Georgia: Making a Scapegoat of Immigrants

from The Huffington Post

by John Carlos Frey

Georgia state lawmakers are discriminating against immigrants through proposed legislation SB 67 that would restrict driver's license exams to be issued in English only. Currently the state offers the exam in 13 different languages but according to State Senator Jack Murphy, the chief proponent of the legislation, restricting the privilege to English-only drivers is a matter of safety. The senator believes that foreign language drivers pose a danger because they cannot read English language road signs. If Georgia offered driving tests only in English it would eliminate the perceived problem.

I say perceived because I could find no evidence that non-English speakers are a danger. Even in legislative hearings, as the bill was being debated, there was no testimony by road safety experts to prove that English-only drivers would improve safety. Not only was there no evidence the bill would make Georgia roads safer, the proposed bill offers driver's licenses for illiterate drivers. Fifteen percent of driver's licenses in Georgia are issued to people who cannot read at all. According to Senator Murphy, they qualify as safer drivers than the non-English literate immigrants. If the bill passes, U.S. citizens and legal residents who are not proficient in English will be prohibited from driving.

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Border deaths topic of documentary

‘800 Mile Wall' examines how increased security has affected immigration

NICOLE C. BRAMBILA • THE DESERT SUN • MARCH 3, 2010

Octavio Mendez wanted to see his mother before she died. He was found in November pitch black, his fluids leeched out and his body mummified about 20 miles east of Palm Springs.

“Less people are crossing and more people are dying,” said John Carlos Frey, a Los Angeles filmmaker. “We've never found a body 90 miles north of the border in the Coachella Valley.”

The coyote he paid to help him cross the Mexicali border — a six-day trip on foot — left Mendez to die in the desert last summer after he got sick from dehydration. He's not alone.

More than 3,800 people have died crossing the border since 1994, a 2009 report by the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial counties found.

In 2009, roughly 70 bodies were recovered in the California desert and canals, Frey said.

“The 800 Mile Wall” is a 90-minute documentary by Frey that looks at how the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, and the push for border security has shaped U.S. immigration policy and extended the border fence.

The documentary highlights the 500 drownings in the All-American Canal, which is a Coachella Valley water source, that have occurred since the fences were built.

A free screening will be shown at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Cinemas Palme D'Or theaters at Westfield Palm Desert Shopping Center.

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A complex tragedy at the border

Los Angeles Times

People need to know the full nuanced story of those who die trying to walk into the United States.

Hector Tobar

9:11 PM PST, February 21, 2010

John Carlos Frey wants you to be angry about the U.S.-Mexico border.

He wants you to feel such a deep sense of moral outrage that you'll get out of your chair and write a letter to your congressman.

That's why he invited me to the border town of El Centro, to stand in Imperial County's pauper's cemetery, a dusty field dotted with about 900 concrete markers the size of bread loaves.

Each was stamped with numbers or the name "John Doe." Several hundred marked the final resting place of Mexican and other Latin American migrants who've died walking across the desert or drowned trying to cross the nearby All-American Canal.

Frey, a 46-year-old filmmaker, blames the U.S. government for their deaths. In all, some 6,000 people have died crossing the Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California borders with Mexico since 1994, according to human-rights groups. About 500 more die every year.

In his new documentary film, "The 800 Mile Wall," Frey says this tragedy is the foreseeable result of a policy that sealed off urban crossing routes, driving migrants into the desert.

"Doesn't this qualify as an atrocity to you?" Frey asked, after we'd walked to the center of the cemetery on a warm winter day last week.

I thought about Frey's question for a moment and tried to imagine the individual stories that had brought all these people to this sad end.

I've lived in Mexico and I have family in Guatemala. I've been to the urban neighborhoods and the rural villages of adobe and cinder-block where migrant journeys begin. But I wouldn't apply the word "atrocity" to what I've seen, not in the sense that Frey means.

On our long drive to El Centro, he had compared the migrant death toll to horrors that no one would dispute deserve that stark label: genocide in Rwanda, ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.

"Their deaths are systematic and they're the results of a policy," he said of the border crossers. "And it's not just a few. It's thousands." Some people, he said, think the death toll might be as high as 20,000.

"You wonder how long it will take people to get angry," he said later. "How long did it take in Darfur?"

Comparing the deaths at the border to massacres of Darfur makes for a poor analogy for lots of different reasons. But Frey's hyperbole is understandable. "Maybe it's because I've seen the bodies," he tells me.

