Reflections on Migrants in the Desert
Sisters and Brothers,
As we approach mid-summer, much of my time here on the border has been absorbed by the continuing immigration and border crisis here in the Arizona. One of my commitments as the Director of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship has been to fulfill my obligations as a Christian Peacemaker Teams reservist (www.cpt.org) by acting as CPT’s representative in the Arizona borderlands.
I confess that it is a discouraging time. Since early June we have averaged almost one death per day as migrants head into the brutal heat of the desert. In mid July, colleagues of mine received a phone call from a family desperate to find a Guatemalan woman lost somewhere northwest of Tucson (meaning that she had walked at least seventy miles). When volunteers went to the desert to search for her, they found her remains on one of trails about a forty five minute drive outside the city.
A month ago, as I led a delegation for CPT in northern Mexico, we met dozens of migrants – perhaps more aptly considered economic refugees as they flee desperate conditions in the southern states of Mexico – in shelters and resource centers all along the Mexican side of the border. One night, as we staffed the migrant center that receives folks being sent back by the Border Patrol in Douglas, AZ, I met a woman who had climbed the fence with her ten-year-old son and thirteen-year-old daughter. As they ran across an open field near Douglas, they were discovered almost immediately by the Border Patrol. Six or eight hours later, now having been “voluntarily returned” to the city of Agua Prieta, the kids were clearly trying to protect their mother. She was overweight, and was experiencing chest pains from the exertion of trying to run away, in addition to having a deep gash on her upper arm where she was cut as she tried to jump from the fence.
As a parent, I try to imagine the level of desperation I would have to feel to attempt to climb the fence with two kids my son Teo’s age. This woman was clear that, while she was extremely frightened, she and her husband had made the decision that they couldn’t stand being separated any longer. Regardless of what one believes about border and immigration policy, the choice between separating families and having enough money to provide for our kids is one that no one should have to make.
I confess that I grow weary of the work that it takes to live one’s faith in the borderlands. One friend of mine says that it’s a question of “carrying the water” until things get better. It’s not sexy, it’s not fun, it just has to be done. I thought about that as I arrived home at 2:30 a.m. one night early in July after spending five hours literally carrying hundreds of cases of water bottles across the border to be given to folks who are dehydrated and still at high risk as they are sent back by the U.S. government.
I’ve spent the summer reading the later speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – the ones where he began to link the triple evils of racism, poverty and war. I feel a strong temptation to compartmentalize evil – keeping the border crisis separate from the stories I hear from my friend Adan – a pastor in North Philadelphia , about how everyone he comes in contact with knows someone who has been murdered in his part of the city. It’s tempting to see the war in Iraq as an autonomous problem, and not to connect it with the slipping standards on our government’s use of torture that put all of us at risk in a world of violence. Somehow, though, the lesson of Dr. King is that all of these issues go together, and it is a challenge to people of faith to insist that our notions of peace will be as far-reaching as the violence we encounter in all of its forms.
Maybe following Jesus is just flat-out tougher when it’s 110 degrees and people are dying in the desert. I suppose that’s something to reflect on as a hundred and twenty of us gather at Ghost Ranch for the Week of Peace at the end of the month. We’ve billed this week as a “Baptist style camp-meeting,” which is what I think my soul needs right about now.
By the way, four Christian Peacemakers are currently doing a Border Witness drive all along the border and throughout immigrant communities in the deep south on their way to Washington DC at the end of the month. You might check out their blog at http://cptborderlandswitness.blogspot.com.
May Christ’s peace push us into the fray.
Rick
