Confronting racism and lies

     The billionaire real estate developer that just moved into government-subsidized housing in Washington, D.C. said during the campaign that Mexico was sending rapists and criminals to the U.S.  I’ve met with many people here in Nogales that have just been deported from the U.S.  They’ve told me, often with tears in their eyes, that they made the risky journey to the U.S. in search of work so that they could provide for their families back home in Mexico or Central America.

     Donald Trump’s racism and lies are very offensive and troubling, but racism and an inability to tell the truth have a long bipartisan history in the White House and congress.  He plans to continue, and expand, the border enforcement policies that were developed by his predecessors. 

     The spouse of the candidate that received three million votes more than Trump built the initial Nogales Wall in 1994 – the same year that the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was implemented.  Bill Clinton worked very hard during his first year in office to push NAFTA through congress.

     NAFTA enabled U.S. corporations to more easily establish assembly plants in Mexico where the minimum wage is now just $4 per day.  It also enabled U.S. agribusiness to sell subsidized corn at prices so low that Mexican farmers could not compete.  Two million farmers lost their lands in Mexico during the first 10 years of NAFTA.

     Landless farmers and impoverished workers crossed into the U.S. in order to provide for their families and the Clinton administration responded by creating the first national strategy for the Border Patrol: “Prevention through Deterrence.”  The goal was to “Raise the risk…to the point that many will consider it futile to attempt illegal entry… Illegal traffic will be deterred, or forced over more hostile terrain, less suited for crossing.”  The bodies of more than 7,000 people have been recovered along the southern border since that policy was implemented.

     The president that Hillary Clinton served as secretary of state replaced the initial Nogales Wall with a taller and stronger wall in 2011 – at a cost of $4.1 million per mile.  During that same time, the Obama administration spent $187 million to modernize the Mariposa port-of-entry to make it easier for hundreds of diesel trucks to cross daily with products made in the assembly plants of Nogales.

     “Free trade” agreements like NAFTA enable capital to easily cross borders in the search for higher profit but do not allow workers to cross those same borders in order to provide for their families.  There are nearly 100 assembly plants in Nogales that employ 37,000 workers.  It appears that the primary purpose of the Nogales Wall is to keep workers on the cheaper side of the wall and continuing to assemble products for U.S. corporations.

     The Obama administration also invested in the technology used by Israel to enforce borders on the Palestinian people.  Elbit Systems was paid $23 million to construct seven surveillance towers along the Nogales section of the border.  Those towers give the Border Patrol complete radar control of the border and feature long-range cameras and night observation systems to detect people that are attempting to cross into the U.S. to escape from poverty and violence. 

     “Because we live in an age where terrorists are challenging our borders, we can not allow people to pour into the U.S. undetected, undocumented and unchecked,” said the previous president during his first campaign in 2008.  He went on to forcibly remove 2.7 million people of color from the country during his eight years in office.

     Donald Trump wants to surpass that record set by Barack Obama.  This makes it even more necessary now to confront racism and lies, and to act in solidarity with the people that are suffering from U.S. economic and immigration policies.   

My sister and me at the Trump National Golf Club of Los Angeles

Border Convergence

     Hundreds of people gathered on both sides of the border wall that separates Nogales, Sonora from Nogales, Arizona on October 8 and 9.   The convergence was organized by SOA Watch to protest the militarization of the border that is causing so much suffering and death for our migrant sisters and brothers. 

     This militarization was started by Bill Clinton and has been further escalated by Barack Obama.  A “crisis” of unaccompanied minors that were fleeing violence and poverty in Central America and seeking refuge in the U.S. occurred during summer 2014.  The response of the Obama administration was to pressure the Mexican government to further militarize its southern border with Guatemala.  Millions of dollars were given to implement Plan Frontera Sur (Southern Border Plan) which placed more immigration agents and checkpoints in southern Mexico.

     Sister Guadalupe; of the Hermanos en el Camino shelter in Ixtepec, Oaxaca; told us that the militarization in southern Mexico has forced migrants to pass through more isolated, and dangerous, regions.  She said that nine of every ten migrants arriving at the shelter have been assaulted, and more than half the women have been raped.  Mexico is now deporting more Central Americans than the U.S., and this repression and violence have reduced the number of people arriving at the U.S. border. 

     “I very much appreciate Mexico’s efforts in addressing the unaccompanied children who we saw spiking during the summer,” said Obama in January 2015.  “In part, because of strong efforts by Mexico, including at its southern border, we’ve seen those numbers reduced back to much more manageable levels.” 

     The Nogales Wall was first built by the Clinton administration in October 1994 – just three months after he visited the site of the former Berlin Wall.  The Obama administration built a taller, and stronger, border wall in the summer of 2011.

     “We celebrate unity,” Clinton had said in Berlin.  “We stand where crude walls of concrete separated mother from child, and we meet as one family.  We stand where those who sought a new life instead found death.  Berliners, you have proved that no wall can forever contain the mighty power of freedom.”

     The Clinton administration created the Border Patrol’s first national strategy in 1994, “Prevention through Deterrence.”  The goal was to “Raise the risk…to the point that many will consider it futile to attempt illegal entry… Illegal traffic will be deterred, or forced over more hostile terrain, less suited for crossing.”  Since then, the bodies of more than 6,000 people have been found in the southern border region.  The actual death toll is much higher because many bodies are never found.    