Frey's film contains gruesome images and heart-breaking stories. He interviews a tearful Guatemalan man who had to identify his wife's remains at an Arizona coroner's office before being deported.

We meet an artist who gathers the objects migrants abandon in the desert, including the journal of a girl crossing with her family. The girl sketched a picture of the truck that drove her to the border, and the green grass she imagined on the other side.

We're shown the mummified remains of a woman -- we never learn where she's from -- who was traveling to the Bay Area to meet her fiance. We see the long hair flowing from her skull and the bones that have been stripped by animal predators.

Frey told me he's going to take his film on a tour of the United States this year. "I think if Americans knew what was happening here, they would be compassionate," he said. "Maybe I'm naive."

He wants to use the film as a tool to build support for an immigration reform bill in Congress that would allow migrants a safe crossing to the jobs that await them.

That's a laudable goal. But there's something about the way he and a lot of other people see the issue of immigration that deeply troubles me.

As a son of immigrants, I just don't buy the constant portrayal of immigrants in U.S. media as either victims or victimizers.

A number of television personalities have sold the American people on the idea that Latino immigrants are a criminal force undermining U.S. society. In "The 800 Mile Wall" the ill-fated migrants are all victims of forces beyond their control.

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Border Fence Plagued by Glitches, Long Delays

'Virtual fence' being built along Mexican border is plagued by glitches, may be scaled back

By JACQUES BILLEAUD Associated Press Writer

PHOENIX February 3, 2010 (AP)

An ambitious, $6.7 billion government project to secure nearly the entire Mexican border with a "virtual fence" of cameras, ground sensors and radar is in jeopardy after a string of technical glitches and delays.

Having spent $672 million so far with little to show for it, Washington has ordered a reassessment of the whole idea. The outlook became gloomier this week when President Barack Obama proposed cutting $189 million from the venture.

Ultimately, the project could be scaled back dramatically, with the government installing virtual fences along a few segments of the nation's 2,000-mile southern boundary but dropping plans for any further expansion, officials said.

"The worst that happens is that we have a system which gives us some value but we conclude that it's not worth buying any more of it," said Mark Borkowski, the government's director of the project at U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The first permanent segment of virtual fence — a 23-mile stretch near Sasabe, Ariz. — was supposed to be turned over to the Border Patrol by the main contractor, Boeing Co., for testing in January, but the handover has been delayed by problems involving the video recording equipment.

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Film About Deadly, Failed Border Policies Set for Nationwide Tour

Award winning filmmaker, John Carlos Frey’s latest documentary film, “The 800 Mile Wall,” will begin a nationwide tour in February 2010 to raise awareness about the current human rights crisis caused by U.S. Border policy. “The 800 Mile Wall,” highlights the construction of border walls along the U.S.-Mexico border and takes an unflinching look at the failed U.S. border enforcement strategy that many believe has caused the death of thousands of migrants and violates fundamental human rights.

Since border walls have been built, well over 5,000 migrant bodies have been recovered in U.S. deserts, mountains and canals. Some unofficial reports put the current death toll as high as 10,000 men, women and children. As a direct result of U.S. border policy, migrants are forced to cross hazardous deserts and mountains in search of low skill and low paying jobs in the United States. The New York Times writes, “Current border strategy is serving as a funnel through deadly terrain.” “The 800 Mile Wall” illustrates, in great detail, the ineffective and deadly results of this failed border policy and offers some thoughts and suggestions on how the current human rights crisis may be resolved.

“Director John Carlos Frey’s powerful independent film, “The 800 Mile Wall” sounds the alarm on the neglected human rights crisis on our nation’s Southwestern border and puts on the table the life and death questions we must address in comprehensive immigration reform." Congressman Raul Grijalva (D - Arizona 7^th District)

The national tour of “The 800 Mile Wall” will initially cover 25 cities with more to be added. The film’s tour is supported by the ACLU, American Friends Service Committee, The National Immigration Forum, Reform Immigration for America, CHIRLA, Humane Borders and No More Deaths among others.

Written and Directed by John Carlos Frey

Produced by Jack Lorenz

Total Running Time: 90 min.

For more information about the tour and the film, visit: http://www.800milewall.org/

###

Contact:

Jack Lorenz

Gatekeeper Productions, LLC

323-656-1619

213-324-6101 mobile

jack@gatekeeperproductions.com

Boat capsizes on smuggling run; 1 dead

BY KRISTINA DAVIS, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED JANUARY 16, 2010 AT 10:14 A.M., UPDATED JANUARY 16, 2010 AT 5:16 A.M

SAN DIEGO — The furtive journey by sea was nearly over for about two dozen illegal immigrants crammed into a small fishing boat in the pre-dawn darkness.

