Border

The Border Project: NAFTA fueling illegal immigration, critics say

Deported migrants wait in line for a hot meal at the Kino Border Initiative. Photo by Kelly Knaub

Rutilio Sosa Salinas is heading home.

Two weeks ago, the 31-year-old man was caught in the desert by the U.S. Border Patrol and deported to Nogales, a small Mexican town across the Arizona border. Six months ago, Salinas, who had worked illegally as a cook in Delaware for five years, risked a trip to Mexico to visit his family. He was heading back to Delaware when he was caught.

Like his father and grandfather, Salinas spent most of his life as a corn farmer in Domingo Arenas, a town in Mexico’s east-central state of Puebla. Farming paid off during the first 15 years of his career. But then a freer market forced Sosa to compete with his American counterparts, farmers using modern machinery and subsidized by the U.S. government. Eventually, things got bad.

“There wasn’t any work in Mexico,” Salinas said.

In the five years he’s been gone, things haven’t changed. “This year there isn’t anything,” he said. “Nothing.”

Salinas knows about Arizona’s controversial anti-illegal immigration law, known as SB 1070, which continues to take center stage in the national immigration debate. But Mexico’s enduring poverty and joblessness — the reason why people like Salinas leave Mexico for America — remain largely absent in the national conversation.

When the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, was enacted in 1994, proponents of the agreement promised it would create jobs, attract foreign investment and stabilize Mexico’s economy. They anticipated immigration to the U.S. would decrease.

Initially, the agreement boosted jobs at foreign-owned factories in Mexico, especially those congregated along Mexico’s northern border. But Mexico’s farming heartland was hit hard. Thousands of Mexican farmers like Salinas were unable to compete with the cheaper American produce, including corn, that flooded Mexico’s market, as cross-border tariffs on U.S. agricultural imports vanished.

The U.S. government also spends billions to subsidize American farmers each year. From 1995 to 2006, the U.S. government spent more than $56 billion on corn subsidies alone.

In all, Mexico has lost some 2.3 million agricultural jobs since NAFTA began, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography, Mexico’s statistics agency.

Manuel Pérez-Rocha, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, said, “There isn’t an interest by either the U.S. government or the Mexican government to carry out structural changes to the economies so that trade stops benefiting only the intra-firm trade of large corporations, mainly manufacturing companies.”

Peter Neeley, a Jesuit priest, sees the economic realities many Mexicans face on a daily basis. He helps run the Kino Border Initiative, a nonprofit shelter and soup kitchen for recently deported migrants. It’s where Salinas has eaten for the past two weeks as he prepares to trek back to his town of Domingo Arenas, some 1,500 miles away.

Neeley said that when people talk about immigration, the economics of it, they are not doing the “real hardcore analysis.” He added: “It’s costing us a lot more to detain and hold these people than it would be if we invested in Mexico, and if we cut NAFTA. If you cut subsidies out of our corn and milk and dairy products, you would change the equation completely.”

Salinas had never heard of the NAFTA agreement. He only knew that the owner of the farm he worked for all of his life could no longer profit from corn. If he had found work elsewhere to support his family, Salinas said that he would not have crossed the border in search of under-the-table employment.

“We’re only going to work. I know that a lot of jobs need us, because Mexicans are good workers anywhere, on farms, in restaurants,” Salinas said. “And it’s so we can support our families, and move forward and give a better life to our children.”

Neeley also said that most of the people at the migrant shelter wouldn’t be there if the economic situation in Mexico weren’t so dire. “Nine out of the 10 guys in here would not come if they could stay home,” he said.

Over lunch, Salinas talked about his first journey to the U.S. five years ago. He and his wife hiked for two days in the desert.

Equipped with water, food and clothing, they rested during the day and hiked through the night. Salinas said he didn’t see anyone else on the path, only the remains of a migrant who tried to make it before them. He couldn’t say whether it was a man or a woman because the body was too decomposed.

Rutilio Sosa Salina eats lunch at the Kino Border Initiative. Photo by Kelly Knaub

After making it to Los Angeles, Salinas and his wife flew to Delaware and got jobs at local restaurants. Salinas worked as a cook at a Friendly’s restaurant for five years, earning $8.50 an hour and logging 30 to 35 hours a week. He then worked an additional 30 hours a week for $7.50 an hour at Five Guys Burger for the past two years. His wife, who lived in the U.S. for three years, worked at Taco Bell.