     Last month, we commemorated the 15th anniversary of the attacks of September 11 and I found myself reflecting on how we define terrorism.  It seems to me that terrorism involves the use of violence, targeting civilians, to achieve a political objective.  Thousands of civilians have now died after being forced over hostile terrain along the border in order to deter people from entering the U.S.

     “No más, no more, tear down the border walls!” we chanted during the litany for those victims at the end of the convergence here in Nogales.

  

A deported mother and veterans, followed by Veterans for Peace, 
leading the march along the wall in Nogales,Sonora

   

Woman with gun used to recruit for border enforcement

This billboard of a woman holding erect a large gun could be Customs and Border Protection’s vision of gender equality or it could be aimed at young men with high levels of testosterone and blind patriotism.  The bodies of 49 people were found in the desert of southern Arizona in June and July – victims of this militarization of the border that forces migrants to the most deadly terrain for crossing into the U.S.  The woman and her gun are featured on three billboards located alongside I-10 between Tucson and Phoenix.  Using this image to promote “America’s Edge” on border enforcement illustrates the obscenity of current U.S. policy. 

Vigil to close the School of the Americas moving to Nogales

     The movement to close the School of the Americas (SOA) training center for Latin American soldiers has held an annual vigil in front of the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia for 25 years.  This year, the convergence will be moved here to the Nogales Wall as an expression of resistance to the militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border.  The four-day event will conclude on October 10 – the fourth anniversary of the murder of 16-year-old José Antonio Elena Rodriguez by a Border Patrol agent that fired into Nogales, Sonora from Nogales, Arizona on October 10, 2012.

     Father Roy Bourgeois, founder of SOA Watch, visited Nogales in May 2013 and a vigil was held that evening at the site where José Antonio was killed.  He presented José Antonio’s mother, Aracely, with a photo of him holding a cross with her son’s name during the vigil at Fort Benning the previous November.  The Home of Hope and Peace (HEPAC) was honored to host another SOA Watch delegation that came to Nogales from April 28 to 30 in preparation for the vigil this October.    

     The journey of SOA Watch from its beginning in front of Fort Benning to the border in Nogales parallels my own life journey over those same 26 years.  My first trip to Latin America was to the Mesa Grande refugee camp in Honduras in September 1989.  The camp was home to thousands of people who had fled from the U.S.-sponsored war and repression in El Salvador.         

     A group of 500 people were preparing to return to El Salvador the following month and we met with their “mesa directiva” (elected leaders).  Beto, Arturo, Isabel, Neto, Eulalio and Miguel shared their stories with us and transformed my life.  “We are willing to risk our lives, if need be, to bring our people back to El Salvador,” said Beto, the president.  “By claiming our right to live as a civilian community in the countryside we believe we will be contributing to the process of bringing peace to our homeland.”

     They returned to Guancorita in El Salvador on October 29 and found that most of the community had been destroyed by Air Force bombing.  A few weeks later, on November 16, soldiers went into the Central America University in San Salvador and murdered Father Ignacio Ellacuría (rector), five other Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter.  Many of those responsible for the massacre had been trained at the School of the Americas.

     Then on February 11, 1990, Guancorita was attacked by the Air Force.  Planes and helicopters flew overhead for two hours and fired 15 rockets and 8 bombs around the community.  Four families that were living beneath sheets of plastic ran to seek shelter in a house made out of brick.  One of the helicopters fired a rocket that exploded inside the house – killing five people, including four children, and wounding 16.

     We visited the community the following month and Patrocinio leads us to “la casa de la masacre” (the house of the massacre).  We enter the house and there is a huge stain spread across the right wall.  The bricks are pockmarked with holes from the “esquirlas” (rocket shrapnel).  Five crosses with the names of the victims mark the sites where they died: “Isabel Lopez” and “Anabel Beatriz Lopez” (Patrocinio’s 10-year-old and 2-year-old daughters), “Jose Guardado” and “Blanca Lilia Guardado” (father and 2-year-old daughter), and “Dolores Serrano” (10-years-old).

     Patrocinio tells us about the attack and then takes out his bandana and carefully unrolls it on the ground.  Inside is a piece of the rocket, with the markings in English.  The rockets, the bombs, the helicopters and planes had been paid for with our tax dollars.

     We meet Patrocinio’s spouse, Maria, that afternoon in the neighboring community of Guarjila.  Tears stream down her face as she tells us about the death of her two daughters.  She is eight-months pregnant and shows us the shrapnel wounds on her chest and upper legs.  “It was a miracle I didn’t lose my baby,” she says.  Maria gave birth to a girl who was named Isabel Beatriz in honor of her two sisters that she never met.

     In July 1990, Guancorita was renamed Comunidad Ignacio Ellacuría in honor of the rector of the Central America University and in recognition that both the Jesuit community and Guancorita had suffered massacres.  In November of that year, Father Roy and a few other people held a vigil at the gates of Ft. Benning to commemorate the first anniversary of the massacre at the university.  The vigil would grow over the years with the participation of thousands of people every November. 