But unlike the hundreds of similar illicit landings each year along San Diego County shores, the one early Saturday ended in tragedy when the panga capsized in the surf at Torrey Pines State Beach, scattering people in the chilly water and ultimately claiming a man’s life.

Medical personnel tend to a victim on the beach. (Albert D. Johnson photo)

The accident marked the first known death associated with human smuggling by sea in the area’s recent history.

Illegal immigrants are increasingly ignoring the risks of marine smuggling as federal authorities continue to crack down on land crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego. The number of sea-smuggling arrests nearly doubled in the past year, prompting U.S.Homeland Security Department officers to beef up patrols along the region’s coastline, especially in North County.

Sixteen passengers were rescued Saturday from the 58-degree water or found along the shoreline. The search continued until sundown for the remaining people believed to have fled.

“This is our worst nightmare,” said Lauren Mack, spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “We’ve been warning about this dangerous activity, and unfortunately now we have our first fatality.”

Faced with unpredictable seas, shaky navigational tools and unreliable boats, illegal immigrants and their smugglers frequently underestimate the risks of sneaking into the United States via the Pacific, authorities say.

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INTER-AMERICAN COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS SHOULD INVESTIGATE U.S.-MEXICO BORDER CROSSING DEATHS

ACLU, Human Rights Group Petition Commission to Act to End Deadly Policies

November 12, 2009

SAN DIEGO – U.S., Mexican and international officials must recognize the deaths of migrants occurring during unauthorized crossings of the U.S.-Mexican border as an international humanitarian crisis and should address the ongoing violations of the right to life and identify protective measures, according to a letter sent to a commission of the Organization of American States (OAS) by the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego & Imperial and Mexico's National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH).

The letter calls on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to request the permission of the U.S. and Mexican governments to make an onsite visit to the region, conduct an investigation on the crisis, issue a report for the General Assembly of the OAS, and identify measures that both countries should adopt to bring them in compliance with their international human rights obligations.

The ACLU and CNDH documented the humanitarian crisis in a 76-page white paper, Humanitarian Crisis: Migrant Deaths at the U.S.-Mexico Border, which they presented to the Commission as documentation for their requests. The release of the report marked the 15th anniversary of the border enforcement policy, Operation Gatekeeper, which concentrated border agents and added walls and fencing along populated areas, intentionally forcing migrants to hostile environments and natural barriers that increase the incidence of injury and death. Since the program’s inception, an average of at least one migrant a day has died.

“More than 5,000 people have died crossing our border, and an estimated seven to eleven percent of them are children,” said Kevin Keenan, executive director of the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties. “Equally alarming are the hundreds of family members who are left in inconsolable limbo, never knowing the fate of their loved one.” The issue of state obligations to families of the deceased has not been raised in the context of migrant deaths at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Family members are confronted with complex and often contradictory bureaucratic mazes to located relatives who they believe have gone missing or died while attempting to cross the border. There is currently no centralized database for locating a relative, no uniform standards for identifying remains, and one-quarter of those who perish while crossing are never identified, leaving their families in permanent anguish.

Ten years ago, the San Diego ACLU submitted a petition to the Commission (Victor Nicolas Sanchez et al.) alleging that U.S. border enforcement-deterrence strategies violated the right to life under Article 1 of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man. While the petition was ultimately dismissed on procedural grounds, the Commission expressed concerns and agreed to monitor the situation.

“Since the Commission consented to monitor the border situation, we respectfully ask that they now act on their concerns,” said Jose Luis Soberanes, president of Mexico’s National Commission of Human Rights. “When they initially expressed unease, only 300 migrants had died. Today, nearly twenty times that number have died—many of their deaths directly attributable to U.S. border enforcement policies.”

Both the United States and Mexico are bound by the American Declaration. The failure of the governments of both countries to adopt domestic policies or laws or negotiate bilateral agreements to deal with the crisis highlights their abandonment of their obligations under international law to respect and ensure the rights of migrant populations.

In the face of continuing human rights violations, the ACLU and the CNDH urge the Commission to:
• Request the permission of the U.S. and Mexican governments to make an onsite visit to the region
• Conduct an investigation
• Issue a report on the crisis for the General Assembly of the Organization of American States that addresses the ongoing violations of the right to life and the right of families to identify, recover, and bury their deceased family members in a dignified manner
• Identify protective and preventive measures that the United States and Mexico should adopt to bring their actions in line with applicable human rights obligations

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, headquartered in Washington D.C., is an autonomous arm of the OAS, and is one of two bodies created for the promotion and protection of human rights in the Americas. (The other is the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, located in San Jose, Costa Rica.) It’s seven elected members act independently, without representing any particular country.