When Salinas crossed the Arizona border two weeks ago, he traveled with four other migrants he encountered along the way. When the Border Patrol found them, Salinas said, the federal agents dumped out all of their food and stomped on it with their feet. According to Salinas, the agents yelled, “I don’t like Mexicans!”

“No one would want to be treated like that,” Salinas said. “There should be more humanity.”

After he was detained for two days in an Arizona jail, Border Patrol agents gave Salinas a pamphlet that outlined the policies of the state’s recently implemented SB1070. Then they deported him to Nogales. Salinas joined the ranks of the 282,666 other undocumented Mexican immigrants deported from the U.S. in the past year.

Despite the economic consequences NAFTA has had on rural farmers like Salinas, numbers exist showing Mexico has benefited from the trade agreement. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, agricultural trade between Mexico and the U.S. increased under NAFTA from $7.3 billion in 1994 to $20.1 billion in 2006.

But Pérez-Rocha, from the Institute for Policy Studies, said that NAFTA’s success should be measured in “qualitative” rather than “quantitative” terms. “With NAFTA, trade has increased,” he said. “But it has concentrated in a few corporations while displacing thousands or millions of medium and small producers.”

Father Neeley agreed that large corporations, not small farmers like Salinas, benefit from NAFTA’s trade policies. “When you start talking about NAFTA, there’s a lot of money going into Mexico from the United States, but it’s going into the hands of a few big agricultural people, the big corporations, the owners,” he said.

Salinas finished his lunch and headed back out to the hot desert sun. Tomorrow he is heading home to Puebla, where his wife and four children await him.

“Life in Mexico is hard,” he said.

The Border Project: Dead migrants scattered across desert

At Pima County's Office of the Medical Examiner, two giant refrigerators store unidentified bodies of dead immigrants. The process of finding a match between a missing person and a body is the most difficult task for coroners, said Bruce Parks, the county's chief medical examiner. Photo by Meredith Hoffman.

TUCSON, Ariz. — Wedged in a back corner of Tucson’s historic Evergreen Cemetery, a 15-by-40-foot stretch of barren gravel hides 200 unidentified bodies. Next to it, two metal boxes hold numbered drawers filled with cremated remains.

No headstone dare tell the story of the dead, immigrants killed by the ruthless desert sun as they trekked toward new lives in the United States. Since 2000, an average of 180 bodies have been found each year in the Pima County, Ariz., desert.

A silent humanitarian crisis, their deaths traumatize loved ones and all who encounter their remains.

“I just want to know where he is, even if he is not alive,” said Denia Corral from her home in Hermosillo, Mexico, where her brother Armando left July 7 to find a job in America.

After a year of unemployment, Armando left Hermosillo on foot as part of a larger group trying to make it 160 miles to the border. But days later, the group returned, dehydrated and defeated by the record heat.

Insisting he could make the journey, Armando continued alone. Then his two daughters, sisters and mother stopped receiving his text messages and began to worry.

Armando disappeared in July, a month infamous for its deaths. The same month he vanished, the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner recovered 59 bodies from the desert. In addition, it received 80 missing person reports this summer.

Only two of those cases have been resolved. The Mexican Consulate has received even more missing person reports, but hasn’t given them to OME since July 15, according to Reineke.

“The Mexican Consulate is doing their own investigating, but they don’t have forensic training,” said Robin Reineke, who works at OME matching missing person reports with forensic information gathered from bodies by physicians.

Reineke doesn’t have Armando’s name in her database, a giant spreadsheet of 787 unsolved cases.

The Consulate can examine faces of people that still have flesh, but bodies lost in the desert in July usually decompose too fast for facial recognition.

In other words, even if Armando’s body is at OME, there is no way to identify it.

OME and the Mexican Consulate coordinate and share information, including DNA tests they intend to store in a database, but holes in communication can sometimes cost families their chance at finding closure.

“We’ve looked for him in the desert,” Corral said, her voice trembling. “We went everywhere, but we don’t tell my mother, because when she found out we were looking, she was very upset. My sister even went to the U.S. to talk to the Consulate, but she found out nothing.”

“Maybe she was sold into sex slavery,” and, “Maybe he was drafted into the U.S. Army,” Reineke has heard families say as they speculate about the whereabouts of loved ones.

According to Reineke, families of the missing experience “ambiguous loss,” an unresolved loss similar to post-traumatic stress disorder, “but the traumatic event occurs every day because the person is lost every single day, and your mind is going through these horrible scenarios every day.”