     Twenty two years after that first vigil, a Border Patrol agent fires his pistol between the bars of the Nogales Wall at José Antonio who is walking down below on International Street in Nogales, Sonora.  Lonnie Swartz empties the 13-round clip, puts in another clip, and then fires all the bullets in that one.  He shoots José Antonio once in the head and seven times in the back.

     I visited the site of the killing, on the sidewalk in front of Dr. Contreras’ clinic, ten days later.  The wall on the corner had seven bullet holes, up high, with red circles around each one that had been drawn by police investigators.  A few feet away, the side wall had three bullet holes down low, alongside the sidewalk where José Antonio died. 

     On November 2, Day of the Dead, HEPAC helped organize the first procession and vigil to protest the murder of José Antonio.  Other vigils followed to commemorate the six month, one year, year and a half, two year, and three year anniversaries.   

     We will gather together this October in solidarity with the family of José Antonio and all victims of U.S.-sponsored violence; including Isabel and Anabel Beatriz Lopez, Jose and Blanca Lilia Guardado, and Dolores Serrano.  We would be honored to have you join us.

Paris climate summit ignores the reality of Nogales

     The neighborhood where I live in Nogales is called Bella Vista (“Beautiful View”).  The view disappears in the haze on these winter mornings as desperate impoverished people burn whatever they can to ward off the cold.  This toxic reality of corporate “free trade” was not addressed during the recent “Climate Change Conference” in Paris.

     The U.S. government demanded that the emissions reduction targets set by individual countries not be legally binding, and that countries harmed by climate change should not be able to take legal action for that damage.  As reported by Naomi Klein, that’s exactly opposite to the U.S. stance on “free trade” agreements which are legally binding. 

     The North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that converted Nogales into a sprawling industrial city enables corporations to sue governments if the corporations feel they’re not being treated fairly.  The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement that was signed by the Obama administration in October, and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership that is currently being negotiated, both include legally-binding provisions for corporations to sue governments.

     Prior to the implementation of NAFTA, there were trees on the hills around Nogales.  Twenty years later, there are nearly 100 “maquiladoras” (assembly plants) and the trees are gone.  The products made in those plants can not be ones that are needed by the people of Mexico but, by law, have to be exported.  The largest plant in Nogales is Chamberlain which employs more than 3,000 workers that make garage door openers.  There is only one house in our neighborhood with a garage, and it doesn’t have a door.

     Chamberlain; Kimberly-Clark; Master Lock; Becton, Dickinson and Company; and other U.S. corporations have plants here to take advantage of the cheap labor.  The minimum wage in Nogales, Sonora is $4.25 per day as compared to $8.05 per hour in Nogales, Arizona. 

     The maquiladoras have access to all the water and electricity they need to make products that freely cross the border but the workers do not enjoy that same privilege.  The water in our neighborhood is purchased from tanker trucks that fill storage tanks located on the rooves of homes.  Drinking water is bought from pick-up trucks that drive through loaded with 5-gallon jugs.  The price of electricity explains the haze in the air and the occasional house fire in winter.

     The U.S. government recently spent $187 million to modernize the port-of-entry to make it easier for hundreds of diesel trucks to cross the border daily with products from the maquiladoras, and produce grown in the states of Sonora and Sinaloa.  The government also spent tens of millions of dollars to install a taller, and stronger, border wall to ensure that workers do not leave the maquiladoras in search of higher pay in the U.S.

     As long as “free trade” is protected more than the environment and workers, corporations will continue to warm our planet to dangerous levels.  However, as Naomi Klein writes in her book “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate,” “Climate change – if treated as a true planetary emergency – could become a galvanizing force for humanity, leaving us all not just safer from extreme weather, but with societies that are safer and fairer in all kinds of other ways as well…It really is the case that we are on our own and any credible source of hope in this crisis will have to come from below.”  

Gaza in Arizona

     I saw heavy machinery up ahead as I parked on the ridge road a few miles north of the border with Mexico.  When I got out of the car, I could see a tower in the east and another one in the north.  None of that had been there the last time I was on that ridge just three months ago and I was curious to get a closer look when I returned from the hike.

     The machinery was at a construction site on top of a hill with an extensive view.  “Do not enter.  This site is under video surveillance,” read the signs, in English and Spanish, along the perimeter of the site.

     The northern tower was surrounded by a fence and had the same bilingual warning.  Two cameras were mounted on top of the tower, a microwave dish extended from the side, and a large solar panel was at the base – an imposing image set against the desert sky.  

     While I was taking that photo, Todd Miller and Gabriel Schivone were posting an excellent article entitled Gaza in Arizona  I saw the article the next day and I was startled to read, “Customs and Border Protection (CBP) contracted with Israel’s giant military manufacturer Elbit Systems to build a ‘virtual wall,’ a technological barrier set back from the actual international divide in the Arizona desert...CBP has tasked Elbit with creating a ‘wall’ of ‘integrated fixed towers’ containing the latest in cameras, radar, motion sensors, and control rooms.  Construction will start in the rugged, desert canyons around Nogales.” 

     I sent a message to Todd with the photo and asked, “Could this be part of the ‘wall’ of ‘integrated fixed towers’ that Elbit is building for CBP?”  He responded a few minutes later, “Very interesting!  I’m going to check it out.”  He and Gabe drove to Nogales the next morning and we went out together to see the tower.  

