Dying to get in: crisis on the Mexican border

LAST YEAR OVER 200 people lost their lives as they tried to cross the border from Mexico into Arizona. They died from dehydration in the 120-degree heat of the Sonoran Desert. They died in storm drains as they tried to cross during the flash-flood season. They died in the trunks of vehicles that were abandoned by "coyotes" (smugglers), and in rollover accidents during high-speed chases.

That's just in Arizona. Hundreds more died attempting to cross into California, New Mexico and Texas. The problems along the 2,300-mile border between Mexico and the U.S. have grown to crisis proportions. President Bush knows this, some congressional representatives know it, and it has become an inescapable challenge to churches in both countries.

In January President Bush acknowledged that the "system is not working." Recognizing that "our ability to assimilate newcomers" is one of the "defining strengths of America," he called for a reformed immigration policy that will 1) open borders to legal travel and trade while shutting them to drug traffic, criminals and terrorists; 2) serve the economic needs of the U.S. while providing fair income and legal protection for working visitors: and 3) offer incentives for immigrants to return to their country of origin.

To his credit, Bush realizes that immigration reform cannot be a quick fix: "The best way in the long run to reduce the pressures that create illegal immigration in the first place is to expand economic opportunity among the countries in our neighborhood. Bed growth and real hope in the nations of our hemisphere will lessen the flow of new immigrants."

But that is the long run. In the short run, something must be done. To begin with, says Robin Hoover, a Disciples of Christ pastor and president of Humane Borders, "We must take death out of the migration equation." This summer waves of newcomers are crossing into the deserts of the western U.S., many of them abysmally unprepared for what lies in store for them.

For this reason, a broad alliance of religious communities and humanitarian groups along the border--named

"No More Deaths"--has mounted an effort to bolster migrant services. On Memorial Day, about 100 church-people from across the country gathered in a dry wash 60 miles southwest of Tucson to dedicate the first "Ark of the Covenant" aid station. The idea behind it is simple: if migrants can't make it to the churches, the churches will move to the desert.

As participants gathered around a small shrine beside a motor borne and a tarp in the desert, they prayed together and placed on the altar jars of water, photos and their hopes for a new border policy. The camp will be staffed continuously by church folks from all over the U.S. who are fed up with the senseless death and who are willing to go to the desert themselves to offer food, water and medical care to keep "the migrant Jesus" alive.

Two hours later, many of us gathered across the Mexican border in Sasabe, Sonora, where many migrants begin their journey. We stood before three large crosses that commemorate the lives of more than 2,500 migrants who have died in desert crossings in the past ten years. "How" many more?" one cross asks. As we concluded the service, 30 hikers headed into the desert on a weeklong, 70-mile "Walk for Life" to Tucson to bring attention to the situation of the migrants.

Two days later, the marchers straggled into a camp about 20 miles north of the border Temperatures hovered over 110 degrees. Maryknoll lay missionary West Cosgrove said, "I can't understand how anyone makes it out of tiffs desert alive."

In the 15 years I have lived and worked on the U.S.-Mexican border, I have met hundreds of undocumented migrants and heard their stories. Often I take visitors to a little town called Altar; 60 miles south of Sasabe. We travel a dirt road crowded with hundreds of beat-up shuttle vans that move more than 1,500 migrants a day up to the border. In Altar; we visit a hospitality house run by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese. In the central plaza in front of the Catholic church, each day from late winter through mid-summer, dozens of buses arrive from the south, carrying hundreds of people who intend to cross the border. They come from all over Mexico and parts of Central America.

Grupo Beta, Mexico's border safety force, says that during February of this year it made contact with more than 37,000 people headed to the border from Altar, on foot or in vehicles. The number was 4,000 higher than in February 2003.

As people exit the vehicles, blinking in the hot desert sun, voices call out all around them: Come with me--I'm the best! ... I can get you to Chicago.... Only one thousand dollars to Phoenix! The last time I was there I encountered a woman in her mid-70s who had no idea where she was going. On one visit I met two teenage girls who were traveling north with their parents' blessing to look for work in order to send money home. Wearing short-sleeved shirts, polyester slacks and open toed sandals, they were planning to walk across the desert.