For more information and to download a copy of the report, click here for San Diego ACLU (English) and here for la Comision Nacional de los Derechos Humanos (Espanol).

Total of Recovered Remains on the Arizona-Sonora Border Reaches 206 despite continued claims of Border Enforcement Success

Contact: Kat Rodriguez: 520.770.1373

Arizona- The final number of bodies recovered on the Arizona-Sonora border for the fiscal year that began on October 1, 2008 and ended September 30, 2009 is 206, reports Coalición de Derechos Humanos. The data, which are compiled from medical examiner reports from Pima, Yuma, and Cochise counties, are an attempt to give a more accurate reflection of the human cost of failed U.S. border and immigration policies. The final count includes 141 males, 33 females, 5 minors, and approximately 99, or 48% of unknown identity. Countries represented in the final count include México, Guatemala, and Ecuador.

This figure is higher than last year's total of 183 remains recovered, but the true total number of deaths on the border is impossible to calculate, particularly as the number of remains recovered in neighboring states is not available.

"In looking at the data from this year, an alarming piece that jumps out immediately is the staggering increase in the number of remains of unknown gender. Two years ago, that number was 5, then 19 last year, and this year we are at 31, an incredible 15% of the total recovered." says Kat Rodriguez, Coordinator of Coalición de Derechos Humanos.

Unknown gender indicates that not enough of the remains were recovered to determine gender, and without DNA, it is impossible to know even this basic information about the individual, making identification and return to their families even more difficult. The dramatic increase in these unknown gender cases are a troubling indicator or what might be to come, as people are pushed out into more and more isolated areas, making rescue and detection less likely, and the likelihood of death more certain.

There is information to suggest that the migration flow patterns are shifting due to the Funnel Effect, which has been documented by the Binational Migration Institute*. The high number of skeletal remains recovered this year, 36 (17.5% of total) support this likely shift in migration flow, and it is possible that the long periods of time before being recovered indicates that people are crossing in more isolated and desolate areas, with less chance of rescue or discovery. It is unknown how many remains are currently near the border but have not yet been discovered, and it is possible that some of these remains will never be recovered.

"Every year we total up the human cost of militarization and wonder when our government will acknowledge that these deaths are the direct effects of border militarization and immigration policies." continued Rodriguez. "As we watch politicians and many of the large immigrant rights groups negotiate on what they deem viable politically in discussions around immigration reform, we call on all people of conscience to denounce policies of militarization and enforcement.

"We must not waver in our opposition to any reform that will continue to militarize our communities. Doing so is not only being untrue to our commitment to human rights and dignity, but an affront to the thousands of men, women and children who have died on our borders, and the families who suffer the agony of their deaths or the bitter anguish of never knowing what has become of their loved ones."

The complete list of recovered bodies is available on the Coalición de Derechos Humanos website: http://www.derechoshumanosaz.net. This information is available to anyone who requests it from us and is used by our organization to further raise awareness of the human rights crisis we are facing on our borders.

* The complete BMI study, The "Funnel Effect" & Recovered Bodies of Unauthorized Migrants Processed by the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner, 1990-2005, is available on the Derechos Humanos website:http://www.derechoshumanosaz.net/images/pdfs/bmi%20report.pdf

Border fence boondoggle

6:00 am October 16, 2009, by Bob Barr

The much-heralded and much-maligned 600-mile long border fence between the United States and Mexico, is morphing into a typical government boondoggle — way over budget, way behind schedule, and way short of its promised goals.

The border fence, designed to thwart illegal border crossings into the U.S. from our southern neighbor, was supposed to have been completed this year. However, estimates now place its completion date seven years hence — 2016, to be exact. Its construction costs have sky-rocketed, as has the amount of money needed just to maintain it, which now is estimated by the Government Accountability Office at $6.5 billion over the next two decades.

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Up to 5,600 Mexicans died at US border in 15 years: report

Fri, Sep 25, 2009 AFP

MEXICO CITY, MEXICO(AFP) - More than 5,000 Mexicans may have died in the past 15 years while making the often perilous journey to try and sneak into the United States, Mexico's National Human Right Commission said Thursday. "The estimate on the number of victims is not certain, and ranges from 3,861 to 5,607," CNDH president Jose Luis Soberanes said, presenting the report based on official figures and completed in collaboration with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Some rights groups say up to 10,000 people may have lost their lives during the same period in trying to reach the United States, now home to an estimated 12 million immigrants.