     We were greeted by an armed security guard and one of the construction workers who told us, “You can’t go any further because there’s moving pieces and equipment.”  Todd mentioned that we had seen the tower from the road and we were wondering what it would be used for.

     The foreman came over to check us out and the worker asked him, “Should we put them in contact with Elbit?”  “You have to talk with the public information office of Customs and Border Protection,” quickly interjected the foreman.  “Are you working for CBP?” asked Todd.  “You have to talk with the public information office of Customs and Border Protection.  That’s all I can tell you,” was the response.

     In “Gaza in Arizona,” Todd and Gabe describe how the University of Arizona is recruiting Israeli security companies to set up operations at the Tech Parks Arizona campus in Tucson.  The program is called the Israel Business Initiative.  The Department of Homeland Security designated the University of Arizona as the lead school for the Center of Excellence on Border Security and Immigration in 2008 and the university has received millions of dollars in federal grants.

     President Obama strongly supports “free trade” policies that enable corporations, like Elbit, to easily travel around the globe in search of increased profit but he opposes providing that same freedom of movement for workers.  The minimum wage in Nogales, Sonora is now $5.20 per day while the minimum wage in Nogales, Arizona is $8.05 per hour.  Elbit’s virtual wall will help ensure that the women and men who assemble products for U.S. companies in Nogales, Sonora stay on the lower-wage side of the border.

     Todd and Gabe quote Roei Elkabetz, brigadier general of the Israel Defense Forces, at the beginning of their article.  “We have learned lots from Gaza,” he said.  “It’s been a great laboratory.”  That laboratory is now being extended to Arizona.

Migrant Posada

     Mary was riding on a burro, and Joseph was walking beside her, as they traveled by the Nogales border wall in search of shelter during the Migrant Posada.   A cold rain was falling, but for a brief moment, the sun came out and a rainbow appeared. 

     Posadas recreate the journey from 2,000 years ago as Mary and Joseph are refused lodging at various stations along the way and finally welcomed in at the end of the procession.  The Migrant Posada was organized by the Kino Border Initiative and Dioceses without Borders as an act of solidarity with our undocumented sisters and brothers.

     The first station was at the Nogales wall which was built by the Clinton administration in 1994, just four months after he visited the site of the former Berlin Wall.  “Wherever there’s a wall, there’s a closure of the heart,” read a banner attached to the wall.  Those were the words spoken by Pope Francis last month on the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

     At each station, the people outside in the procession sing to ask for lodging.  The people inside sing in response that there is no room.  “In the name of justice, I ask you to let me in.  I will not cause you harm, I just want to work,” sang the people on the south side of the wall.  “We have thousands of agents that protect our borders, and you won’t get across even through the cracks,” responded the people on the north side.

     Separation of families was the theme of the second station.  “In the name of justice, I ask for your support and solidarity.  Separated from my children, my heart is broken,” sang the deportees.  “I don’t care about what you’re going through, stop you’re crying.  The children that you left behind, you are not going to see again,” was the response.

     There was a moment of silence at the third station to remember the thousands of people who have died in the desert.  “We’re half a family, deported without pity.  The children are left crying, lamenting that they are orphans,” sang the people outside.  “We don’t want you to come here, stay over there.  The purity of the race could become contaminated” replied the people inside.

     Mary and Joseph were finally welcomed at the last station which was the Kino Border Initiative dining hall where recently deported migrants receive two meals a day.  There we all sang, “Let’s celebrate without borders or barriers, people who thirst for justice.  Today we will work and struggle together for justice and dignity.”

    

Mother and daughter reunited

     Herminia rushed out of the Tucson cathedral to reunite with her daughter Rosy who had just been released after spending seven months in the immigration prison in Eloy, Arizona.  Herminia had been arrested in front of the White House, carried out a two week hunger strike in front of the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) office in Phoenix, and spent the last four weeks in the cathedral in her campaign to win her daughter’s release. 

     Mother and daughter ran towards each other and came together in a tearful embrace surrounded by the light of the TV cameras.  “I struggled to get out and I dreamed of being with my mom,” said Rosy.  “Never give up and always struggle to realize your dreams.”

     “This is where Rosy returned to life,” Herminia told me earlier inside the cathedral.  “She’s on her way.  She called and said, ‘Mom, I’m out now.  The nightmare has ended.’”

     I visited Rosy in the Corrections Corporation of America prison on March 2.  We passed through five locked gates and doors on our way to the visit room.  She was in a green uniform and we could only be with her for one hour.

     Rosy told me that her family moved to the U.S. when she was just 11 years old.  They lived for two years in Denver and seven years in Mesa, Arizona.

     In December 2012, the family went back to the state of Quintana Roo in southern Mexico because Rosy’s grandfather was dying of cancer.  They found the country had changed during the time they had been gone.  They were at risk of being kidnapped because the criminal groups thought they had money from their time in the U.S. and her father was brutally beaten.  Rosy and Fatima (her 13 year old sister) were both bullied a lot at school. 

     They fled from Quintana Roo and came north to Nogales.  Herminia, Rosy and Fatima presented themselves at the border here on September 22, 2013 and asked for asylum.  Herminia and Fatima were released that same day on parole but Rosy was sent to the immigration prison in Florence.  The next day, on her 20th birthday, she was transferred to the prison in Eloy.