Bruce Parks, Pima County's chief medical examiner, stands in front of a giant refrigerator filled with the bodies of unidentified immigrants. Photo by Meredith Hoffman

While the families are left to their imaginations, Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Bruce Parks tries to ignore the tragedies in front of him as he examines bodies on a daily basis.

“You just have to numb yourself and focus on trying not to think about the human — the personal loss — to do your job,” said Parks, who has worked at the office since 1986.

One DNA test costs $3,000, and more than 600 bodies have accumulated since 2000.

Stoic and neat in his starched blue shirt, Parks, who speaks in cold numbers and scientific terms like “specimen,” opened a giant refrigerator that reeks with bodies in plastic pouches on racks.

“Careful, if you go in the stench will get on your clothes,” said Parks, standing outside the gleaming metal door. “It’ll stay there all day.”

For years, bodies with slight hope of identification may stay in storage, before they go to the cemetery for unidentified persons. Since 2007, the county has cremated bodies to save money and space.

Border crossers are only one-eighth of the OME’s cases, Parks said, but the grueling challenge of identifying them takes most of his time. Parks and five other physicians compare teeth to missing persons’ dental records and take DNA samples of bodies with probable identities.

Parks inevitably encounters deeply personal stories. On one recent lunch break, he and Reineke watched a video of Nelson, a missing 13-year-old Guatemalan boy who tried to cross the border to join his mother working in Phoenix.

“He was so cute.…We were trying to pause the video right when his mouth was open because we don’t have dental records or a smiling photo…and we’d found a skull (of a 13-year-old) that has one of two front teeth that didn’t grow,” Reineke said.

But Nelson’s image in the video didn’t match the skull in the office.

“That means we have a missing 13-year-old boy and a dead one, and they’re not the same person,” said Reineke.

Policemen also confront deaths as they scour the desert for what they call “UDAs,” or “undocumented aliens.”

“I recover 10-7s, or ‘out of service’ — well, I guess I should call them deceased persons,” said Officer Gerardo Salazar of the Tohono O’odham Nation police. In his high pickup truck, he sped down dusty roads of the Native American reservation, where 44 of the 59 bodies were recovered in July.

“It gets pretty hard to deal with, especially the smell,” he said, pathos creeping into his voice. “Like marijuana has its unique odor, this has its unique smell. It’s just overwhelming. You know that person was alive before.”

The last time he recovered a body, one sweltering August morning, the Border Patrol called him to a remote precipice where two seized immigrants said their friend had died.

Salazar shuddered, recalling the image of the dead man.

“I’m connected to it as being Mexican. I know how hard it is to come to the U.S.,” said Salazar, whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico, where he still has family.

It is harder to come this decade than ever before, said Julian Etienne, a spokesman for the Mexican Consulate.

“We have fewer people crossing and more people dying,” he said.

Robin Reineke, who works for the Pima County medical examiner, stands in front of two boxes holding cremated remains of unidentified border crossers. Since 2007, the county has cremated bodies to save money and space. Photo by Meredith Hoffman

In the mid-1990s, the U.S. government developed “prevention through deterrence,” increasing the number of Border Patrol officers in border cities.

But the “natural deterrent” of the desert became a new treacherous obstacle migrants tried to overcome.

With the “funnel effect” of immigrants crossing through Arizona, deaths shot up, according to University of Arizona Professor Rachel Rubio-Goldsmith.

In the 1990s, an average of 14 bodies were found each year in the Pima County desert. With the “funnel effect,” that number jumped to 180 this decade.

But, desperate for work, migrants still attempt the crossing every day. Rubio-Goldsmith says the problem is systemic.

“The responsibility of the worker is to feed his family,” she said. “People all over the world are saying, ‘I’m not going to sit here and die. I’m going to go out and find a way to survive.’ Those people are the way to the future — they’re tackling the human side of globalization. The future is (that) we have to find a new way to control borders.”

The unmarked bodies in the cemetery are more than nameless individuals, she said.

“The deaths are something we’re all responsible for. Personal choice is always involved,” she said. “But we can’t place sole responsibility on the individuals when we have structures in place that make this happen.”

The Border Project: Border wall harms environment, some say

Bill Odle, 70, stands on his property, less than 400 feet from the Arizona-Mexico border. Photo by Rachel Morgan

Conchise County, Ariz — Bill Odle lives 385 feet from the border wall that separates Arizona and Mexico — so close he can see it from his straw-bale house.

And he’s seen firsthand the environmental degradation the 670-mile fence has inflicted on the surrounding area.