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Border Fantasies

EDITORIAL

Published: September 21, 2009

Members of Congress who voted for the Southwest border fence as the fix for illegal immigration professed shock — shock at the news that the project is running years behind, and billions of dollars ahead, of the Bush administration’s early, rosy projections.

Related

Times Topics: Immigration and Emigration | U.S. Border Patrol

Auditors reported last week that the high-tech, 28-mile “virtual” section of the fence was running a mere seven years behind this month’s planned opening. Initially, designers talked of using off-the-shelf technology for the radar, cameras and other sensors, but problems cropped up. (Imagine, discovering that cameras tremble in rough weather.) “I’m trying to figure out why this is so difficult,” said Representative Michael McCaul of Texas. “These are basically cameras on a pole.”

The current cost estimate for the Buck Rogers barrier? $1.1 billion.

Investigators from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office report that the larger, actual fence — covering a 600 mile-plus stretch between San Diego and Brownsville, Tex. — cost $2.4 billion to build and will cost an extra $6.5 billion in upkeep across two decades.

Investigators also concluded that there’s no good way of gauging the effectiveness of the fence.

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Migrant death count scrutinized

ANDREA ALMOND / The Associated Press | Posted: Friday, November 5, 2004 6:00 pm

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SAN DIEGO — Flying low over the Sonoran Desert, Border Patrol agents spotted a skeleton sprawled in the brush.

The harsh terrain along the southern edge of Arizona is a busy trafficking corridor for illegal immigrants and the remains could have been from a person who died while trying to sneak into the United States. But busy Interstate 8 runs nearby and it also could have been a slain U.S. citizen, a suicide, a runaway.

The Border Patrol is facing criticism for the way it counts the dead along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border.

"It's rarely a cut-and-dry decision," said Joe Brigman, spokesman for the Border Patrol station at Yuma, Ariz. "In some cases, you just don't know."

The agency says its increased vigilance has helped reduce deaths among illegal immigrants.

Human rights activists, however, say it's in the government's interest to keep its count low. They contend the agency tries to shave the number of deaths by excluding many skeletal remains, car-accident victims and bodies discovered by local law enforcement agencies.

"The American people have the right to know the human cost, the real human cost, of these policies," says Claudia Smith, a San Diego attorney with the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation.

From documents and other clues found on the body spotted east of Yuma, agents concluded the victim was indeed an immigrant — among 325 the Border Patrol counted in the fiscal year which ended Sept. 30, down from 340 the year before.

Smith, who has tracked migrant deaths for 10 years, says the counting method is inconsistent from one government agency to the next — and sometimes even from one Border Patrol sector to another.

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Arizona immigration debate at heart of littering case

By Ashley Powers

August 13, 2009

The heated issue inflames a court case, in which an Arizona man is convicted for leaving water jugs for migrants in the desert.

Reporting from Las Vegas - Walt Staton wanted to help people, and his tool was a water jug. On the morning of Dec. 4, he and three others drove southwest from Tucson, to the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, which tens of thousands of illegal immigrants traverse each year.

But the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the plastic jugs he left for the immigrants endanger wildlife, and this week Staton was sentenced in federal court in Tucson on a charge of littering. He was given one year of unsupervised probation and ordered to spend 300 hours picking up trash.

The sentence, however, does not quite capture the emotions surrounding the case -- yet another testament to the volatility of the illegal immigration debate in Arizona. Prosecutors had asked for a $5,000 fine and five years' probation. Staton, for his part, had insisted on a trial, rather than pay a $175 fine.

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Walls, Walls and More Walls

by John Carlos Frey

On October 26, 2006 President George W. Bush signed The Secure Fence Act into law. The legislation allowed the construction of more than 700 miles of new border walls between the United States and Mexico. Upon signing the bill president Bush said, "This bill will help protect the American people. This bill will make our borders more secure. It is an important step toward immigration reform." Sen. Jim DeMint (R- SC) and the Senate have recently voted to continue the construction of these walls and possibly refortify or make them double layered. For the past two years I have been working on a new film that highlights the construction of this barrier and studying it’s effectiveness in deterring migrants as well as it’s deadly consequences.

