Thousands Have Vanished in the Arizona Borderlands
By: Raisa Nastukova
Tags: Migration, News, Culture, Immigration, World

Kindness is criminalized in Arizona. No More Deaths, a humanitarian non-profit that advocates for migrants out of Ajo, Arizona, regularly has their humanitarian camps raided. Officials charged eight of their volunteers with a variety of offenses a week after No More Deaths published a report accusing Border Patrol agents of dumping water jugs left by volunteers on migrant paths. One of the activists’ charges was “abandoning property,” apparently referring to the water, food, and blankets they left on migrant trails. Another volunteer, Scott Warren, was “[detained] in the town of Ajo on suspicion of supplying food, water and clean clothes to two undocumented migrants.” The charges against Scott were dropped two years later.

“Today the government took the position that people of conscience should not be prosecuted for acts of humanitarian aid. In other words, humanitarian aid, by definition, is not a crime,” said Greg Kuykendall on the courthouse steps when announcing the dropped charges against Scott Warren, as reported by No More Deaths.

Often, individual migrants die of exposure not realizing their journey will require weeks of walking instead of days. Coyotes, professional border crossing guides, often underplay the risks. If a person sprains an ankle and is unable to walk, the group must leave them behind. If someone is separated from the group, common when running from Border Patrol, they have no way of finding their guide and face almost certain death.

Not only do migrants die from exposure or dehydration in the incredibly rough terrain, but No More Deaths alleges that Border Patrol regularly chases crossing migrants into remote terrain, where they often perish after becoming lost.

According to local humanitarian groups, if a migrant has been missing for more than a month without contact, their families should start looking through the forensics system. The Colibrí Center for Human Rights in Tucson, Arizona works to help families whose loved ones have disappeared while crossing the border. Often this involves identifying their remains by searching available forensic systems. The group also tracks migrants who vanished while crossing the border. They have over 3,500 missing persons cases.

As stated by Doctors Without Borders, Central American migrants predominantly make the journey to the United States and Mexico to flee violence in their home countries — which Doctors Without Borders says is comparable to a warzone in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. But the long journey north is also rife with violence and exploitation. 57 percent of the people interviewed by the organization experienced violence while traveling through Mexico, whether assault, extortion, sexual assault, or torture. Mexican gangs and human trafficking organizations often target Central Americans through kidnapping and extortion.

“It’s clear from years of medical data and testimonies that many of our patients are desperately fleeing violence back home… These people deserve protection and care, and, at the very least, a fair chance to seek asylum. Instead they face more violence along the migration route, barred from countries where they wouldn’t be at risk. Now they are trapped in dangerous places with no way to seek safety,” said Sergio Martin, the head of mission in Mexico for Doctors Without Borders, quoted in a recent report released by the organization.

According to the recent Doctors Without Borders report, 61 percent of migrants interviewed were exposed to violence in the two years leading up to their migration north. Half of those cited their exposure to violence as a key reason they chose to leave their home country. Migrating families with children were much more likely to be fleeing violence, with 75 percent of those fleeing with children cited violence as a key reason, which includes forced gang recruitment. If they’re caught and detained by US Border Patrol, however, the dangers don’t end there. Doctors Without Borders reports that many of their patients reported terrible conditions in American custody, often in freezing cells with bright lights kept on 24/7, and denied adequate access to health care, blankets, food, clothing, and human dignity.

The conditions at the migrant detention centers are a humanitarian travesty, even more so during a global pandemic. The humanitarian non-profit that advocates for the migrants, No More Deaths, addressed this in a press release this summer.

“Meanwhile, precautions against the spread of the pandemic in cramped detention centers are abysmal. There is no soap in sinks, no access to gloves, and detained women and men just receive two face masks each — only after signing waivers of liability for the masks. Under these conditions, it is no surprise that more people are becoming infected with COVID-19. As of this writing, ICE acknowledges 69 known “positive” cases of COVID-19 at the La Palma facility alone. Recently, at an La Palma detention center in Eloy, detainees blocked the doors to their “pod” with tables and chairs, demanding masks, gloves, hand soap and testing. In response, the officers from CoreCivic — the for-profit company that operates many detention centers — broke through and shot them with rubber bullets and sprayed them with tear gas.”

The terrors migrant children face while separated from their parents are well documented. In many cases, the children’s basic needs are unmet and entire families are left broken and traumatized. The institutionalization of children, especially without the protective buffer of a parent, has horrible and lasting consequences on a child’s mental health and development. And the scale of this crisis is unfathomable. Since July 2017, more than 1,500 migrant children were separated from their parents after being detained separately. The American Civil Liberties Union claims that the true number of separated migrant children could be as high as 5,400 since the policy began. Recently, the ACLU announced that the parents cannot be located for 545 detained migrant children.