     Herminia passed the first interview for political asylum when the official found that she had a credible fear of persecution if she were sent back to Mexico.  Rosy’s case was moving much more slowly and Herminia decided the only option was to launch a public campaign to win her daughter’s release.  Rosy was finally released on bond on April 28 and said, “I can’t believe I’m out here and not in there.”

     The Obama administration has deported more than two million people and two thousand women are currently being held in the Eloy immigration prison.  “What would happen if Obama’s daughters, or wife, were separated from him?” asked Herminia.  “What would he do?”

Migrant Christmas

     Mary was riding on a burro alongside the border wall during the Migrant Posada in Nogales on December 14.  The posada is a procession that reenacts the journey of Mary and Joseph seeking shelter for the birth of Jesus.  We stopped at three stations along the border where we listened to the migrants describe the rejection and abuse they had suffered during their journey.  Mary and Joseph, and the migrants, were finally welcomed inside at the Kino Border Initiative “comedor” (meal program) at the end of the procession.

     Julio was still in shock when I met him at the comedor that morning.  He told me that he had been walking through the Food City parking lot in south Tucson at 6 A.M. to meet a friend for a roofing job.  A policeman stopped him and said, “Show me your I.D.”  Julio replied that he didn’t have it and he was then frisked and ordered into the patrol car.  The policeman called the Border Patrol and Julio was “repatriated” to Nogales a couple hours later. 

     Julio lived in the U.S. for 15 years and is married to a U.S. citizen.  He said, “I used to drink and use drugs, but then I found God, and my life changed…I don’t understand why this happened to me today.”  He doesn’t know anyone in Nogales and he had no idea what he was going to do, not even in the next moment.

     I met Sergio the following morning as I was hiking along one of the migrant trails north of the border.  He told me that he lived for five years in the U.S. and has a spouse and a three-year-old son in New York.  He had been deported and was trying to return to his home and family. 

     Sergio had been walking for two days and he said it was very cold at night – the temperature had dropped to 28 degrees the previous day.  I gave him some warm clothes, a blanket, food and water; and told him “I hope you’re able to be with your son for Christmas.”

"We want family unity for the children of immigrants"

The Dream 9 return home

      The “Dream 9” activists returned on August 8 to the site where they had been handcuffed and placed in detention just 17 days before.  They stood in front of the border crossing in Nogales with their fists in the air and a banner that stated, “We’re Home – Families Beyond Borders.”  An international campaign won their release the day before from the Eloy Detention Center which is owned and operated by Corrections Corporation of America. 

     Lizbeth, Lulu and Marco traveled from the U.S. to Mexico last month to visit their families and return with the other six.  They all presented themselves at the border crossing on July 22 and requested to be allowed re-entry to the U.S. on humanitarian grounds. 

     Their courageous action raised awareness about the hundreds of thousands of families that have been torn apart by the Obama administration’s aggressive deportation policies.  It was also a bold demand that people who have been deported should be allowed to return home to the U.S.  Obama has now deported more people than any other president in history – 1.7 million.

     Eight of the activists would have qualified for the DREAM Act which proposed legal residency for people who arrived in the country as minors and completed high school in the U.S.  The bill passed the House of Representatives in 2010 but failed in the Senate.    

     Adriana left the U.S. last year because she wanted to pursue a college degree and couldn’t afford to do so as an undocumented student in Arizona.  She spent seven months living and working at the San Juan Bosco migrant shelter here in Nogales.

     Ceferino went back to Mexico because he needed ear surgery that would have cost $21,000 in the U.S.  He tried to return to the U.S. in June.

     Luis left in 2011 after the DREAM Act failed.  He tried to cross back into the U.S. four times last year.

     Maria started college but could no longer afford it and returned to Mexico last year.  She had to put off her education here in order to work and sustain her family.

     Claudia was deported after her husband was detained while he was driving to work.

     All of the Dream 9 filed petitions for political asylum after they were denied permission to re-enter the U.S. on humanitarian grounds.  The immigration authorities determined that they each had a “credible fear” of being harmed or killed if sent back to Mexico.  They were released on parole and will continue to fight for their right, and the right of hundreds of thousands of others like them, to be home in the U.S.

     They have overcome the fear of deportation and are, as they shouted at the border crossing, “Undocumented, Unafraid!”

     

Just wanting to go home

     Thirteen year-old Yamil entered the United States for the first time in seven years with his mother and grandmother yesterday here in Nogales.  He and his grandmother Elvia were detained by Customs and Border Protection for five hours.  His mother Claudia was handcuffed and arrested.

     Three undocumented youth who have been living in the U.S. recently traveled to Mexico so that they could attempt to return yesterday with Claudia and four other people who had been long-time residents of the U.S.  Claudia was at the head of the group as they entered the pedestrian border crossing and requested to be allowed re-entry on humanitarian grounds.  She and the others were committed to taking this action as a bold challenge to current deportation policies. 

     The Obama administration has now deported 1.7 million people – more than any other president in the history of the country.  If the current rate continues, Obama will have deported more people than all of the previous presidents combined.   

     Elvia told me that her husband and brother were killed in Durango, Mexico in 1988.  She received threats and fled to the U.S. with her four children when Claudia was just 13 years-old.  They eventually moved to Wichita, Kansas where Yamil was born in 2000.

