Migrant Deaths

12 people died crossing the border this weekend. One of them was in Cochise County, where the CPT team is living. During the weekend we were camped out on the Mexico side trying to help migrants in distress and about 70 came through our camp for help. There was a group of three women, one with a two-year-old child, who might have have died if not for us.

The man who died in our county was found about 5 miles north of our camp, and may have come through it. We don't know.

This afternoon we held what has become a weekly prayer vigil at the border crossing to remember all those who have died in our county (Cochise) trying to cross the border through the desert. Some of the bodies have never been identified. I was thinking while we were calling out all their names that if I were a family member of someone who died, it would be meaningful to me to know that someone out there was praying and remembering.

Tomorrow morning we are going to paint crosses on the border fence, as a way of calling a failed immigration policy what it is. We have decided to paint one cross for every migrant who dies this year in our county. So far there have been three.