Border Update: Ilegales sin documentos, XI

To Those GOOD FOLKS With Whom I Like To Exchange Stories, share ideas, mutually engage in real work, visit and generally keep up to date:

On November 21st, 1977, my cousin Rhonda was born, which means this past Wednesday, November 21st, 2007, she turned thirty. What's November 21st, 2007 mean to you? What'd you do? What'd you eat for breakfast? What were you wearing? Can you remember?

This past Wednesday, November 21st, Chayito, my host mother in Nogales, Sonora received a call. There was a group of nine migrants at Grupo Beta (the Mexican agency established to educate migrants about water, the desert, etc and aid deported migrants). They had arrived naked. They'd been deported naked. Grupo Beta had called the Madres (Mothers), a group of three nuns who live in Nogales. And then, the nuns called Chayito because they knew that Chayito and the rest of Pastorales de los Migrantes (Pastors of the Migrants) often having clothing, and, besides, they live just up the hill from Grupo Beta.

I went upstairs to check my email. By the time I'd come back downstairs, the humanitarian response was in full action. Beans and spaghetti were cooking on the stove. Lupe, my fellow student's host-mother was searching for disposable plates, Chayito was making salsa, a man outside was unloading bags of clothing out of his truck. Jenny, my fellow student and I quickly joined the action, loading the van with food, clothes, shoes.

Five minutes later, we were in the van headed down the hill to Grupo Beta.

The migrants had received a layer of clothes by the time we arrived, but they still had no shoes, no socks and had not eaten for several days.

As we served food, the story came out. The group, an entire family, had lost their farm in Guerrero a state in southern Mexico. With no place to stay and due to the fear of their family being separated, they chose to come north as a family. In the desert west of Nogales, they had been walking in the desert for three days and two nights. In the afternoon of the third day, a man, "a good American", by their reports, showed them the way north to continue their journey towards Tucson and offered them lodging and food for the evening. "That's the way, but come to my house for the evening. You can stay with me; I'll give you something to eat."

But, apparently, according to their story, a "bad woman" saw them on their way to the "good Samaritan's" house and called the police. They came and took him to jail. The woman came along and stayed behind with the migrants to keep watch until the Border Patrol arrived. She took all of their shoes, their coats, and the rest of their clothes.

They were then loaded into the Border Patrol "dog-catcher" trucks-- naked. They were processed in the Nogales Border Patrol headquarters-- naked. They were loaded into the contracted Wackenhut deportation bus-- naked. They were dropped at the port of entry-- naked. From Mariposa, one of the two ports of entry in Nogales, they walked along the highway and down Reform St, about a mile, in order to reach Grupo Beta-- naked.

I talked with Jesus, one of the older brothers. He was probably 24, 25. He was traveling with his mother and father, brothers and sisters, including two girls about 14 and 15. Imagine.

Everyone was served three tortillas, a scoop of spaghetti, a bit of salsa, a scoop of beans and some cucumber slices leftover from a church function. Then we made another pass with the tortillas: two more. Then one more pass: one more tortilla each.

Socks were pulled over cold feet. Five of the nine found shoes in our box that fit. Sweaters. Coats.

Later, in the car as we were driving away, Jenny, my fellow student asked me: "Why'd she take their shoes? All their clothes?"

"I don't know," I told her. "Maybe she thought that if she took their things, they wouldn't be able to come back through the desert."

Why DID she take all their clothes?

I still don't know.

Today I remembered with realization that almost all migrants sew secret pockets into their clothing to hide money because being robbed is routine and expected on the Devil's Highway. Accordingly, migrants split their money up: a little in the hat, a bit under each shoe insole, some sewed into the hem of their pants, a few more bills sewed in their shirt. All told, they might have several hundred dollars in order to make due until they find work. Or, in case they don't make it the first time and have to hire another guide, or... There are a lot of unexpected scenarios on the Devil's Highway to the American Dream.