     Claudia told us “I feel like Dorothy (in the Wizard of Oz).  My life was hit by a tornado and I just want to go home.”  Claudia’s husband was detained while he was driving to work in Wichita.  She was then detained while acting as his interpreter and they were both placed in deportation proceedings. 

     The immigration judge said that Yamil, who was five, “could survive in Mexico.”  He has been seen by a therapist to treat his depression. Claudia told us that he recently asked her, “When are we going to get our life back?” 

     I talked with Yamil yesterday while we were waiting to find out what would happen with his mother and the others.  I asked him when he moved to Mexico and he replied “January 1, 2006.”  Yamil told me that he wants to go back to Wichita with his mother, and then have his father and their dog join them.  He likes the peacefulness of Wichita and that his parents could find work there. 

     Yamil loves soccer and he plays goalie.  His favorite team is the United States and he will be rooting for them again in the next World Cup.  Yamil and Claudia went to the U.S. match against Uzbekistan in the Under 17 World Cup at the Torreon stadium in 2011.  Claudia told us “No one even knew where Uzbekistan is located but they were all rooting for them against the U.S.”  Yamil was one of the few people that supported the U.S. and was disappointed when they lost.

     Elvia took Yamil to have his first hamburger back in the U.S. and he returned with a big smile on his face.  Unfortunately, that smile disappeared an hour later when we learned that Claudia and the others were being sent to the Eloy Detention Center. 

     This is the first time that a group of long-time U.S. residents (who are technically Mexican nationals) have attempted to return to the U.S. by petitioning for humanitarian parole.  Since that petition was denied, they are now applying for asylum.  Claudia is very concerned about her safety if she’s deported back to Mexico.  Her family is again receiving threats and she and Yamil have spent most of the last year closed up inside their home.

     For the latest developments in this historic case, go to the National Immigrant Youth Alliance Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/NationalImmigrantYouthAlliance  To take action, go to the Dream Activist web site: http://action.dreamactivist.org/bringthemhome

Claudia approaching the border crossing in her graduation gown (as a Dream activist)

Elvia and Yamil walking to the crossing

Yamil entering the U.S.

Yamil and Elvia after learning that Claudia and the others were being sent to the detention center

Dogcatchers for migrants

     I was driving along a dirt road, about five miles north of the border, when I saw two men sitting by the road.  “We’re lost and we want to turn ourselves in to the Border Patrol,” they told me as I stopped alongside them.

     They had walked two days from Nogales and Mario was not able to go any further.  “I’ve got diabetes and it’s affecting me,” he said.  His arms were scratched, his pants were torn, and he was having difficulty walking.

     Mario is 43 and his cousin Fernando is 19.  They’re from Mexico City and they had traveled three days by bus to get to Nogales. 

     There was no cell phone coverage so I drove them to the nearest paved road to wait for the Border Patrol.  It was already warm at 8 A.M. and it would reach 100 degrees that afternoon.  After just a few minutes, a Border Patrol truck came by and I flagged him down.  I explained that Mario and Fernando wanted to turn themselves in because they couldn’t go any further and that Mario had diabetes which was affecting him.

     Agent Stransky drove into the pull-out and parked about 20 feet away.  He got out of the truck, opened the door of the small enclosure on back, and yelled “Yo!” at Mario and Fernando.  He didn’t say another word to them as they walked to the truck, stepped up on the bumper, and stooped down to get inside.  There was no acknowledgement that Mario and Fernando were human beings and not stray dogs.  He then closed the door and quickly drove away. 

     The migrants call these Border Patrol trucks “dogcatchers.”  There’s a bench on both sides of the enclosure about 12 inches above the floor and the roof is very low - Mario and Fernando were both hunched over as we said good-bye.  There’s just one small window on the back door and another small window on the front.  If Stransky had been in an accident because of driving so rapidly, there were no safety devices that would have protected Mario and Fernando from being injured.

     The “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act” that is being debated now in the senate calls for hiring another 3,500 border agents.  That will likely result in even more migrants being treated like stray dogs.

Mario and Fernando

Stransky's "dogcatcher"

March for José Antonio

     More than 200 people marched in Nogales on April 10 to commemorate the six month anniversary of the murder of 16-year-old José Antonio Elena Rodriguez by the Border Patrol.  José was walking along International Street when a Border Patrol agent fired into Nogales, Sonora on the night of October 10.  The autopsy report was released in February and shows that José was shot once in the head and seven times in the back.

     José’s family installed a cross on the sidewalk where he was killed.  Father Ricardo blessed the cross and people placed flowers and candles there in remembrance of José.  

     The Border Patrol claims the agent fired in self-defense after rocks were thrown at agents who were pursuing two drug smugglers.  Their brief statement noted that the agent “discharged his service weapon” and “one of the suspects appeared to have been hit.”

     Isidro Alvarez was an eyewitness to the killing and he spoke at the press conference prior to the march.  He was walking behind José and heard gunshots and saw him fall.  Isidro did not see or hear any rocks being thrown. 

     There is a surveillance tower about 100 yards from where José was killed and the cameras would have recorded the shooting.  The F.B.I. is still investigating the case six months later.  “I want to know who they are” said Aracely, José’s mother.  “I want them arrested and I want justice.”

