Two volunteers from the organization No More Deaths/No Mas Muertes in Tucson were arrested on Saturday morning because they had migrants in their car. No Mas Muertes is a faith-based group and key CPT partner in our work here. They staff a migrant camp in the desert south of Tucson on the US side, while CPT staffs a migrant camp, along with our Mexican partner, on the Mexico side. It could have been any of us arrested. I was at the Mexico camp when the arrest took place.
Here is what happened, in the words of the NMD press release:
On Saturday morning, July 9th, two NMD volunteers came on a group of nine migrants in varying degrees of distress. They had been walking for several days, lost in the desert. The volunteers provided food and water to these persons and they washed their feet and cared for their blisters. The volunteers treated these friends as you and I would wish to be treated if we fell into such straits; they showed human compassion to those our government degrades as less than human. Three of these persons reported vomiting, diarrhea, and one reported blood in his stool, all conditions which are symptomatic of extreme and life-threatening dehydration. After consultation with No More Deaths vounteer medical personnel and legal counsel, the decision was made to medically evacuate these persons to be treated by a doctor in Tucson.
Ms. Sellz and Mr. Strauss volunteered to take these persons to be treated by a No More Deaths doctor and they were arrested en route. Upon learning of the arrests, a No More Deaths volunteer doctor and nurse went to the border patrol station where they were being held and asked to see the migrants. The border patrol turned our medical volunteers away and later a border patrol spokesperson said the travelers were "ok" and did not require treatment. We know they were far from "ok."....end of press release quotation
The two were charged with 2 felonies. They are college students volunteering for the summer. One was obstruction of justice and the other was particular to the statute concerning transportation of undocumented persons. The statute reads that you cannot transport an undocumented person if it is "furtherance or abetting" illegal migration into the US. The border patrol has chosen to interpret this to mean any transportation of undocumented person illegal.
If I put an undocumented person in my car to go to the movies, is it furtherance or abetting illegal migration? What about if I am driving them south? Do I have to ask for documents every time someone gets into my car? Do I only have to ask for documents from Hispanic people, or do I have to card everyone? I'm no expert, but the law seems extreme to me. What are we, the Soviet Union?
Join me in a journey toward peace.
Introduction to the Site
For an introduction and explanation
of the blog, click on "Introduction" below.
List of Posts by Subject
- Colombia Conflict (10)
- Desert Reflections (4)
- Guatemala (1)
- Haiti Earthquake (3)
- Introduction (1)
- Just Haiti (6)
- Kosovo in 2005 (1)
- Marlin Mine Guatemala (3)
- Ministry Reflections (2)
- Palestine (4)
- Palestine: Hebron (7)
- Palestine: Tuwani (9)
- Reflections on Race and Colonialism: Bolivia Context (3)
- Stories From the US-Mexico Border (9)
- Stories From the US-Mexico Border: Migrant Trail Reflection (1)
About The Author
Link to Just Haiti Website
Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness..."
Genesis 1:26
We have all known the long loneliness...and the only solution is love. We cannot love God unless we love each other, and to love we must know each other. We know God in the breaking of the bread, and we know each other in the breaking of the bread, and we are not alone anymore.
Dorothy Day
Each person is not just to be respected but to be revered as one created in God's image. To treat one such as if they were less than this is not just evil, --no, it is veritably blasphemous, for it is to spit in the face of God.
Desmond Tutu
Until the philosophy that holds one race superior and another inferior is finally, and permanently, discredited and abandoned, well, everywhere is war.
Bob Marley
We definitely will not have an authentic theology of liberation until the oppressed themselves can freely and creatively express themselves in society and among the people of God, until they are artisans of their own liberation.
Gustavo Gutierrez
I deeply believe that the solution to this armed conflict lies in concrete approaches to human rights and the dignity of the indigenous peoples...It must be said that the international community has given many blank checks for the killing of our people.
Rigoberta Menchu Tum
The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them...They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
Isaiah 11: 6, 9
Genesis 1:26
We have all known the long loneliness...and the only solution is love. We cannot love God unless we love each other, and to love we must know each other. We know God in the breaking of the bread, and we know each other in the breaking of the bread, and we are not alone anymore.
Dorothy Day
Each person is not just to be respected but to be revered as one created in God's image. To treat one such as if they were less than this is not just evil, --no, it is veritably blasphemous, for it is to spit in the face of God.
Desmond Tutu
Until the philosophy that holds one race superior and another inferior is finally, and permanently, discredited and abandoned, well, everywhere is war.
Bob Marley
We definitely will not have an authentic theology of liberation until the oppressed themselves can freely and creatively express themselves in society and among the people of God, until they are artisans of their own liberation.
Gustavo Gutierrez
I deeply believe that the solution to this armed conflict lies in concrete approaches to human rights and the dignity of the indigenous peoples...It must be said that the international community has given many blank checks for the killing of our people.
Rigoberta Menchu Tum
The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them...They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
Isaiah 11: 6, 9
Mothers of the Disappeared
Midnight our sons and daughters
Were cut down taken from us
Hear their heartbeat
We hear their heartbeat
In the wind we hear their laughter
In the rain we see their tears
Hear their heartbeat
We hear their heartbeat
Night hangs like a prisoner
Stretched over black and blue
Hear their heartbeat
We hear their heartbeat
In the trees our sons stand naked
Through the walls our daughters cry
See their tears in the rainfall
U2
Were cut down taken from us
Hear their heartbeat
We hear their heartbeat
In the wind we hear their laughter
In the rain we see their tears
Hear their heartbeat
We hear their heartbeat
Night hangs like a prisoner
Stretched over black and blue
Hear their heartbeat
We hear their heartbeat
In the trees our sons stand naked
Through the walls our daughters cry
See their tears in the rainfall
U2
No, no, there is no going back
No, no, there is no going back.
Less and less you are
that possibility you were.
More and more you have become
those lives and deaths
that have belonged to you.
You have become a sort of grave
containing much that was
and is no more in time, beloved
then, now, and always.
And so you have become a sort of tree
standing over a grave.
Now more than ever you can be
generous toward each day
that comes, young, to disappear
forever, yet remain
unaging in the mind.
Every day you have less reason
not to give yourself away.
Wendell Berry
Less and less you are
that possibility you were.
More and more you have become
those lives and deaths
that have belonged to you.
You have become a sort of grave
containing much that was
and is no more in time, beloved
then, now, and always.
And so you have become a sort of tree
standing over a grave.
Now more than ever you can be
generous toward each day
that comes, young, to disappear
forever, yet remain
unaging in the mind.
Every day you have less reason
not to give yourself away.
Wendell Berry
God Send Easter
And we will lace
the jungle on
And step out
brilliant as birds
Against the concrete country.
Feathers waving
As we dance towards Jesus
sun reflecting mango
And apple
As we glory in our skin.
Lucille Clifton
the jungle on
And step out
brilliant as birds
Against the concrete country.
Feathers waving
As we dance towards Jesus
sun reflecting mango
And apple
As we glory in our skin.
Lucille Clifton
When I Die
and if I ever touched a life I hope
that life knows that touching was
and still is
and will always be
the true revolution.
Nikki Giovanni
that life knows that touching was
and still is
and will always be
the true revolution.
Nikki Giovanni
Don't learn to live with atrocity.
Kim Lamberty
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