The $3.7 billion fence was intended to serve as a solid barrier between Arizona and Mexico to prevent illegal immigrants and drugs from passing over the border. What it has done instead is fragment an already stretched environment and prevent animals from accessing large portions of their habitats, which is pushing some toward extinction. It has even caused flooding in border areas.

“It’s just so enraging to have this put up, and it’s only harmful,” Odle said.

Odle’s 50-acre plot is located along the border in Cochise County, Ariz. He moved to the area in 2000, so he’s seen the area before, during and after construction of the wall, which went up in his area about two and a half years ago.

“When this first went up, I’d drive along and deer would be ahead of you; and they’d go a ways and try and go south, and they couldn’t cross,” he said. “I followed them a mile or so, and they eventually just went north.”

While Odle is not a rancher, he is very much an outdoors man — his eco-friendly straw-bale house and solar energy use can attest to that. A former Marine and Vietnam veteran, he wears a denim shirt, khaki shorts and a stained white hat. He drives a massive white truck with a National Rifle Association sticker affixed to the back window. Odle also cares deeply about the local wildlife.

“We’d see rabbits — rabbits can’t get through. Or roadrunners,” he said. “Well, who cares about rabbits and roadrunners? Well, I do. And it really pisses me off that this thing affects those critters the way it does. It’s really tragic.”

Bill Odle, who lives next to the border wall, says he's seen first-hand its negative environmental impact. Photo by Rachel Morgan

About a mile from Odle’s property, the wall abruptly ends over the San Padro River. There, the only barriers are sparse, steel beams low to the ground. If they can fly under the radar of the Border Patrol, who regularly patrols this area, it seems almost effortless for humans to cross here.

Animals don’t have it so easy.

They don’t have critical thinking and reasoning skills like people do, Odle said. “The animals aren’t like, ‘The word’s out; we can cross here.’ It doesn’t work like that.”

Odle isn’t the only one who sees the wall as a serious environmental hazard.

Environmentalists warn of habitat fragmentation, habitat destruction and hydrological issues.

“We’re talking about a solid barrier that’s chopping ecosystems in two,” said Dan Millis of the Sierra Club’s Rincon Group. “Migration corridors are being blocked, and that can have a huge impact, not only to (animals’) access to food and water, but to their genetic variability and basically the strength of the whole species.”

Randy Serraglio of the Center for Biological Diversity points out that habitat destruction is more extensive than most people realize.

“There’s a lot of other land that’s disturbed along with the border wall than this tiny little strip of land that everyone thinks is so innocuous,” he said. “(The Border Patrol) still has to drive will-nilly all over the desert to apprehend these people. … The operation support activities do more damage than the wall itself.”

In 2005, The REAL ID Act allowed for the waiver of 36 environmental laws  so the wall could be built, laws that conserved migration patterns, maintained clean air and water, and protected endangered species.

Now, species such as the mountain lion and the endangered ocelots and jaguarundi are feeling the effects of the fence, Millis said. Other environmentalists name the jaguar, the long-nosed bat, the masked bobwhite quail and the Sonoran pronghorn as species that have suffered.

Serraglio warns some species will go extinct if the problem is not remedied.

“Any further construction of the wall, and we can pretty much say goodbye to jaguars in the United States,” he said.

Flooding is another issue. Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, in the Sonoran Desert area, and the cities of Nogales, Ariz., and Nogales, Mexico, experienced flooding that some environmentalists attribute to the wall.

“You had six feet of water on the Mexican side of the wall, and only a foot or two on the U.S. side, so it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the wall is playing a part in the hydrological disaster,” Millis said.

The flooding in Nogales caused the death of two people in 2008. Today, in Nogales, Mexico, the ironic words, ‘Walls are scars on the earth,’ are scrawled across the metal wall in white spray paint.

It’s easy to see how the wall can cause flooding. Near Odle’s land, debris of grass, vegetation, clothing, shoes and discarded water bottles form somewhat of a dam on the Mexican side of the fence.

Debris can easily accumulate against the border wall, as it does near Bill Odle's home. Photo by Rachel Morgan

“The fact (is) that it affects the wildlife, the environment,” Odle said. “You can see the flooding that occurs down here — that’s another aspect of it. But it doesn’t stop people.”

The Department of Homeland Security sees it differently.

“I think there’s a misconception that the border fence is supposed to be a solution to any and all border problems,” said Colleen Agle, public information officer for the Tucson Sector of DHS. “It’s not the solution by itself. We see that as part of a solution that consists of our infrastructure, agents and technology.”