     The bipartisan group of eight senators announced their immigration reform bill on April 16.  It includes $3 billion to increase border surveillance, $1.5 billion to build more walls and fences, and funding to hire another 3,500 border agents.  This support for increased militarization of the border will likely result in more marches and vigils here in Nogales in the future.       

     

"Peace and Justice on the Border"

Father Ricardo

Aracely

Deporting José and Margarita to secure the border

     “When we see people like you we don’t run and hide,” said José when I sat beside him at the Grupos Beta migrant center in Nogales on March 22.  “When we see them with their backpacks, and at the beaches, we treat them well.”

     José is 19 years old and from the southern state of Chiapas.  He and two companions had traveled the entire length of Mexico and then crossed into Arizona.  They hiked for five days in the desert and they ran out of water and food after the first three days.  In their desperation, they walked into the town of Tubac and found a store where they bought drinks and food.

     “People ran away and hid,” said José.  “They looked at us like we were from a UFO.  Someone called us ‘Mexican motherfuckers’ and they called the Border Patrol.”

     “The agent shoved me to the ground, put my hands behind my back, and then put his boot on my neck.”  José lifted his shirt and showed me the large scratch on his side.

     “When we were in the prison, they threw the food at us like we were animals.  They just gave us a small, cold hamburger and a carton of juice.  They turned on the air conditioning (to make it cold) and we could only wear t-shirts.”

     José had been deported to Nogales at 11 P.M. the previous night.  There are people who prey on migrants here and dropping them at the border late at night puts them at risk of being assaulted, robbed and extorted.

     “I don’t like America and I’m never going back,” concluded José.

     Margarita told me she was 22 years old and from the state of Guerrero when I talked with her at the Migrant Resource Center in Agua Prieta on March 8.  She had traveled two days by bus to get to the border.  She and a cousin then hiked for a day in the Arizona desert and were arrested by the Border Patrol.  Margarita was separated from her cousin in the detention center and she had just been deported to Agua Prieta that morning.  Her cousin had been carrying her cell phone with all the numbers and she had no idea how to communicate with her family.

     Margarita had hoped to travel to Oxnard, California to work with her cousins in the strawberry fields.  I seem to be lacking the insight used by the government because I don’t see how a young woman who wants to spend her days stooped over picking strawberries poses a grave risk to national security.

     “Because we live in an age where terrorists are challenging our borders, we can not allow people to pour into the U.S. undetected, undocumented, and unchecked,” said Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign.  He failed to mention that not a single terrorist has been caught crossing the border from Mexico into the U.S. 

     After being re-elected with the support of the Latino vote, Obama announced his plan for immigration reform.  “I believe it should include a continuation of the strong border security measures that we’ve taken because we have to secure our borders,” he said.  The Obama administration deported more than 1.5 million people during his first term.  Making increased border security a top priority of reform will likely result in even more racism and brutality being used to protect freedom and democracy.

     Robin Williams, in his starting role as the space alien Mork in the “Mork and Mindy” show, gave a more accurate description of immigration enforcement more than 30 years ago.  He was almost deported from the U.S. for being an “illegal alien.”  Mork always communicated with his boss at the end of the program to inform him about activities on earth.  That week, he said “There’s this lady who is carrying a torch and she keeps saying ‘Send me your tired, your poor, and your huddled masses.’  Except there’s also a man down at the immigration office who says ‘Not too tired, not too poor, and not too many.’”

José

Margarita

     

In memory of Helen Nicholson

     My mother, Helen Nicholson, died yesterday afternoon.  She welcomed me into this world in her loving embrace and I told her how much I loved her as she was leaving here.  Her body will soon be reduced to ashes but I continue to feel the presence of her loving spirit.

     I was very blessed to grow up surrounded by her warmth and love.  She taught me about love through her example and that continues to inspire me.  I remember sitting on the porch with my sister while Mom read to us from our favorite books.  When we were able to read for ourselves she always made sure there were books in the house.  She would take us to the library and knew all our favorite authors.  She also volunteered at the school library and encouraged my friends to read by finding books that would interest them.

     When I grew up and moved away from Los Angeles, she visited me in various places where I lived – Arcata, Boise, Spokane, Helena, Missoula and Madison.  We also traveled together to my favorite place in the universe – the Canadian Rockies.  At age 76, she flew from Los Angeles to Indianapolis to meet me there at a Global Ministries conference when I was living in Colombia.  Throughout all those years, her home was always a refuge for me – stocked with my favorite foods and filled with her love.  It feels very strange to be here this morning without her.

     We shared a deep love for nature and a few years ago I found some prose she had written for a high school English class.  “Looking into the sky on a calm, cloudless night, can give me an achingly sweet sensation.  I realize that nature and the universe are so big and overpowering that they have the ability to calm my ruffled thoughts and leave me at peace with myself.  It always helps me to turn to nature, because that way I feel closer to God and to complete happiness.”

     I called Mom on February 11 to tell her about the snow that was falling in Nogales that evening.  It brought back memories of her childhood in Lake Bluff, Illinois and she talked about catching snowflakes on her tongue.  I called her the following evening and she chided me for not having tried that myself.  As we hung up, she told me “I love you Scott Douglas” – just like she did when I was a kid.  It seemed like she knew, in some way, that her life was coming to the end.