More than ten years prior to the signing of the The Secure Fence Act, the United States embarked on a similar strategy of walling itself off from Mexico and it’s neighbors to the south. New barriers were built in San Diego, CA and El Paso, TX, followed by barriers in Nogales and Yuma, AZ. The walls were built to deter migrants and drug traffickers from entering the United States. It was “an important step toward immigration reform.” Since that time the rate of undocumented migrants coming to the United States from Latin American countries has increased. The number of apprehensions at the border has remained constant. There are more undocumented migrants living within the borders of the United States than ever before. Those initial walls did not work. The only effect they had was to push migration into more inhospitable terrain. They were not a step toward immigration reform nor did they make the borders more secure.

What has happened as a result of the initial walls and increased militarization is the human rights crisis we see today. Nearly five thousand migrant bodies have been recovered in the deserts, mountains, canals and roads of the United States. Several thousand more migrants remain missing. Organized crime at the border has skyrocketed. It now costs over two thousand dollars to hire a “coyote” or “pollero.” Some estimates put human smuggling as more lucrative than drug smuggling. There has been no change in the rate of migration to the United States except the cost of transport and the cost of human life. The United States accepts no responsibility for its border policies being cause to the carnage. It blames Mexico and it’s southern neighbors for the rise in crime and death.

This information may not be new. These stories, studies and facts are well known. What is shocking and unbelievable is that the failed border policies of years past are being repeated and multiplied exponentially. The Secure Fence Act of 2006 and congress’ latest attempt to fortify the border has not taken migrant deaths into account. The nearly 5,000 recovered bodies have not been factored into how the new walls should be constructed. No studies have been done on where the walls should be placed in order to lessen the death toll. Once again migrants will be forced into even more inhospitable and deadlier terrain. Once again death and organized crime will increase. Once again the United States will turn a blind eye to its inhumane approach to “immigration reform.” Once again, death will be the barrier to migration. The new walls, new technology and added border guards will force migrants further from roads, towns and urban centers. They will literally be forced to cross the border in the middle of nowhere. Most of the migrants who have perished on U.S. soil have been found only a few miles from a road or source of water. The new fences and increased security will funnel migrants up to 60 miles away from any human services. As before, the death toll will rise and U.S. will deny responsibility and blame the poor and desperate.

The United Nations has criticized the U.S. government for the way it treats migrants and the way it manages its borders. The country of Mexico has not been consulted about the building of this new 700-mile barrier separating it from the United States. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) of the United States reports the current border walls are not effective and do not deter illegal immigration. Experts and scholars from all over the world say the new border walls will not stop migrants from attempting to cross. The Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, has admitted publicly that border walls are ineffective. The U.S. Congress recognizes that a border wall is not a solution to the immigration problem but there has been no other suggestion or remedy. A bigger wall, a longer wall, a stronger wall, an ineffective and deadly wall is all congress has been able to come up with.

As a filmmaker and a storyteller I am not so much concerned with politics and legislation. I am not so concerned with contracts that are being awarded to multi-billion dollar corporations to install and maintain border security infrastructure. I am most concerned with the people who attempt to cross the border. Those are the stories that are not being told to lawmakers. Their voices, suffering and death remain silent.

The United States prides itself on being a nation of immigrants. It prides itself on being the refuge for the sick, the tired, the wretched and the poor. Today the great country of the United States is not living up to her own standards and founding principles. She lives in fear and she lives in greed. She would rather put a wall around her riches and turn her back on the desperate and the dying. She has eroded her morality for the gain of ill perceived security. The standards by which the United States lives can be measured by her actions at the border. U.S. border policy is no less than warfare against the stranger for political gain.

It is easy to criticize. It is easy to point out flaws and blame government for the ills of society. It is more difficult to do something about it. It is a demand of a civilized society to right what is wrong and shed light where there is ignorance and deception. If we are to call ourselves people of conscience or a just society, can we watch another 5,000 migrants die on U.S. soil? What if the number was 10,000? Some estimates already say there have been 10,000 deaths at the border in the past 10 - 15 years. What if the number was 50,000 or 100,000 bodies recovered at the border? What number would make us wake up? What number would make the Mexican government rise up in vehement protest against the new barrier? How many more dead bodies would finally wake the humanitarian citizens of the United States?