Opponents have referred to the fence as a multibillion-dollar “speed bump” that doesn’t really keep illegal immigrants from crossing; they said it only slows them down.

“That’s not my terminology, but that might be fair to say,” Agle said. “It allows our agents time to respond to an area so we can make the proper law enforcement response to whatever type of border incursion it is.”

Agle maintains that the border fence does, in fact, deter potential illegal immigrants.

“When our agents go in to make an apprehension, a lot of people realize they are going to be apprehended, and (they) run back across (the border),” she said. “If they’re going to have a challenge to get into the United States, our agents can respond. Also, if they’re going to have a challenge getting back into Mexico, there’s basically a certainty of arrest. If an individual knows there’s going to be a certainty of arrest, there’s a deterrent.”

DHS wouldn’t comment on the environmental effects of the wall.

Despite the Border Patrol’s arguments, local residents and environmentalists are not convinced the wall really does anything to deter illegal immigration and drug traffic.

“The nature of this wall is a knee-jerk political reaction to this anti-immigration hysteria that has swept the country since Sept. 11 and has intensified more recently,” Millis said. “What it is not is a solution to any of the problems it claims to address.”

Odle agrees.

“It doesn’t stop people,” he said. “So why was it put up? Well, it was put up because some lard butt up in Dubuque, Iowa, was sitting on his overstuffed chair, eating his supersaturated fats, watching his wide-screen TV and says, ‘Oh yeah, that’ll stop them.’ It would stop his fat ass, but it doesn’t stop some 20-year-old who wants to come up here, wants to work and is hungry.”

Even Odle’s dog Jake has wandered onto the Mexican side at various times. Once, he was gone for three months until a woman in Mexico called him and let him know. So Odle had to get his dog’s registration papers, then go get him and bring him back.

Millis points out the hefty price tag of the wall in relation to its overall effectiveness.

“Now (DHS is) saying what it really is is a speed bump,” Millis said. “It slows people down for five minutes or so, and then we have more time to respond. And that’s just ridiculous. How many billions of dollars do we have to spend on a five-minute speed bump?”

The wall, which isn’t finished and spans only 670 miles across the nearly 2,000-mile border between the U.S. and Mexico, already has a price tag of $3.7 billion.

As far as a solution to the rash of environmental issues that have arisen, some say baseline data research and funds allocated to mitigate existing damage could be the answer.

An ongoing protocol developed by researchers from the University of Arizona and U.S. Geological Survey will monitor the environmental effects of the wall. The protocol will study its environmental effects, including effects on wildlife and vegetation, hydrology, erosion, species migration and movement, and the isolation of species on both sides of the border.

“The problem is, we don’t have the baseline data on a lot of these species and how they use the border region,” Serraglio said. “So it’s really hard to tell scientifically what exactly the border wall is doing to them.”

Ideally, protocol would remedy this issue, deciding what areas along the border fence should receive funds to counteract the environmental effects of the wall. It is currently under review by DHS, said Laura-Lopez Hoffman, one of the UA researchers working on the project.

Money allotted to mitigate the environmental degradation is another point of contention. Currently the DHS and the Department of the Interior are embroiled in a bitter struggle over $90 million appropriated to repair environmental damage inflicted by the wall.

“It’s a little complex, with Homeland Security refusing to hand the money over to Department of the Interior, because they are worried about an obscure provision of the 1930 Economy Act,” Millis said. “There was supposed to be about $50 million per year dedicated to this effort, but it has been held up for two years now, and the wall continues to be an unmitigated environmental disaster.”

The Border Project: Group doles out water, saves lives

The group Human Borders places water barrels like this throughout the Arizona desert. Volunteers hope to save the lives of as many illegal immigrants as possible. Photo by Rhea Mahbubani

Arizona’s Sonora Desert lies under a seemingly endless blue sky, framed by sun-drenched, rugged mountains. The topography is dotted with shrubs, cacti and weeds, forming a landscape that is seductively beautiful, yet inherently dangerous.

The scorching sun forms cracks in the parched soil, littered with tangled roots and prickly shrubs. The area is home to rattlesnakes and mountain lions, as well as cacti with injurious thorns and branches. For those traveling on foot, the unpredictable terrain can cause blisters, burnt and scratched skin and eye injuries, while over-exposure to relentless heat that can soar to 116 degrees induces dehydration and, in many instances, death.

In the distance, a blue flag – simultaneously incongruous and at home in its surroundings – flaps vigorously in the wind.

