A System of Exploitation

Yesterday we received a call from a woman who owns a small ranch about 15 miles down the highway from us and which sits on the border with Mexico. She is elderly and may be suffering from some early stage of dementia.

I had met her once before, last week, when another local activist called us to come out to her farm because she had three migrants there and she was afraid of the border patrol. Last week the three just wanted to make a phone call, which we let them do, and they arranged whatever they were going to arrange and went on their way. But the situation seemed sketchy last week, and even more so today.

Today she called us saying that she had 7 migrants on her property and she wanted our help in getting them to leave. The migrants were staying in a shed on her property that seemed to be set up for that very purpose. When we spoke to them, they said that their coyote (the Mexican guide they pay to get them across the border) told them to go there, and that the coyote said that the property owner was being paid $100 per person. The property owner says she is being regularly hassled by the border patrol and that she is afraid of them and afraid that her employees cannot be trusted not to report her to them.

The migrants say that she is a regular stop and that many pass through her property, and only sometimes does she get concerned, especially when her employees are around. The property owner says that border patrol ride through her property at night on their horses, and buzz her with helicopters, and she doesn't want migrants to stay there.

We finally reached an agreement with the migrants that 6 of the 7 would walk back up toward the mountains until their pick-up arrived. We gave them plenty of food and water for the several hours they would have to wait. The 7th, the one with the cell phone, would wait in the shed until he recieved his call from the pick-up giving the location so the group could meet him or her. The one with the telephone wanted to wait in the shed because he said that he could not get cell phone service in the desert, but could get it if he stood in one corner of the shed.

We brought this proposal to the property owner, and she agreed to it. We waited until the 6 had left, and then we left. Who knows what happened after that. They may have come back. The property owner has recourse--she can call the border patrol. Clearly she did not want to do that, and clearly the migrants knew she did not want to do that.

After they left, I went to talk with the property owner, trying to find out the real story. I asked her if she was being paid. She denied it. But then she spilled at least part of the story. She used to have this Mexican guy ("Martin," coincidentally the same name as the coyote the migrants were calling both times, today and last week) working for her whom she totally trusted. He took care of her and she allowed him to board his horses on her property.

Then one day suddenly she had five border patrol vehicles in her yard. They marched 18 migrants out of her locked shed and arrested Martin. But she emphasized that as far as she is concerned, Martin was innocent. He served a year in jail and now cannot come into the US. Clearly, Martin is now running his business from the Mexican side and steering migrants to her property. She denies knowing who it is that is sending them to her. She also denies being a part of it. Who is telling the truth? I think she is very vulnerable, but I also think she is a party to it.

She hates the border patrol, but I think we need to ask ourselves why the border patrol is allowing this. They know perfectly well what is going on there if they are really patrolling as much as she claims.

I think this story provides some insight into the game that is being played between the coyotes, the border patrol, and even some property owners. The migrants are caught in the middle of a large money-making scheme on the part of everyone, including the empoyers in the US who hire them at substandard wages and benefits in order to increase their own profits. Many property owners are also caught in the middle, not wanting to be a party to migrant deaths or human rights abuses, but also not wanting to break the law. Other property owners, as we see from this story, are part of a complex system of exploitation.

To me it highlights the need to legalize and normalize what is going on here, to get it out of the hands of organized crime and to give migrants legal recourse against exploitative employers. The system has also led to widespread document fraud in the US. The migrants we encounter are coming because they know they have a much better chance of finding work in the US than in Mexico. And bad as the jobs are that they take in the US, they are much better than what they are leaving behind. I try to imagine what it would be like to leave everything I know permanently, to resettle in a foreign culture and land. People do it because they see no better alternative.

Walking the Migrant Trail

We finished the walk on Sunday. We walked 75.9 miles in 7 days from Sasabe, Mexico to Tucson. It was brutal, but I finished it.

We started Monday morning from Mexico. The first and the last day we walked fewer miles, and the other days we walked between 12 and 16. From Monday through Thursday we were in the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, which was lovely. Lovely for desert, I mean. It was hot and dusty, but the surrounding mountains provided some great scenery and sunsets. After we left the wildlife refuge we walked on the highway the rest of the way. The scenery was still pretty, but the highway was hot. I breathed in so much dust during the course of the week that I had to send our support people out to get me more allergy medicine.

The point of the walk was to experience for ourselves what migrants go through to get across the border to safety, and to bring attention to their plight. The way I see it, migrants are coming here for jobs that are available to them at wage and benefit levels that most US citizens won't accept. Immigration policy has led to tightening of border controls around population areas, but has left the border porous in the most dangerous crossing areas--the desert. This has led to about 3000 reported deaths in the last 10 years, and probably many more bodies are never found.

There came a point during the walk where I realized at a much deeper level than before that a person would have to be desperate to attempt this trip. I think it may have been the day that I twisted my ankle and realized that I was going to try and walk the rest of the way anyway, because that is what a migrant would have to do---or else be left for dead.

This realization reminds me of the time I recognized at a deeper level that the Palestinian suicide bombings were more about suicide than bombings. That the desperation of their situation had led them to think their lives were worthless and expendable.

We camped out every night but one. On Friday night we stayed in a church that had offered us hospitality. I can't tell you how great the floor of that air-conditioned church felt. It made me understand the importance of sanctuary (in all the meanings of that word!). By then a flush toilet and water to wash my face seemed like luxuries. I imagined what it would be like for migrants who did not have support vehicles full of water and snacks following them every step of the way. It made me feel even more committed to providing sanctuary when the opportunity presents itself.

The walk was a time of great grief for me. As I walked in the hot sun, breathing in all that dust, I imagined the migrant person walking the same path and at some point coming to the realization that they would not be able to continue. Ever.

I had some time to reflect on the similarities between my desert experience in Palestine and the desert here. Israel is building a wall around Palestine, and we are building a wall around the border with Mexico. The walls divide wealth from poverty and opportunity from desperation. The walls separate people from jobs and family. The walls interrupt freedom of movement. Both walls are highly militarized. The land on the wealthy side of the walls was taken by force from dark-skinned people by white colonizers.

I am struck, and not for the first time, at how you become your own enemy. We should never create enemies for ourselves, because history has shown repeatedly that the most likely outcome is that we will, eventually, turn into that enemy. So the Berlin Wall has now become the wall dividing Israel from Palestine and the wall separating the US from Mexico. Except for the racism part, the same factors are at work.

Freedom of movement is an international human rights issue. The relatively rich and white people can travel wherever they want and access the resources they want. The poor people of color are stuck in places without enough resources to sustain them and cannot travel freely. These people are thus forced to risk their lives to find something better. Seen in this light, border enforcement becomes a human rights violation.

I am still tired, but recovering. I will have to throw away my sneakers. I have developed a strange taste for gatoraide. My ankle still hurts. But it was an awesome experience.