I was born in Tijuana, MX and grew up several hundred feet from the border fence in San Diego, CA. I cannot be witness to another 5,000 or 5 of my brothers and sisters dying without sounding the alarm. I will continue to expose hypocrisy in the halls of government and I will illuminate the stories and faces of the migrant. I will reveal greed and indifference by expressing poverty and pain that are a result of it. I am writing this article in the hope that we will not just read it and say, “oh that’s terrible” or “what a shame.” Let’s us not fall back upon the complacency of our comfort. Let us find ways to honor the sanctity of all human life – especially our neighbors. To live a life of faith is not only to profess it but also to embody its power and create a life and society that exemplifies it. I work for nothing more than to walk along the dirt roads where I grew up and see one nation embracing its neighbor, with liberty and justice for all.

Volunteers Fined for Leaving Water on Migrant Routes in Arizona

TUCSON, Arizona – Thirteen members of a group trying to prevent deaths among undocumented migrants were fined for leaving gallons of water inside the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, which lies in southern Arizona on the border with Mexico.

Volunteers from the No More Deaths organization tried to place bottles and gallons of water along the routes most frequently used by immigrants.

The group acted ahead of a weekend when temperatures in southern Arizona are forecast to exceed 110 F (43 C).

From the time they arrived at the refuge, the volunteers were shadowed by agents of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Forest Service, according to a press release from No More Deaths.

Federal officials confiscated all the water the volunteers placed at four strategic points between the town of Arivaca and Interstate Highway 286.

“They followed us every step of the way, grabbing the water that we left there,” Maryada Vallet, a volunteer paramedic with No More Deaths, said.

Among the volunteers fined for littering were two Protestant ministers and a Catholic priest.

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Border Agents Dump Agent Orange-Like Chemical

Friday, July 03, 2009 by: David Gutierrez, staff writer

(NaturalNews) The Border Patrol has temporarily postponed -- but refused to cancel -- plans to use helicopters to spray herbicide along the banks of the Rio Grande between the cities of Laredo, Texas and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, in order to kill a fast-growing river cane that provides cover for undocumented migrants, smugglers and other border crossers.

The controversial plan has drawn fire for its similarities to the U.S. government's defoliation strategy during the Vietnam War, in which the government sprayed more than 21 million gallons of "Agent Orange" and other herbicides in order to eliminate hiding places for Vietnamese guerillas. An estimated 4.8 million Vietnamese citizens and thousands of U.S. soldiers were exposed to the dioxin-based chemical, resulting in more than 500,000 birth defects and 400,000 deaths and disabilities among adults.

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Battlefield: El Paso

by Douglas S. Massey
06.23.2009

From the July/August 2009 issue of The National Interest.

IT IS commonly accepted that the United States was “invaded” by an unprecedented wave of illegal immigrants beginning in the 1980s. According to the Department of Homeland Security, by 2008 there were 11.6 million illegal immigrants living in the United States, 61 percent from Mexico. The next-closest source was El Salvador, at just 5 percent. Hence the “invasion” was framed as a Mexican issue, with pundits from Lou Dobbs to Patrick Buchanan warning of dire consequences for America if it was not checked, by force if necessary.

The only problem with the invasion is that it never happened. The U.S.-Mexico border is not now and has never been out of control. From 1950 to the present, the total number of migrants entering the United States from Mexico has varied very little. There has certainly been no massive upsurge. What changed were the auspices under which Mexicans entered the country, their place of entry, their ultimate U.S. destination and their tendency to remain here rather than return home. Workers previously labeled immigrants became illegals. The border was fortified. States with high immigrant populations cracked down. Walls were built. Immigration turned into a militarized policy issue. And since it became increasingly risky for Mexicans to cross the border, once here, they remained. All these changes are a consequence of our own misguided immigration and border policies.

THE FOREGOING assertions may seem outlandish given the prevailing wisdom, but there is no arguing with the numbers.¹ U.S. policy has in many ways created our immigrant problem. During the 1950s, the United States took in hundreds of thousands of Mexican migrants each year. Most entered as temporary workers under the Bracero Program, a bilateral agreement with Mexico in force from 1942 through 1964. In the late 1950s the inflow of temporary Mexican workers was on the order of 450,000 per year. At the same time, there was no statutory limit on legal immigration from Mexico and around 43,000 Mexicans settled each year as permanent residents. Given ample options for legal entry, illegal migration was nonexistent.

Read the entire article

Count of Arizona Recovered Remains Exceeds 100 Halfway through the Month of June

Arizona- The number of human remains recovered on the Arizona-Sonora border since October 1, 2008 has exceeded 100 halfway through the month of June, reports the Coalición de Derechos Humanos. The compilation of data from medical examiner reports from Pima, Yuma, and Cochise counties is an attempt to reflect more accurately the human cost of irresponsible U.S. border and immigration policies. From the beginning of the fiscal year to the end of May, 95 human remains were recovered-this figure does not reflect any June numbers, which will include the recent rollover that resulted in the deaths of at least 8 individuals in Sonoita, and the body of a man recovered in Douglas earlier this month.

