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Judy Plank
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Imagine: Canada's social welfare system has collapsed. Canadian workers’ average pay is $60 -$80 per week. Imagine: Thousands of undocumented Canadians are crossing the border into the United States to work. Imagine: The US government has spent billions building and staffing new border patrol stations with armed agents, has purchased lights, sensors, all-terrain vehicles, and helicopters, and has used the army to build walls through cities touching the border with Canada. Imagine: Hundreds of Canadians dying from cold and exposure in the wheat fields of North Dakota. Imagine: US citizens are arrested for aiding undocumented Canadians who are cold, hungry, and lost crossing the border.
Thankfully, this is not the current situation along the border with Canada, but this short description accurately portrays the current situation along the US/Mexican border.
I witness the consequences of our government's border policy with Mexico during my five-month residency each year near Douglas, Arizona. Douglas, AZ (in Cochise County) and Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico, would be one city if not separated by a high border wall.
I began wintering here a couple of years after Operation Gatekeeper began by building a wall between Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego, California. The success of that wall convinced officials to build walls through all the towns situated along the border. During my second winter here, the wall between Douglas and Agua Prieta was constructed by the military.
The deaths of undocumented migrants began to rise dramatically as they shifted their crossing points from cities to desolate desert regions. Douglas is located in the Tucson Border Patrol sector that includes 200 miles of Arizona border. In 1998 there were 11 deaths of undocumented migrants in the Tucson sector, and 44 migrant deaths in 2000. By 2002 there were 163 deaths, 224 in 2004, and 267 in 2005. These are only the deaths of those who were found. There may be many more - the desert is unforgiving.
After 9/11/2001 there has been a dramatic increase in border patrol agents and technical equipment. Deaths have also increased, and the migration patterns have recently shifted to New Mexico to the east and the Yuma sector to the west. Apprehensions in Cochise County decreased from 13,515 in Nov. 2004 to only 7,051 in Nov. 2005 due to the increased "security" here.
In response to the recent influx of migrant traffic to the New Mexico border, last month I attended a conference in Columbus, New Mexico. Good people there were unprepared for the mass migration, as we were unprepared in Arizona five years ago. It was in Nov. 2000, in response to rising deaths in Cochise County, that Healing Our Borders held our first vigil near the Douglas port of entry. A vigil has been held each Tuesday since then. Approximately 140-150 migrants have died in our county since the vigil's beginning.
Healing Our Borders has distributed approximately 3,000-4,000 blankets on cold winter nights to migrants returned to Agua Prieta by the Border Patrol after being apprehended and processed. In partnership with Humane Borders and No More Deaths (Tucson-based organizations with encampment and water tank projects) and CRREDA (a drug treatment center in Agua Prieta that services our water tanks), Healing Our Borders has over a dozen water tanks just inside Mexico along the border both directions from Agua Prieta. Water tanks placed in the US were continually vandalized.
Over the years there has been an occasional knock at the door by tired, thirsty migrants. The limits to what we can do legally to respond to their needs is ambiguous at best. We risk arrest by our aid and compassion. This summer two No More Deaths volunteers were arrested as they were transporting three sick and injured undocumented migrants to medical care. On January 5, 2006 their hearing to have the case dismissed will be continued. As you read this, they will either be freed or the case will go on to trial. Thousands of postcards have been sent to the prosecution attorney, urging him to dismiss the case. Signs reading "Humanitarian Aid is Never a Crime" are in yards throughout southern Arizona. Even if this case is dismissed, current legislation just passed by the US House of Representatives would unambiguously make ANY aid of "illegals" a punishable crime. This bill would also make felons of all undocumented immigrants - babies included.
We need a humane policy for immigrant workers immediately. A wall across the entire southern border is NOT the answer, although seriously proposed. Mexico and our southern neighbors need micro-loans and well run development assistance to make migration unnecessary.
Here in Douglas and Agua Prieta, a cross-border organization was formed last year, DouglaPrieta Works. This union is a small beginning to help educate and provide capital and equipment needed by those in Agua Prieta to begin a carpentry shop and sewing co-op. DouglaPrieta Works joins other newly established groups such as Just Coffee (a coffee-growing and -roasting co-op located both in Chiapas and Agua Prieta) attempting to provide opportunities and income to Mexican families. Although these enterprises are encouraging, thousands more investments such as these are needed to counterbalance the effects of NAFTA and other drags on struggling economies.
Imagine: The billions spent on border "security" are shifted to building the economies of our southern neighbors. Imagine: "Illegal" immigration has ended. Border walls are dismantled. Healing Our Borders and similar organizations are disbanded and doing other good work. Imagine: No More Deaths in the desert.
The reality is that more than 650 additional armed border patrol agents will be assigned to the Arizona border as soon as they are trained. The reality is that 18-20 more miles of wall will be constructed by the military in Arizona. The reality is, organizations such as the Minutemen (who patrolled along the border in Cochise County April 2005) will continue spreading racism and hatred of Spanish-speaking immigrants.
Immigration and border legislation slated to be discussed in early 2006 is critical. There is still time to convince the Senate to stop the horrible "security" legislation passed by the House just prior to the Christmas recess. In my view, with thoughtful adjustments, the Kennedy/McCain bill seems the best legislation currently proposed. These bills provide for an orderly plan to get migrants to jobs in the US, while the bill the House passed before Christmas only addresses more punishments and enforcement on the border. Contact your legislators in Washington, expose racism and hatred in your midst, and remember, we all (almost all) are descendents of immigrants.
Click here - No More Deaths online.
Judy Plank retired with her husband to Iowa after residing for 30 years in Marshall, MN. She graduated in 1980 from Marshall College with a degree in Sociology. The Plank's have wintered in Douglas, Arizona since 1997 and have a little house there. Judy spent a week with WAMM at the Women's Peace Encampment at Seneca Falls, NY in the 1980's. She was with WAMM to rally for peace in Washington DC, both before the first Gulf War and more recently on the Sept. 24th, 2005 trip. |
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Co$t of War
Number of Iraqi civilians slaughtered in America's War: 100,000. online
Number of U.S. military personnel killed (officially acknowledged)
In Bush's War: 2179. online
The cost in your community: online
The real cost to America of the Iraq war is likely to be between $1 trillion and $2 trillion, up to 10 times more than previously thought, according to a report written by a Nobel prize-winning economist and a Harvard budget expert. The report, written by Joseph Stiglitz, Columbia University professor who won the Nobel Prize for economics in 2001, and Linda Bilmes, a Harvard budget expert, is likely to add to the pressure on the Bush administration over its handling of the war. online
No oversight. The chief Pentagon agency in charge of investigating Defense Department spending in Iraq pulled out of the war zone in October 2004. Therefore the bulk of money spent in Iraq is not receiving public scrutiny. online
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© 2006 Women Against Military Madness. All rights reserved.
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Complete February 2006 Index - click here
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