Maybe she knew that migrants hide their money, sew it into their clothing, hide it in their shoes.

I don't know.

Maybe, she was just trying to do her part to stem illegal immigration.

I don't know.

Even my guesses run short.

My guesses also run short when I think about what Jesus and his farming-family of nine is up to tonight. Where are they? Have they eaten since Wednesday? Are they trying to make the trip again, five of them with the shoes our host-family offered them, the other four in socks? Through the desert, which tonight is 35 degrees?

It gets personal. 1000 miles from home, in clothes you got from two middle-aged Mexican women. The sun dips down behind the horizon; you're in a city you've never visited in your life. You're with your family. It's getting cold. You ask a couple of other migrants, and they don't know where to go either, they're from Oaxaca. You've got no money, none; out of your family of nine, four are without shoes. One of these is Maria, 14-years-old. She's getting cold. She doesn't say anything, but her lips are a bit purple. One of the agents at Grupo Beta tells you that if you stick around, you can get a job in the Maquilas (American owned factories). The agent tell you the pay is between five and eight bucks (if your lucky) a day. You play everything out in your head: night coming on, desert, 65 miles to Tucson, $5, $8 or even $10 per hour working in the US, $5 a day in Nogales. You remember from friends' reports that in order to emmigrate legally to the U.S. you have to have a bank account filled "with lots of zeros" at the end of the figure. And as you work things out in your head, the Grupo Beta agent tells you that "Unfortunately things cost a lot here in Nogales. Too bad you won't be able to cross over to the US to buy your groceries for at least a year. Milk only costs $3.50 a gallon there. Here in Nogales, it costs $4.50." Finally you hear about a shelter, but they don't serve food. For a fleeting moment, you imagine there might be an appetite for prostitutes here in Nogales with American tourists in the city. You heard about such things about Acapulco back in Guerrero. Who in your family? No! You put it out of mind. It's too awful. You'll find a way. You heard years ago from friends that the drug cartels will sometimes pay for your guide to Tucson if you'll carry a 50 pound sack of weed on your back. No. There's got to be another way. You'll make work. But how?

What would you do?

It can make you sick. And you, YOU can just stop reading. My sister keeps telling me: "That's enough Nathan."

But Lord, Folks! This family is screwed. Why do they have to carry the weight of NAFTA, ruinous foreign relations, unjust border policy, and inhumane, civilian and bureaucratic "border protection" on their naked backs? They're our neighbors, y'all. Neighbors.

Border Patrol apprehended 350,000 "illegal entries" in Arizona during 2006. 350,000. Nine of those 350,000 "illegals" are going to remember November 21st for the rest of their lives.

~ ~ ~

This afternoon, back in Tucson, I was walking through the neighborhood on my way to the laundry mat. On the bumper of a nice, little, red truck with bike racks on top, there were two stickers. One read: "Build the fence." The other one said, "No mas Illegals!"

The owner of this truck is probably a nice person. I could probably have a great conversation with them about mountain biking, how my friends up at school are big into it. With this tie-in, I could then introduce my college. Perhaps we'd get around to gardens and I'd mention the edible cacti and rosmary growing in the owner's yard. Maybe s/he is a college professor. Maybe s/he has a kid that they take to soccer practice a couple times a week. Maybe s/he watches Fox. Or maybe s/he watches CNN. Or maybe they don't watch the news. Maybe they have personal experience along the border. Maybe they don't. Maybe they'd be proud of the lady who called the police. Maybe they don't know what goes on. Maybe they think that since migrants enter without papers and are therefore illegal, they're dishonest and dangerous. Maybe.

I don't know. But.

There's a new idea of legality emerging in my soul. It is surging through my veins, and I feel its strength.

It's the legality that ended slavery. It's the legality that guarantees the landless, the middle class, women, American Indians, and blacks the right to vote. The legality that says you're worthy of respect regardless of your paycheck.

It's the legality that says we are all created equal, that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.


Nathan






"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."