“There she blows,” proclaimed volunteers of Humane Borders, a Tucson-based organization responsible for erecting the 30-foot flagpole and the water station it indicates. The group is jokingly called the ‘Love Crew’ by the U.S. Border Patrol.

What started in 2000 as a small group seeking to contribute has since grown into Humane Borders, or Fronteras Compasivas, a wellspring of humanitarian assistance aimed at alleviating the pileup of migrant deaths in the desert.

The porous Arizona-Mexico border has historically served as a gateway for migrants – a majority of whom are Mexican, Guatemalan, Honduran or El Salvadorian – en route to Arizona’s inner cities and beyond in search of ever-elusive work.

After the construction of the first border walls in 1994 – subsequently expanding to nearly 800 miles interspersed with vehicle and pedestrian barriers, fences, surveillance cameras and an increased presence of Border Patrol agents – the easier points of entry have been sealed off, pushing migrants into remote, inhospitable parts of the desert.

With approximately 2,000 people crossing the border per day, the death toll is high.

According to Bruce Parks, the chief medical examiner at Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office, the body count in 2010 stands at 194, which is ahead of the pace of 2007 and on par with the total number of deaths in 2009.

Humane Borders’  mission is to help the migrants who risk death to come to the U.S.

“Of course, we want safe borders,” said Sofia Gomez, the executive director and sole staff member of Humane Borders since January 2010. “But humane borders means that we don’t want anybody to get hurt or killed on our borders. That’s the mission under which we all unite.”

They help by providing water, a lifeline to dehydrated migrants.

“We’d rather carry water out to the desert than carry a body bag in to the medical examiner,” said Sister Elizabeth Ohmann, one of the organization’s founders.

Having taken shape as an initiative among Christian churches, the volunteer-run organization evolved into a multi faith-based initiative under the leadership of Rev. Robin Hoover, welcoming people regardless of their spiritual or political affinity.

In close collaboration with the Border Patrol, Pima County’s Office of the Medical Examiner and the Mexican Consulate, members of Humane Borders pinpoint the exact location of previous deaths. Ongoing and sometimes grueling negotiations with the Department of Interior earns them permits for the strategic construction and maintenance of water stations on federal, county, city and private land, which they hope will prevent a recurrence of dehydration-related deaths.

Joel Smith, from Humane Borders, fits a tap onto a water barrel in the Arizona desert. Photo by Rhea Mahbubani

“It’s simple — water is life-sustaining,” said Gomez. “A cup of water can save a life, and that’s why our organization’s founders came up with this plan.”

Since the first water station was set up on March 7, 2001, more than 100 water stations and 160,000 gallons of water have been serviced, with 70 trips scheduled between May and September, and 30 from October throughl April. These operations are entirely funded by church and individual donations.

The group’s water run on Oct. 16 was significant because it marked the installation of a brand new water station, recently named Brawley Wash, in the western part of the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. Volunteers also inspected six other existing stations.

Three volunteers — Joel Smith, Lance Leslie, and Raymond Daukei — rode with Gomez in a white Chevrolet truck equipped with a pump, hose, and water reservoir. It displayed the organization’s trademark logo of water pouring from a “drinking gourd” shaped like the Big Dipper.

On a trip punctuated with chatter and laughter, the team replaced worn-out water barrels and tattered flags, tested pH levels, replenished chlorine-purified water and placed new stickers with the word “Agua” on blue plastic barrels obtained from syrup companies.

At Brawley Wash, a new 55-gallon barrel was placed atop steel stands, nestled in the shade of a tree. At an incline a few feet away, a metal flagpole was inserted into the ground, and a piece of blue cloth, a remnant of a retired flag, was tied to a mesquite tree to direct migrants toward the newly-constructed water station.

“Tens of thousands of people have given their time for this cause,” said Leslie, a 39-year-old lawyer, keeping his eyes peeled for litter and track marks indicative of migrants’ presence. “We all think the same – if there was one life that we could save, then that’s good.”

In partnership with more than 100 sister organizations – parishes and human rights groups – Humane Borders offers multi-faceted humanitarian assistance. Volunteers travel to border towns and educate people on the harsh realities of crossing the desert. They also organize groups to clean parts of the desert where migrants discard their belongings.

Members are also discussing an official organizational presence in the neighboring Tohono O’odham Native American reservation, where a large number of deaths continue to occur.

Raymond Daukei, a member of this tribal community and member of Humane Borders fears, however, that these negotiations might not amount to very much.

The tribal government cannot officially allow humanitarian groups on the reservation for fear of appearing supportive to illegal immigration, he explained.

