THE BORDER / LA LINEA
THE BORDER / LA LINEA
Life is worth nothing / La vida no vale nada.
You get to die by violence, starvation, or trying to be free.
Which would you choose?
For yourself? Your children?
Which would you choose?
For yourself? Your children?
She Comes for Them / Ella Viene por Ellos
Honoring all those who will never be found or identified.
For I really am your compassionate mother, yours and of all the people who live together in this land, and of all the other people of different ancestries, those who love me, those who cry to me, those who seek me, those who trust in me …
Ca nel nehuatl in namoicnohuacanantzin in tehuatl ihuan in ixquichtin in ic nican tlalpan ancepantlaca, ihuan in occequin nepapantlaca notetlazotlacahuan, in notech motzatzilia, in nechtemoa, in notech motechilia …
Nican Mopohua, 29-31
Nahuatl version of the apparition of Nuestra Señora to San Juan Diego.
Borders are funny things -- power symbols for government leaders and their military,
but inconsequential for entities whose power exceeds their relevance.
America's economic engine has always been fueled by the work of immigrants, willing to do back-breaking jobs Americans won't or can't do. America's second economic engine is its illegal drug market, which exploded in the 1960s, bringing perpetual profit and death in rivers of blood throughout the Americas and at home ever since. America's assault weaponry flows into other countries at black market prices. The living are happy, the dead don't complain. The giant overseer is the Dept. of Homeland Security, which controls Customs and Border Enforcement and the Border Patrol. The most sprawling law enforcement arm in the land, it is accountable to itself. When suspect, information is released in limited statements or redacted materials. What has been widely documented is that it ignores laws and regulations issued by Congress, and operates in a tight culture of impunity. And it also controls the first 100 miles of land around the entire country.
DHS has little respect for the sovereignty of the Tohono O'odham Nation, whose land was split without consent by the United States in the Gadsden Purchase. Tribal members live under noise-intensive Israeli designed surveillance systems, constant harassment (children included), and can be jailed and deported from and to their own land. CBP has dynamited through sacred burial grounds and pumped vast amounts of water from Quitobaquito, a sacred desert natural spring, to build Trump's vanity wall.
Meanwhile, countless families keep turning themselves in to the Border Patrol, pleading for asylum from cartels, gangs, and starvation due to climate change in their home countries. Instead, they get a dose of American hospitality caged in outdoor ovens, or imprisoned in frigid detention centers, separated from their children, often denied counsel-- if they're lucky. Most are instantly deported with their names on a list available only through a dysfunctional government mobile app. They end up condemned indefinitely to overcrowded, squalid camps along the Mexican side of the border. Sitting ducks, families wait, prey to unimaginable predation on the Mexican side. When conditions become unbearable (ex: 2 porta-potties for 1200 people, no drinking water), some families resort to "self-separation" and send their young children across alone.
Border communities have binational cultures and intermarried families that span many generations. The Border Industrial Complex has militarized their towns and destroyed once prosperous economies. Every time a politician yells "INVASION!", they brace for more extravagant stunts: maybe another contingent of bored National Guard troops to occupy their towns. Maybe the Army to occupy and string miles of concertina wire along the wall; or the laughable "wall" made of double-stacked shipping containers... (that one was eventually removed for the illegal joke it was, but it was an expensive one that Arizonans paid for.) Armed vigilante groups delight in patrolling the border, looking for crossers to take hostage and humanitarians to harass. CBP tends to leave them alone. They take a dim view of humanitarians, however-- destroying water & food supplies they leave along known migrant trails, raiding their base camps, and making arrests.
DHS has little respect for the sovereignty of the Tohono O'odham Nation, whose land was split without consent by the United States in the Gadsden Purchase. Tribal members live under noise-intensive Israeli designed surveillance systems, constant harassment (children included), and can be jailed and deported from and to their own land. CBP has dynamited through sacred burial grounds and pumped vast amounts of water from Quitobaquito, a sacred desert natural spring, to build Trump's vanity wall.
Meanwhile, countless families keep turning themselves in to the Border Patrol, pleading for asylum from cartels, gangs, and starvation due to climate change in their home countries. Instead, they get a dose of American hospitality caged in outdoor ovens, or imprisoned in frigid detention centers, separated from their children, often denied counsel-- if they're lucky. Most are instantly deported with their names on a list available only through a dysfunctional government mobile app. They end up condemned indefinitely to overcrowded, squalid camps along the Mexican side of the border. Sitting ducks, families wait, prey to unimaginable predation on the Mexican side. When conditions become unbearable (ex: 2 porta-potties for 1200 people, no drinking water), some families resort to "self-separation" and send their young children across alone.
Border communities have binational cultures and intermarried families that span many generations. The Border Industrial Complex has militarized their towns and destroyed once prosperous economies. Every time a politician yells "INVASION!", they brace for more extravagant stunts: maybe another contingent of bored National Guard troops to occupy their towns. Maybe the Army to occupy and string miles of concertina wire along the wall; or the laughable "wall" made of double-stacked shipping containers... (that one was eventually removed for the illegal joke it was, but it was an expensive one that Arizonans paid for.) Armed vigilante groups delight in patrolling the border, looking for crossers to take hostage and humanitarians to harass. CBP tends to leave them alone. They take a dim view of humanitarians, however-- destroying water & food supplies they leave along known migrant trails, raiding their base camps, and making arrests.
Nogales, US |
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| Nogales, MX alley
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Humane Borders, in collaboration with the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner, has collected data on 4093 migrant deaths that occurred between 1981 and 2022. (See MAP) The vast expanses of Sonoran Desert will keep claiming lives, and while most will be found, we'll never know how many are still out there, desiccating in the sun, strewn about by animals. The unfound remain among the countless missing and forgotten, except for the families, who live lives without closure. When profits are unlimited and fear and loathing are the fuel, disposable people become product-- on both sides of the line. It's a circular game of craps and they know it, but courage rises when choices become a matter of life and death...
It is a treacherous cycle -- caused by the international drug trade in a world whose climate makes yesterday's life impossible. The rays of light that persist are in the power of everyday human angels who lend their talents to help these people live another day. And in the Divine spirit that touches everyone. It is visible in the faces of the survivors and their children, and shines forth in every newborn baby. A great human tragedy to me is how the most humble and courageous among us are repeatedly condemned to take on multitudes of gauntlets run by parasites and predators. They are the stuff of God, and never cease to inspire me.
It is a treacherous cycle -- caused by the international drug trade in a world whose climate makes yesterday's life impossible. The rays of light that persist are in the power of everyday human angels who lend their talents to help these people live another day. And in the Divine spirit that touches everyone. It is visible in the faces of the survivors and their children, and shines forth in every newborn baby. A great human tragedy to me is how the most humble and courageous among us are repeatedly condemned to take on multitudes of gauntlets run by parasites and predators. They are the stuff of God, and never cease to inspire me.
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RESOURCES
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