Minuteman Project invades Southern Arizona, highlights complexity of border crisis
by Jessica Lee Tuesday, Mar. 29, 2005 at 11:22 AM

While the vigilante, border activist and humanitarian groups all agree U.S. immigration policy is flawed, the dispute on how to fix the border is set to clash in the desert this April

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There will be no fooling around April 1 when hundreds of vigilantes swarm to a small stretch of the Arizona-Mexico border, picking up the slack where they say the government is miserably failing to stop the so-called “invasion of mobs of illegal aliens.” The month-long gathering, dubbed the Minuteman Project, has attracted volunteers from all of the country to come camp in the desert and monitor the border.

Organized primarily to reap media attention to a region wrought with conflict and controversy rather than slow down the amount of undocumented travelers, the project has been called patriotic by some and racist by others.

During April, Chris Simcox, the Minuteman Project leader, said participants will be stationed every quarter mile along a 20 mile stretch of border between Douglas and the San Pedro River. They are to conduct “field observation and reporting.” Simcox says forty pilots with 16 aircraft will patrol the area from above. No media source has been able to confirm the numbers of volunteers signed up for the grassroots vigilante project.

Although it is impossible to know how many undocumented people enter the U.S. each year, last year the U.S. Border Patrol agents in the Tucson sector apprehended 490,827 migrants according to a November 5, 2004, Tucson Citizen article. According to the Border Patrol, 90 percent of those apprehended are returned to México.

The majority of migrants journey across the border to seek work with U.S. business that rely on their cheap labor to maintain profits. “The current border policy doesn’t supplement the economic needs that employers depend on,” says Kat Rodriguez, organizer with Derechos Humanos, a non-profit organization that focuses on solutions to border issues.

“Absolutely no one denies immigration needs reform. Our immigration policy does not reflect economic reality,” Rodriguez said. She stressed that there are appropriate ways to advocate change, and that armed patrols of the border will not solve the problem.

Groups like Derechos Humanos, Border Action Network, The Samaritans, Humane Borders and No More Deaths have been addressing violence and deaths along the border for years. Activists and humanitarian groups have done vigils, marches, protests, aid camps and patrols, petitioning of government officials, and teach-ins in response to vigilante activity, Border Patrol abuses, beatings and shootings along the border, and other migrant injustices.

While the Minuteman Project advocates its volunteers remain “peaceful” and obey all Arizona laws, human rights groups worry about the safety of the migrants who journey through the desert in an attempt to find jobs.

A team of legal observers will head down to Southern Arizona for the entire month to monitor the Minuteman Project to make sure they obey First Amendment and other laws governing the treatment of migrants.

“Through my eyes, the problem is that what occurs on the U.S.-México border is one of the grossest human rights violations in the history of the United States,” wrote Ray Ybarra, former American Civil Liberty Union spokesperson, in a letter to Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever earlier in March. “Here in our backyard, human beings have to face death and hatred in their pursuit of work that this country offers.”

The ACLU may renege their support for the legal observation project, citing the risks associated with the monitoring of potentially armed, racist individuals. Ibarra said he will lead the project without ACLU support if need be. (see arizona.indymedia.org/news/2005/03/25720.php)

Although the group denies racist accusations, the likelihood that violent white supremacists will get involved are a realistic concern for human rights groups, civil rights groups, activists, local citizens, and U.S. and Mexican authorities. Less than a week before the Minuteman Project was set to begin, white supremist group, the National Alliance, dispersed fliers in Douglas, Arizona, Ybarra said.

Arizonans opposed to the Minuteman Project hope to educate the public about the real causes of the mass migration.

“As residents of the border region, we have seen first hand the effects of border militarization these vigilantes are calling for,” said Lenny Molina, Earth First! member and participant in the counter-demonstration planned on April 1 in Tombstone, Az. “Militarization accelerates the destruction of desert ecosystems and indigenous cultures and destroys the lives of people who are ultimately refugees of U.S. foreign policy towards Latin America.”

Since the North American Free Trade Agreement’s (NAFTA) implementation in 1994 by the leaders of the United States, Mexico and Canada, the economic consequences of the neoliberal trade policy has created a complex situation that now dominates the 2,000 mile U.S.-Mexico border.

“Like the CIA-backed death squads in Central America in the 1980s, economically violent policies like NAFTA force people off their land and out of their communities,” said Jonathan Shapiro, employee with BorderLinks, a non-profit organization that leads experiential education border trips. “When these economic refuges arrive at our southern border, they’re met by a corrupt border policy, one that is designed to reflect politicians’ needs, and not reality,” Shapiro said.

No More Deaths, a coalition of border activist and humanitarian groups, estimate that more than 3,000 migrants have lost their lives while crossing the U.S.- México border since the 1990s.