“But our culture is one of hospitality,” the 30-year old resident of Scottsdale, Ariz., said regarding the internal divide within the tribal community. “When people are far from home, we look out for them and try to feed, clothe and shelter them. With so many people crossing the border everyday, however, we are too inundated.”

Although a committed volunteer of Humane Borders, Daukei believes that within the larger context humanitarian services are a “Band-Aid,” since the real need is for immigration reform.

Volunteers from Humane Borders placed a new water station in the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. Photo by Rhea Mahbubani

This past summer, with immigration the talk of the town, Humane Borders came under attack, despite its neutral stance. The trickle-down effect of controversial legislature, such as SB 1070, divided the community and made humanitarian work seem pro-illegal immigration, Gomez said.

After air was let out from truck tires and equipment was stolen, the organization was forced to move its headquarters to a location with a secure parking lot. The damage, however, did not end there. Between January 2009 and July 2010, Humane Borders experienced a 19 percent increase in vandalism at their water stations, with barrels being burned, stabbed and tipped over to let the water run out. Some even had a round of shots fired into them.

“During the summer, it was like a football match,” said Joel Smith, 47. “People would pull the stations down and we’d go out and put them back up again.”

Smith, a driver for the organization, bent down to inspect of a piece of rusted rebar, the top of which had been broken off.

“This is solid metal that can’t be broken by hand,” he said. “Someone must have driven a fast-moving truck into the flag post and pulled this out of the ground, breaking it. It’s obvious that a lot of people don’t want us here.”

Despite such obstacles, Humane Borders’ water stations have been credited with saving the lives of many migrants. The Border Patrol reported, for example, that 33 lives were saved in a single day in April 2002.

As a public administrator, Gomez realizes the necessity of clearer policies and procedures to deal with illegal immigration, but she encourages people to sometimes focus on the moral issues at hand.

“On our end, we would love to be out of business,” she said. “I would love to walk out of this position knowing that there are no more deaths occurring on our border but that’s not happening yet.”

The Border Project: Deported man plans to cross again

In Nogales, Mexico, the border wall is decorated with art and spray painted messages. This says, 'Walls are scars on the earth.' Photo by Rachel Morgan

Nogales, Mexico — Jose Estrada* was deported to Mexico five days ago. In three days, he plans to cross the border again.

“When they pick(ed) me up, they asked me, ‘Why you keep trying to cross?’ ” he said of the Border Patrol agents who caught him. “And I tell them, ‘I’m hungry; I’m hungry.’ ”

But Estrada hasn’t always been hungry. Prior to his deportation, he lived in the United States for nearly 20 years.

Although he wasn’t a legal citizen, Estrada had a house, a truck and several jobs. He worked in Kansas on a cattle farm, and most recently in Phoenix, where he made $12.50 an hour working in the fields, laying concrete and landscaping.

Six months ago, Estrada was driving his truck in Phoenix when he was stopped by a police officer.

“This is the problem that (every) Mexican has,” he said. “I don’t know why they stop Mexicans for the brown skin. Why? I don’t understand.”

Estrada is a small man. He wears jeans, a T-shirt, and carries a jacket and plastic bag. On his head sits a baseball cap with one word: “Arizona.” Estrada wears it proudly, like a badge of honor.

He has a playful demeanor and often laughs, flashing his silver-capped teeth.

After they are picked up at the border trying to illegally cross into the United States, many immigrants are brought back to Nogales, Mexico, where they take buses home or attempt to cross again. Photo by Rachel Morgan

Now, he sits in a bus terminal in Mexico. About 50 others, mostly young men, sit on a large, shaded slab of concrete in old rows of upholstered seats that were ripped from buses. They all carry jackets — practical garb for those who attempt to navigate the harsh desert and cross the border under the cover of night.

None of these men have been successful in their journeys. They have all been deported and are awaiting buses that will take them back to their hometowns in Mexico.

Aid workers say they often see the same people again and again at the bus terminal after failed attempts to cross the border.

“I always say, ‘It’s nice to know you’re safe, but not under these circumstances,’ ” said Hannah Hafter, a volunteer for No More Deaths, an aid organization for illegal immigrants.

Many deported immigrants will return to their hometowns via this terminal. Estrada, however, doesn’t plan to go back. He needs to get back into the U.S. to support his family.

Estrada is separated from his wife and has five children — four daughters and a son. Along with his parents, they live in Sinaloa, Mexico, in the northwest part of the country.

