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Original article is at http://arizona.indymedia.org/news/2006/06/43916.php Print comments.
Migrant Trail Walk Concludes Sunday in Tucson
by Steev Hise
Sunday, Jun. 04, 2006 at 4:27 PM
After a week of walking from the border to show solidarity with migrants dying in the desert to get to the U.S., participants reached Tucson this morning. A "die-in" was staged in front of the Border Patrol Sector Headquarters at noon as the trail walkers passed by. The walk concluded at Kennedy Park on Mission Road where participants gave testimonials on their experience in the desert and musicians and other performers provided entertainment.
Tired and hot, walkers on the 3rd annual Migrant Trail Walk concluded their ordeal today, arriving at Kennedy Park at 12:30pm. The walk, organized by local border and immigration activists, began Monday, May 29th, and snaked across 75 miles of desert from Sasabe, Sonora, Mexico to Tucson.
Conceived as a show of solidarity and support for the hundreds of migrants who die crossing that same desert every year, the walk this year involved approximately 100 participants walking the entire length, with hundreds more arriving Sunday for the concluding event.
As the walk concluded it passed by the Sector Headquarters of the Border Patrol, where activists performed a small bit of street theater, acting out the death by dehydration of countless immigrants. As the "die-in" performers sprawled on the sidewalk simulating the dead or their friends and family, the trail walkers passed by solemnly, placing crosses as well as a long note for the Border Patrol.
Reaching Kennedy park, the walk finished up with food, music by a variety of musicians, Indian dancers, speakers, and testimonials by several particpants. "Some call it a sacrifice, but it wasn't, really," said 13-year-old Ben, who came from Oakridge, Tennessee to be on the Walk. "Unlike the migrants out there, we had all the water we wanted, a truck to carry our stuff. It was more of an offering, an offering of support to them."