     As I told her yesterday, “I love you very much, I’m very grateful, and you can just let go.”

     In loving memory of Helen Nicholson,

     From her son, Scott

Mom, at age 14, at her favorite spot overlooking Lake Michigan

Mom, at age 81, watching the waves crash on the rocks at Cambria, California

The people of Tirabichi

     Maria and Jesus showed me where they want to build their house in the Tirabichi dump of Nogales when I visited there on January 17.  They used to work sweeping the streets but that job ended and they’ve been working in the dump for two years.  Maria told me they sort through the refuse for plastic, glass, tin, aluminum and other recyclable materials.  They store what they’ve found and sell it once a week to the buyers that drive up to the dump.  They earn four to five dollars a day.  Jesus’ parents built a house in the dump a year ago and his father has worked there for ten years.

     The Diario de Sonora newspaper featured a front-page article on January 12 about the families that live at the dump.  The headline read “We feel more forgotten than cold.”  Tirabichi is less than a mile from the Hogar de Esperanza y Paz (HEPAC) community center and I walked up there the next day.  The high temperature that afternoon was 45 degrees and it dropped to 14 the following morning.

     Arturo and the Molina brothers showed me the shelters they had built and I can’t imagine what it would have been like there that night.  Arturo lived in Des Moines, Iowa and his children are still in the U.S. 

     Manuel is 40 years old and he grew up in the dump.  He lived in Tucson for six years, but the rest of his life has been there at Tirabichi.

     The conversations and images from that day stayed with me.  I talked with Sandra and Larry of the Tucson Samaritans, and Liz and Tricia who were visiting from Montana, and I returned to Tirabichi with them on January 17.  The intense cold had ended the day before and the odor was more evident as we walked up the hill.

     “We’re content because we’re able to work here,” Teresa told me.  “I only finished elementary school and that’s why I’m here.”  She has four children between six and seventeen years old, and she’s been working at the dump for six months. 

     The Clinton administration built a border wall to separate Nogales, Sonora from Nogales, Arizona in 1994 (the same year that the North America Free Trade Agreement was implemented).  The Obama administration replaced it with a larger wall in 2011 at a cost of four million dollars per mile.  The people at Tirabichi live less than four miles from where all that money was spent to keep them in poverty. 

     The HEPAC community center represents a grassroots alternative to the policies of inequality and exclusion.  A team from HEPAC was at Tirabichi when we arrived there.  They were inviting people to send their children to the lunch program and to participate in the adult education classes.  Teresa had the flyer and we talked about the opportunity to get her high school education at HEPAC.

Jesus and Maria on the site of their future home

   

The killing of Jose Antonio

     Two months ago today, 16-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez was killed by the Border Patrol here in Nogales, Sonora.  Today is also International Human Rights Day commemorating the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations on December 10, 1948.  It seems like an appropriate moment to consider the impact of the United States’ militarization of the border.

     A Border Patrol agent in Nogales, Arizona fired at least 14 shots from his assault rifle into Nogales, Sonora on the night of October 10.  Jose Antonio was hit twice in the head and four times in the chest.

     The Border Patrol claims the agent fired in self-defense after rocks were thrown at agents who were pursuing two drug smugglers.  Their brief statement issued the following day notes that the agent “discharged his service weapon” and “one of the suspects appeared to have been hit.”

     “They ripped out a part of my soul” said Araceli, Jose Antonio’s mother, during a gathering of border organizations in Ciudad Juarez.  “He was and is part of my life.  I still hear his voice.  My son had a lot of dreams.  Why do they have to kill innocent people?”   

     I moved back to Nogales ten days after Jose Antonio was killed and I’ve been drawn to that site several times.  I went there the day after I returned here and my last visit was two days ago.  I’ve also walked along the U.S. side of the border wall near where the shots were fired.

     Jose Antonio was killed on the sidewalk in front of Dr. Luis Contreras’ home and clinic on International Street.  The agent placed the barrel of his rifle between the steel beams of the border wall and shot down into Nogales, Sonora.  That section of the wall is about 20 feet high and set on a hill that is 25 feet above the street.

     The initial shots were fired from at least 100 feet away and eight bullets hit the corner of the building.  The final shots were fired from about 50 feet away and three bullets hit that side of the building where Jose Antonio died.  It would have been extremely difficult to throw a rock from there and hit the agent who fired all those shots.

     The killing took place approximately 100 yards from a Border Patrol surveillance tower.  The video that was recorded by the cameras that night has not been released to the public or to Jose Antonio’s family.

     It would appear that the Border Patrol is able to get away with murder because the victim was Mexican.  Would the U.S. government show more concern if an agent on the northern border had killed a 16-year-old Canadian, or if the roles were reversed and Jose Antonio had shot into the United States and killed someone there?    

     “Why are they able to go out and kill here?” asked Araceli.  “Why are they covering them up?  I want to know who they are.  I want them arrested and I want justice.” 

     “There have been very many young people, teenagers, who have been killed at the border” said Navi Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.  “The reports reaching me are that there has been excessive force by the U.S. border patrols.”

Araceli with a photo of her son

Tito and Jeannette standing where Jose Antonio died (circles were drawn around the bullet holes)

The first shots were fired from the border wall above the car parked in the middle and the surveillance tower is on the left

The final shots were fired from that part of the wall