“I need to make money because (my children) are in school, and I need to make money to pay for their computers,” he said. “I need to make money for my kids, my mother, father — to pay for birthday parties, Christmas, piñatas.”

Estrada’s strategy for crossing the border is rather unique: He rides a bicycle in the pitch black desert night, darting off the side of the road when he sees headlights.

“It’s so dark, and I wear dark clothes so they no see me,” he said. He declines to name which roads he frequents, so the Border Patrol doesn’t “look out” for him.

He said he’s tried to get papers to cross back into the country legally.

“I need papers, but they won’t give me papers,” he said.

But with his track record of being caught crossing the border illegally, obtaining legal papers may be difficult.

While Estrada is unsure of a solution for his problem, he does have a backup plan.

“I need to find an American girl to marry me on the other side,” he said with a mischievous grin.

*Names have been changed.

The Border Project: Wrangling the border

Wrangling the Border from Sarah Tung on Vimeo.

DOUGLAS, Ariz. — It is now common to see border-patrol agents barrel along the dry, rocky roads in their distinct white trucks, leaving clouds of dusty dirt and bouncing pebbles in their wake. Despite at least one complaint about their driving speed, the rural residents they serve and protect have appreciated their increased presence.

“I think without border patrol, we wouldn’t even be here,” said Wendy Glenn, a rancher in southeast Arizona. “We were just inundated with people and trash.”

More than half a year after local rancher Robert Krentz was shot and killed on his property in Arizona, efforts to increase border security have improved, according to many ranchers in the state.

For the last century or more, ranchers have had a “live-and-let-live” relationship with migrants, said Tom Sheridan, an anthropology professor at the University of Arizona. But the large influx of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border 10 or 12 years ago was overwhelming to both the ranchers and border agents.

Cindy Coping, president of the Southern Arizona Cattlemen’s Protective Association, witnessed this progression firsthand. Coping, 54, and her husband have owned Malpais Ranch for 15 years — long enough to see the influx of migrants from across the border.

When the Copings first bought their property, only a few people made it to their land 55 miles north of the border in the central desert, she said. Then, about 10 years ago, they started to travel in large groups and vehicles. In the last two years, the presence of drug cartels has created a new border dynamic.

“Now (immigrants) are coerced into dealing with the drug cartels,” Coping said. “They’re incredibly violent people. It’s impacted both us and the people coming across, too.”

Coping estimated she has had thousands of interactions with the illegal immigrants who cross the border through the nearby reservation. “We’ve saved dozens from certain death and dehydration, and some of them we just give them food and water, and send them on their way.”

According to Coping, border patrol is now doing a better job than before, but she is still worried about her personal safety. “There’s just too much violence and it surrounds us all the time,” she said.

In Cochise County, ranchers have also witnessed a stronger presence of border agents in their backyards.

“The border patrol has had a very poor presence in the past,” said Anna Magoffin. “Whereas now … (with) the resources they have, if we call, they come.”

But this change came months too late. In recent years, Arizona ranchers, including Krentz and his wife, had been “asking and pleading” for federal help at the U.S.-Mexico border for years, according to Mary Jo Rideout, a rancher from Red Rock.

Pat King, who owns a ranch near Sasabe, Ariz., recalled the underwhelming government response.

“I wrote a letter to the president (and) to our legislators,” she said. “The silence was deafening. It just keeps going on year after year, and we don’t see an end in sight.”

It wasn’t until Krentz’s death in late March, as well as the overwhelming national attention the SB 1070 created, that politicians began to pay attention to the large contingent of unified ranchers calling for border security.

“When (Krentz) got killed, we all just said, ‘That’s the end of it. We’re tired of that crap,’ ” Cochise County rancher Gary Thrasher said. “We took (this election year) as the ideal time to … say something.”

Even with Homeland Security’s stronger presence at the border, illegal immigration and drug smuggling are still considered major safety concerns.

“Ranchers living along the border … face very real threats,” Sheridan said. “They never know whether the next group of people they meet are just poor people (looking for jobs), or whether they’re drug smugglers. Their perception of threat is very real.”

King, who lives about 35 miles north of the border on Anvil Ranch, said it has recently become more dangerous. “We’re seeing more and more of the groups going through, and they’re armed.” South of interstates 10 and 80, it’s as if there is no law, she said.

Despite the threat of imminent danger, most ranchers, including King, staunchly refuse to leave.

“We have a remarkable country, and there is no other country in the world I want to live … and by golly, I’m going to fight for it,” she said.