[Promoted from the diaries by Steven D. This story is sickening. People who tried to save the lives of illegal immigrants are being prosecuted by the Federal Government. Only in Bush’s America.]
An op-ed column for ePluribus Media
By Vivian Pettyjohn
Two young humanitarian volunteers are facing federal prison terms. They were arrested while taking to the hospital three migrants found vomiting and bleeding in the desert.
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Jesus Dominguez, 15 years old, was disappointed when his mother decided to go to the US. Jesus, like many his age, did not want to leave his friends. But because he was the man of the house, he couldn’t let his mother and sister walk alone, so he went.
More below the jump.
As Claudine LoMonaco wrote in the Tucson Citizen last July,
“I wanted to stay home,” he said.
Home is the village of San Martin Sombrerete in Zacatecas. Jesus’ father works in Texas, and it was hoped the family could reunite. They crossed with Jesus’ 7-year-old sister Nora. When Lucrecia Dominguez became ill on the third day of the journey, the group of village friends they were traveling with continued on with Nora. Jesus stayed behind to be with his mother.
“She kept begging me to go on without her, but I couldn’t leave her,” Jesus said.
When she lost consciousness, Jesus struck out alone to try to find emergency help. Three days later, Border Patrol agents found him lost, wandering and disoriented in the desert. Although Jesus was dehydrated, in shock, suffering from heat exhaustion and terrified about his mother’s status, the agents gave him a little water and then left him at the federal line in Nogales, a practice known as “expedited removal.” Once there, Jesus placed a frantic call to his grandfather for help.
In another part of the Sonoran desert, Daniel Strauss and Shanti Sellz, both 23, woke up in their camp on the dark desert floor and prepared to face the dawn of a blistering July day.
They conferred with another team in their open desert campsite and double-checked the communication equipment that links them to a network of volunteer medical professionals. These teams work for No More Deaths, one of several humanitarian organizations committed to ending the suffering in the Sonoran desert.
Strauss and Sellz spent the entire day hiking in 115 degree heat through dry washes and trails in search of people who are sick, injured, lost, or those who are dying of hunger, thirst or heat exposure — people like Jesus and his mom. When the teams find them, they call the emergency medical provider for instructions on how to proceed for treatment.
This particular Saturday, Strauss and Sellz found a group of 3 migrants who were suffering from drinking stagnant cow tank water. Migrants who are literally dying of thirst often drink from cow ponds as they get desperate. Ingesting water contaminated with bacteria and cow dung causes severe vomiting and a diarrhea that can be fatal. The on-call doctor instructed Strauss and Sellz to take the vomiting migrant to St. Mary’s Emergency Room. They were arrested en route by the Border Patrol, charged with transport of illegal aliens, and now face a 15-year sentence in federal prison. [1]
Local Arizona medical professionals and international humanitarian aid organizations expressed outrage that humanitarian aid workers were criminally charged for providing life saving help. “Most kids their age spent the summer poolside or at the mall. Daniel and Shanti spent their summer saving lives. Daniel and Shanti are not criminals, they’re heroes,” said Lea Hutchens, a local ER nurse. [2] Aid organizations from Amnesty International to Christian Peacemaker Teams have issued statements supporting the pair’s work on the border and calling for the dismissal of all criminal charges.
What is it that drives the “crossers” to take such drastic action, compelling humanitarians such as Sellz and Strauss to devote their lives to rescuing them?
People who don’t live on the border ask it this way: “Why do the migrants cross? Why do they drag their children into the desert? What is wrong with these people?”
There’s the lure, of course, of a more affluent life. But most people don’t willingly face the odds of brutal beatings, rape and death just to be able to purchase more stuff. When people take these chances, it’s usually because they have few options. And their desperation is often taken advantage of by “coyotes” or desert guides, eager to get their money. Crossers are often led to believe that the hike is an easy one, the distance not far at all, and their ultimate destination within a day’s walk. Crossers sometimes report naively that they are walking from Arivaca, AZ to North Carolina, a walk that the coyotes assured them can be accomplished in a day.
Most migrants seek work in order to be able to feed their families. Many crossing the Sonora on foot today come from Honduras, Guatemala, and Chiapas — the coffee producing areas of Central America and Southern Mexico. With the advent of NAFTA, coffee prices fell so low that most farmers have had to abandon their coffee plants.
In 2004, when prices for 100 lbs of coffee plummeted from $120/140 to $50, farmers could no longer buy basic supplies or pay field hands. Farm work, the staple employment of most rural Central American residents, now pays about 4 dollars a week, not even close enough to feed a family. The people who once depended on these farms now live in poverty.
