Bi-national Effort Provides Assistance to Thousands of Deported Migrants Every Week : AZ IMC

On July 11th in the Mexican National Institute of Immigration (INM) for Nogales, Sonora, a historical partnership was formed between the No More Deaths coalition and Mexican authorities. The press conference announced the new bi-national agreement to give support and humanitarian aid to the thousands of migrants repatriated to Mexico each week.

As representatives and attorneys from Tucson, Margo Cowan and Isabel Garcia spoke of this historical moment as an aspiration to meet specific needs and to do this “hand in hand,” building new, positive relations between Sonora and Arizona. Enrique Flores Lopez came from his office in Hermosillo at the State Commission for the Care of Migrants to attend the gathering. He pointed to failed economic policies as the root of migration and mentioned harmful U.S. immigration legislation, such as the House Bill 4437, as also failing to address the issue. Yet, he was hopeful that this new partnership to care for migrants “reflects the light” of change.

The project has formed and gained momentum very quickly. Just the week prior, the Commission’s office in Nogales, Sonora, where the No More Deaths project is based, was filled with 19-tons of water, which is more than 18,000 bottles of water. Due to this partnership, the No More Deaths volunteers were granted authorization by the Mexican authorities to pass through the port with more than 30 loads of this water.

Medical supplies are also stored at the Commission office, not to mention a food preparation area to make hundreds of burritos or sandwiches a day as well as space for a dozen cots to serve as a dormitory for volunteers and respite care for heat-exhausted migrants. An organizing meeting that same week brought together thirty representatives from churches, migrant shelters, and the Samaritans/Samaritanos from both sides of the border.

Since the official launching of the project, volunteers have staffed the ports of entry to meet deportation buses twenty-four hours a day. Volunteers (locally, in Nogales, from Tucson and from around the USA) have been able to provide food, water, and medical care for more than 2000 migrants a week. It costs $50-60/day to feed 300-400 newly arrived migrants. Another major component of the project is to conduct abuse documentation, detecting patterns of abuse and human rights violations in their process of arrest and detention.

The project will only be sustained as support continues, and it is certainly important that it does. As was declared at the press conference by a participant representing a migrant shelter in Mexico, this is “a grand demonstration of solidarity.”