 months. Second, illegal re-entry (8 USC 1326) is a felony punishable by up to 2 years in prison.

The defendants are lined up before the judge and given head phones to listen and respond to a Spanish interpreter. Interpreters in other Central American indigenous languages are not provided, despite Spanish being a second or third language for many defendants. Through the interpreter the judge informs the defendants of their right to trial and then asks a series of questions designed to achieve the bare minimum in showing that the US government has upheld the defendant’s legal rights and elicit a final response of “culpable” (guilty) from each defendant before passing sentence.

On June 22, 2018, I attended, Operation Streamline in Tucson, AZ as a volunteer with No More Deaths. Our goal in observing the hearing was to identify any defendants with physical injuries and note any requests made for asylum and follow up with immigrant’s rights activists within the legal and medical communities. Mr. Torres-Reyes was one of the 75 defendants processed that day. He did not stand out, there was nothing defining or unusual about him, he did not appear to have any physical injuries and he did not request asylum. As is usual for illegal entry cases, the judge sentenced him to time served and ordered his deportation.

I returned to the desert on Sunday, June 24 with No More Deaths for my second week as a volunteer.

Friday, June 29 bought me and my fellow volunteers back to the Arizona courthouse. The judge processed the illegal entry cases and then moved on to illegal re-entry cases. When a migrant is charged with illegal re-entry they are strongly encouraged to accept a plea bargain. They plead guilty to the original misdemeanor charge of illegal entry (1325) and serve a sentence of 30 to 180 days in prison, in return the US government drops the illegal re-entry (1326) charge, which carries a sentence of 2 years. After serving their time in a private prison they will then be deported.

When the third group of defendants charged with illegal re-entry were called into the courtroom the judge called Cidonio Torres-Reyes. I recognized the name immediately and rummaged through my papers for the defendant list from the previous week.

Piecing together a timeline, presumably, Mr. Torres-Reyes was deported to Nogales on Saturday, June 23. Between Sunday, June 24 and Tuesday, June 26 he crossed the border again. He was apprehended by CBP on Wednesday, June 27 and pushed through Operation Streamline again on Friday, June 29.

Mr. Torres-Reyes was sentenced to 75 days in prison. His sentence should end around September 10, 2018, when he will be turned back over to ICE for deportation.

I have never spoken to Mr. Torres-Reyes, 3 weeks later my memory of his features is hazy, and I would be hard pressed to pick him out of a crowd. I have a deep admiration for his strength and fortitude in attempting the same dangerous journey twice within 2 weeks. Every day I say his name, so that he knows he is not forgotten and so that I do not forget that the victims of Prevention through Deterrence and Operation Streamline are not numbers, they are individuals with determination, goals, dreams and names!