The Real Heroes

The volunteers with whom I worked may be seen as heroes (and she-roes) by some. Many gave up their vacation time and funded their own travel, choosing the physical, emotional and spiritual challenges in the desert for a week. Others have given years of time and energy in working to change unjust policies. Some have even risked prison sentences for their humanitarian work. Yet, the real heroes I met were the migrants. These men and women risk their lives so their families can survive. For so many, it’s not just the Sonoran desert they must cross. They have come from Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, traveling weeks, often dangerously riding on top of trains to get to the border. They have had to pay exorbitant sums of money to coyotes without any guarantee of reaching the US. They have had to walk for days – perhaps weeks - through the scorching Sonoran desert, not knowing their location, fearing banditos, drug cartel members, US Border Patrol, and/or abandonment by their coyote if they slow down due to fatigue or injury. Sometimes they drink cow tank water, or even their own urine, to survive.

Why do they do it? Why don’t they just stay home? They can’t. They need work. They need to feed their children. Every migrant I spoke to (at NMD and Borderlinks) said they come because they need work to support their families.

When the US implemented Operation Gatekeeper (San Diego) and Operation Hold the Line (El Paso) in the mid-1990’s, the strategy was to force migrant crossings into the desert. The thinking was that the harshness of the desert would be a natural deterrent. This hasn’t been the case. Parents will go to great risks to provide for their families. (I’m spending some days in Denver with my brother and nephew and am aware that my brother would do the same to provide for his three-year-old son.)

I was able to talk to several migrants along the way. Here are their stories:

We met Juan in the desert as he whistled at one of our passing NMD trucks. He was obviously “in trouble” otherwise he would never have signaled for us to stop. In walking through the desert he had developed blisters on his feet and was vomiting for having drunk bad cattle tank water. He was dehydrated and exhausted. He was sobbing, not from his physical distress, but from the emotional stress. In very good English, he stated over and over that he just wanted to be with his family – in WA. Later I learned that he had previously been in the US for 17 years, working in agriculture in the Pacific Northwest, but had been deported 7 years ago. He has three young adult children and several grandchildren, who he has never seen, in WA. He was now trying to cross again to be with his family, but more importantly because his mother in Mexico had become ill and required hospitalization. His family could not pay the medical bills so he was trying to come back to the US to earn money to send home.

We met Carlos at Grupos Beta in Nogales, Mexico, an organization that helps migrants repatriate after deportation. He was also living and working in agriculture in WA with his three children and wife who is five months pregnant. He was stopped for a driving violation and in the process the sheriff discovered that he was undocumented. Thus, he was deported. He was very anxious and just kept saying, “I’ve got to get back to my family.”

Jesus, who we also met at Grupos Betas, had just been deported after his fourth attempt at crossing and some time spent in the US. He is an older gentleman – a farmer from Chiapas. He, too, was coming north for work since his small, family farm had been put out of business (by large US agribusiness, NAFTA, and huge subsidized corn imports from the US). The only thing he had in his possession were his deportation papers. US Border Patrol had taken and destroyed his Mexican identification card, which makes it very difficult for those being returned to Mexico. He had no money. He was staying at Grupos Beta and trying to find work each day in order to make enough money to be able to travel home. He had one offer of work but could not take it because he had no identification.

These men (and women) are not trying to invade our country or take our jobs. They are humble, hard working, human beings who love their families and are seeking the best way they know how to take care of them.