THE BORDER / LA LINEA

Life is worth nothing / La vida no vale nada.

THE FINAL CHOICE

You get to die by
violence, starvation, or trying to be free. 
Which do you choose?
For you? Your family?

Honoring all those who will never be found or identified...

She Comes for Them / Ella Viene Por Ellos

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.

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Living near the border over the years has taught me a lifetime's worth of humanity and humility that I wouldn't have learned otherwise.  This searing land has hidden a slow-motion humanitarian crisis that has been growing each year since the mid-90s, and neither money nor man-power nor technology or a "Big Beautiful Wall" will address.  As of November 2021, the number of Known deaths had reached 3,790.  No one knows how many more may never be found.

America has long had two insatiable demands: cheap labor and illegal drugs.  Border communities have bi-national cultures and intermarried families that go back many generations.  The Border Industrial Complex has militarized their towns and controls the first 100 miles of land inside the entire country.

Nogales, US |

| Nogales, MX in an alley

In Arizona, the militarized zone contains malignant militia/conspiracy groups as well as hapless humans taking on their ultimate option.  Then there are the stalwart humanitarian groups looking for lost, abandoned, weather-stressed migrants, and for skeletal remains.  They also set out water stations, which are often vandalized. Even hand-crafted memorial crosses honoring the spots where someone died are sometimes vandalized. Relationships with CPB are tenuous; not to mention being confronted by armed "patriots" who aren't bound to any laws but their own. The giant overseer is the Dept. of Homeland Security.  The most powerful law enforcement agency in the land, it is exempt from the 4th Amendment and operates in a culture of sanctioned secrecy.

The vast expanses of desert are an ideal cover, and gathering evidence of anything is difficult indeed.  Profits are unlimited, fear and loathing are the fuel, disposable people are the collateral, all ages— on both sides of the line.  The rays of light that persist are in the power of the Human Spirit and in the gentle presence of the Divine that soothes and touches everyone.  It never ceases to inspire me.

Navidad Baja AZ 2013

Navidad Baja Arizona 2013

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Navidad MPP 2019

"Migrant Protection Protocols"

And they were not given refuge at the Inn.

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