The latest in things that I find absolutely crazy:
Yesterday I hung out at the First Christian Church of Tucson, home to
Rev. Robin Hoover, founder and president of Humane Borders. Along
with policy advocacy, Humane Borders sets up and maintains water
stations throughout the deserts of southern Arizona. Their stated
goal is to provide "humanitarian assistance to those who are risking
their lives and safety crossing the United States border with Mexico.
They offer people water.
They get a lot of flak, too. Michael Chertoff says that their maps
(see preceeding post) and activities effectively encourage more
migrants to cross. Hoover will say that migrants cross for jobs, not
water. Still, the criticism remains.
I have the Border Patrol's stat sheet for Tucson-sector migrant
deaths. In 1998, 11 migrants died. The numbers continue to grow
until 2002, when there's a huge jump to 163. Consider 2002 the first
year when border restriction (many say low-level militarization)
policies, like Operation Gatekeeper in San Diego and Operation Hold
the Line in El Paso, finally kicked in. These policies were
instituted in 2001, called for an increase in BP agents, motion
sensors, etc., and effectively pushed migrants out into rural,
outlying areas. Hence 163 recorded migrant deaths, and these numbers
don't even take into account the number of people who died in
hospitals after rescue.
2005. 282 migrants die, following record deaths of 224 and 199 in the
two years past.
Holy mother. Two things have gone up during period: the number of
water stations and the amount of money funneled into border security.
Both Hoover and the BP claim that their strategies work. Hoover
measues his success in gallons (over 70,000 dispersed since March of
2001), while the BP measures their in arrests (I don't have the exact
numbers available).
Here's what I can't reconcile: either which way, something like 1200
people are crossing on foot through the deserts every day. Arrests
might have gone up, if only slightly, as I remember, but more and more
people are dying.
How this border strategy be effective, as the BP claims, if this is
the case? What does this say for initiatives to higher even more
agents, invest in more more technology and errect a border wall?
Isn't the writing on the wall already? What alternatives are there?
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