Every day, thousands of Mexicans, Guatemalans, Salvadorans, Hondurans, and other Central and South Americans displaced by economic hardships created by NAFTA and other imbalanced trade agreements, which favor the haves and write off the have-nots as dispensable and cheap labor, seek refuge in El Norte. They risk everything they have, including their very lives, for the chance to work the dead-end jobs that a capitalistic ethic has deemed unfit for American labor. It is the exodus of the crucified people of the Western Hemisphere, but the “promised land” these sojourners seek is not the land of milk and honey. The lives of the undocumented workers in this country are lives that fall through the cracks, often going years without necessary or sufficient medical care and living in a poverty that many of us do not realize exists in such a “developed” and rich country as the United States. But even the life of dire poverty and thankless jobs is infinitely greater than the starving destitution in the barrios and fincas in the countries many migrants wish they could still call home. American jobs are not being lost because of the undocumented workers. Jobs are lost because the bottom line reigns supreme to stockholders and boardrooms. The financial burdens that American communities experience because of the costs of migrant health care, social services, and education are points of contentions while we do not bat an eye to the billions of dollars being placed in the coffers of the defense industry “protecting” the border. The same companies making bank in Iraq (Wackenhut, Boeing, Blackwater, and friends) have their hands in the deep pockets of privatization, militarization, and dehumanization.
And yet the faces of migrants crossing the desert remain hidden and impersonal. Cristian’s story of working 15 years in the U.S. to support his mother’s medical needs falls on deaf ears. No one hears Maria’s soft, lonely tears as she yearns for a few hours rest in the brutal Sonoran Desert. In a desert that can be unforgiving, with its rugged terrain and blistering sun, there is little solace for these wandering souls with their gallon jugs of dirty tank water, tin cans of tuna, Red Bulls and, if they are lucky, a pair of second-hand cowboy boots. A low-intensity war, one waged by racist ideologies and overzealous ideologues, corrupt governments and greedy defense contractors, is forcing the largest migration of mostly poor, innocent, well-meaning people to gamble their lives--usually on credit to a coyote--in a deadly crapshoot at the American Dream. There is little respite for these migrants. A few humanitarian groups along the border offer hospitality to these strangers: giving food and water, washing and wrapping injured feet--the works of mercy in the desert. The work of these volunteers saves lives, no doubt about it. One of the groups, No More Deaths, recently served 72 gallons of water from one drop off point in 24 hours. The group says that this was a record-high in the its five-year history.
In many ways No More Deaths, operating out of a tradition of civil initiative, resembles the houses of hospitality in the Catholic Worker movement. And yet, while the No More Deaths volunteers help relieve the immediate suffering of thousands each year, they are also challenging the unjust structures that have forced people into the desert, la cabeza prieta (“the devil’s highway”), to die. No More Deaths has run into its fair share of trouble with Border Patrol and other law enforcement as it continues supplying water to the thirsty, food to the hungry, and transportation to medical facilities for endangered and dying migrants. Recently, No More Deaths volunteers were convicted on littering charges for leaving out sealed, gallon jugs of water. The reality of the border is that migrants are persecuted and that those who seek to alleviate some of their suffering are prosecuted.
As ICE raids are becoming commonplace in cities and small towns across the country and thousands of undocumented workers are arrested, deported and torn away from their families, jobs, and homes, one cannot help but wonder how far government authorities will go in the name of economic justice and homeland security. Human life is no longer sacred. In the context of the current systems of injustice that tear families apart through deportations and arbitrary prison sentences, nothing short of a radical revolution of the filthy rotten system is necessary for humane borders to exist. No amount of reparations or repentance can undo the pain, suffering, and alienation that U.S. border policy, coupled with unfair trade and economic agreements, has caused for so many of our sisters and brothers from the South. But tearing down the imperial wall that systematically keeps families apart would be a tremendous start