Derechos Humanos, No More Deaths and Border Action Network are organizing border unity events throughout April including volleyball over the border, poetry slams and vigils. In May, the groups will host a 75-mile migrant walk from the border to Tucson, an eye-opening event that exposes participants to the realities of crossing the desert. At the end of March, an action alert led people to call Cochise County, Arizona and U.S. attorneys to urge them to enforce the laws.

The militarization of the border has drastically transformed the fragile desert land over the past decade. Today, the region is characterized by trails of empty water jugs, backpacks, clothing and other items dropped by individuals daring to cross the border without legal documentation. Weaving through the saguaros and washes are endless vehicle tracks of Border Patrol trucks, drug runners, and pick-up drivers. Black helicopters and unmanned drones patrol the desert by sky, searching for human beings with infrared cameras. Families living in Nogales, one city divided by the border, see a large concrete and steel wall topped with barbed wire everyday. Mammals, such as the Sonoran pronghorn and Mexican jaguar, have had their habitats fragmented by walls, fences and other human disturbances.

While the Minuteman Project may monitor the border for a month, the U.S. government continues to push the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), the Andean Free Trade Agreement (AFTA) and the comprehensive Free Trade of the Americas Agreement (FTAA), large-scale economic policies that will likely increase the amount of Latin American economic refugees seeking a better life.

Additional Indymedia resources:
Minutemen Most Likely Exaggerators
Crimes Against Humanity

Actions throughout April

April 1 – Protest the Minuteman Project in Tombstone, AZ. Meet at the Schieffelin Building at 1pm. Bring signs, noise makers.

April 2 – Women in Black Vigil at the Border. Naco Highway, just north of the border. 1pm. See www.derechoshumanosaz.net.

April 9 – Borderlands Poetry: A Reading Across the Wall. West end of the Naco/Naco border wall. 4-6pm. See www.derechoshumanosaz.net.

April 14-26 – Life and Death on the Border: A faith-based response. Workshops on border issues. See www.nomoredeaths.org.

April 17 – Interfaith Vigil Service. West end of the Naco/Naco border wall. 5pm. See www.derechoshumanosaz.net.

April 24 – Volleyball Over the Border. Time TBA. West end of the Naco/Naco border wall. See www.derechoshumanosaz.net.

April 30 – Unity Celebration. Gather at 2:30pm on the U.S. side for Unity Walk across the border. Location TBA. See www.derechoshumanosaz.net.

May 30 to June 5 – Migrant Walk from Sasabe to Tucson, a 75-mile symbolic journey across the desert. See http://www.normoredeaths.org.

Additional Websites
Derechos Humanos - www.derechoshumanosaz.net
Frontera de Cristo - pcusa.org/border/Frontrea.htm
BorderLinks – borderlinks.org
Enlaces America - enlacesamerica.org
No More Deaths – nomoredeaths.org
Humane Borders – humaneborders.org
Indymedia Chiapas - chiapas.mediosindependientes.org
Sonoran Samaritans - pcusa.org/border/sonoran_samaritans.htm
La Jornada Sin Fronteras - jornadasinfronteras.com
Border Action Network – borderaction.org
Free Trade of the Americas newswire – ftaaimc.org
Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice  - sneej.org
The Samaritans - samaritanpatrol.org
Just Coffee – justcoffee.org
Migration Policy Institute - migrationpolicy.org
La Resistencia - laresistenica.org
Global Issues - globalissues.org
Border Matters - bordermatters.net

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Border region
by Jessica Lee Tuesday, Mar. 29, 2005 at 11:27 AM

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The Arizona/Mexico border is a very rugged region of high desert grassland and mountains. In the summer, temperatures reach well over 100 during the day, then dropping some 30-40 degrees at night. With the extremely tight security in and near the historic crossing points of Nogales and Agua Prieta, migrants are forced to hike through this treacherous landscape, sometimes for days, to work in the U.S.

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Samaritan Camp near Arivaca
by Jessica Lee Tuesday, Mar. 29, 2005 at 11:28 AM

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No More Deaths, a coalition of the many border-related organizations, worked with the Samaritans to staff migrant aid camps in the desert last summer. Volunteers from the camps would go on daily patrols looking for migrants in need of food, water and medical aid while also picking up trash and documenting Border Patrol’s actions.

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Art on the border
by Jessica Lee Tuesday, Mar. 29, 2005 at 11:28 AM

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Artist Alfred J. Quiroz created dozens of giant, steel cutouts, forming them into a mural on the border fence in Nogales, Sonora. Art is one of the many ways the Mexican community is trying to cope with the effects brought by this huge wall, and the policies that keep it propped up.

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Remembering the dead
by Jessica Lee Tuesday, Mar. 29, 2005 at 11:28 AM

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Hundreds of crosses were placed on the border wall in Nogales, Sonora, last May during the No More Deaths kick-off march. Two marches, one from each side of the border, converged at the checkpoint to bring attention to the number of migrants who have died in the desert.

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