The count of 95 includes fifty-eight (58) males, eight (8) females, and a staggering twenty-nine (29) individuals of unknown gender (31% of the total). The numbers also reflect fifty-two (52) individuals of unknown identity, approximately 55% of the total remains recovered. The remains of 88 individuals had been recovered by the end of May at the same time last fiscal year.

"What is extremely disturbing is the alarming increase in the number of recovered remains of undetermined gender," says Kat Rodriguez of the Coalición de Derechos Humanos. "Last fiscal year, at the same time, there had been a total of five remains of undetermined gender recovered-nineteen the entire fiscal year; this year, there have been at least 29."

'Unknown gender' indicates that not enough of a body was recovered to determine gender, and without DNA, which is costly, it is impossible to know even this basic information about the individual, making identification and return to their families even more difficult.

The dramatic increase in unknown gender cases is a clear indicator of what happens as border enforcement strategies push migrants out into more and more isolated areas, making rescue and detection less likely and the likelihood of death more certain. This "Funnel Effect," which has been documented by the University of Arizona's Binational Migration Institute, has shown that the practice of sealing of traditional crossing points ultimately pushes migration into the deadliest areas. The real extent of this crisis is not known as the numbers of human remains recovered in neighboring states are not available.

"It is unconscionable that we continue policies we know are directly resulting in horrific deaths," continues Rodriguez. "We must demand an end to the killing fields that the Southwest border region has become. The current administration must show leadership in ending the costly militarization of the border and interior that has lined the pockets of the military-prison industry at the expense of real human security."

The complete list of recovered remains is available on the Coalición de Derechos Humanos website: http://www.derechoshumanosaz.net. This information is available to anyone who requests it from us and is used by our organization to further raise awareness of the human rights crisis we are facing on our borders.

Coalición de Derechos Humanos

P.O. Box 1286 Tucson, AZ 85702

Tel: 520.770.1373

Fax: 520.770.7455

Trial Against No More Deaths Volunteer

A jury trial will begin Monday, June 1, to determine if No More Deaths
volunteer Walt Staton is guilty of “knowingly littering.” Walt received a
littering ticket on December 4, 2008 while putting out gallon jugs of water
on migrant trails in Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge.
Three agents and a helicopter were
used to follow the NMD volunteers on December 4, 2008.

A US Fish and Wildlife officer gave Walt and his three companions citations
for littering after Border Patrol agents, who had been following the NMD
volunteers, reported them to Buenos Aires officials. The US Attorneys office
has dropped the
charges

http://nomoredeaths.org/index.php/Press-Releases/no-more-deaths-volunteer-to-be-arraigned-for-littering-ticket.html>against
the other three.

Walt refused to accept guilt and pay the original $175 fine associated with
the ticket. He now faces a punishment that could include up to one year of
prison time and a large fine if found guilty.

Dan Millis, a friend and colleague of Walt’s, received a similar ticket in
February, 2008. Dan was found guilty last September

http://nomoredeaths.org/index.php/Press-Releases/danpressconf.html>after
a bench trial before magistrate judge Bernie Velasco in Tucson. Dan
appealed the case to the US District Court, where the original ruling was
upheld<http://nomoredeaths.org/index.php/Press-Releases/us-district-court-upholds-conviction-of-humanitarian.html>.
It is currently under appeal at the 9th Circuit Court.

According to Pima County medical examiner's data mapped out by Humane
Borders <http://humaneborders.org>, approximately 20 bodies of deceased
migrants have been recovered from Buenos Aires Wildlife Refuge since 2002.
Dehydration is a factor that leads to many of the deaths. More than 5,000
bodies have been recovered from the US/Mexcio border as a result of the
current enforcement strategy, which was implemented in the mid-1990s—many
thousands more will never be discovered.

Walt hopes to be able to speak about his personal motivations in order to
defend himself, but the government has already filed motions to preclude him
from testifiying about his intent. It is clear that the US Government wants
to intimidate and push humanitarians out of the desert, which will directly
lead to more death and suffering. No More Deaths urges all people of
conscience and faith to speak out against this strategy of deterrence and
death. [read our principles for immigration
reform<http://nomoredeaths.org/index.php/Information/faithbased.html>