In Guatemala, 75% of the population lives in severe poverty. In Chiapas, where again, three quarters of the population live in poverty, 70% live in poverty so extreme that they are not able to acquire the food, water or shelter needed for basic survival. Two-thirds of the shacks in which poor people lived lacked electricity, drinking water and drainage as Tom Hayden states in his article Seekinga New Globalism in Chiapas.
For the millions in extreme poverty, emigration is often the only avenue to basic survival. Since the application process for a US work visa is long, complex and prohibitively expensive, they walk across.
But the human cost is high. From October 1, 2004 through September 30th, 2005, 282 immigrants are known to have died coming across just the Arizona sector of the Mexico-US border. Some bodies were found within 4 miles of the Arizona line. They had walked from Honduras or Chiapas (700-1000 miles) to the border and died before they were able to cross. 29 additional deaths only appear in the Mexican Government’s records -for a total of 311 deaths at the Arizona border this past year alone. The 311 number does not include the bodies that will never be found or the people who died along the migratory route from Central America.
Cesar’s Cross: “Unknown Child of God” was placed on the cross,
for a memorial before Cesar’s body was identified. Photo courtesy
of Christian Peacemaker Teams, a program of Brethren, Quaker
and Mennonite Churches and other Christians.
The Center for Central American Resources in El Salvador has documented that 25,000 individuals were lost during the three year period from 1997 to 2000 as they trekked north from the Southern and Central American countries.
How did they die? Here are some of the postmortems: hyperthermia, dehydration and exposure to the elements lead the list; motor vehicle accidents, gunshot wounds and blunt force trauma complete it.
Speaking in December at a Tucson border conference, Claudia Smith, an attorney with the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, somberly described how immigrants die in the desert.
Some “simply go berserk and their bodies are found by following a trail of clothes,” she said. “Others, very conscious of their death, take their clothes off, make a little pillow, and lay down to die, tucking whatever identification they have under their clothes. It is a horrible, horrible death, and they just realize they cannot go on.
…
These current policies are “not only morally unacceptable, but also a violation of various international agreements which we have signed, guaranteeing that we would protect life,” Smith said. “We don’t have the right to enact strategies that ensure that hundreds of people will die.”
There’s a popular myth that says that the people who cross into our country are drug dealers. The truth? The overwhelming majority of them are working families. Many of the dead are young people, even children. Samaritan patrols teams such as Sellz and Strauss’ often evacuate infants as young as 6 months from the desert. Many of the bodies of young women were found to be in advanced stages of pregnancy. It is estimated that 20% of all deaths of border crossers are women and children.
Many workers with humanitarian aid organizations like No More Deaths or Samaritan Patrols report that they feel driven into the desert by evidence that many of the crossers are women and children. They find it difficult to rest at night knowing that even one child might die in agony of heat exposure 10 miles from their backyards. Luis Urrea in his book Devil’s Highway describes what death from “exposure” really entails:
Your heart pumps harder and harder to get fluid and oxygen to your organs. Empty vessels within you collapse. Your sweat runs out….Your temperature redlines —you hit 105,106, 108 degrees. Your body panics and dilated all blood capillaries near the surface, hoping to flood your skin with blood to cool it off. You blush. Your eyes turn red: blood vessels burst, and later, the tissue of the whites literally cooks until it goes pink, then a well-done crimson. Your skin gets terribly sensitive. It hurts, it burns. Your nerves flame. Your blood heats under your skin. Clothing feels like sandpaper. Some walkers at this point strip nude. Originally, BORSTAR rescuers thought this stripping was a delirious panic, an attempt to cool off at the
last minute. But often, the clothing was eerily neat, carefully folded and left in nice little piles beside the corpses. They realized the walkers couldn’t stand their nerve endings being chafed by their clothes.Once they’re naked, they’re surely hallucinating. They dig burrows in the soil, apparently thinking they’ll escape the sun. Once underground, of course, they bake like a pig at a luau. Some dive into sand, thinking it’s water, and they swim in it until they pass out. They choke to death,their throats filled with rocks and dirt. Cutters can only assume they think they’re drinking water. Your muscles, lacking water, feed on themselves. They break down and start to rot. Once rotting in you, they dump rafts of dying cells into your already sludgy bloodstream. Proteins are peeling off your dying muscles. Chunks of cooked meat are falling out of your organs, to clog your other organs. They system closes down in a series. Your kidneys, your bladder, your heart. They jam shut. Stop. Your brains sparks. Out. You’re gone. [3]
The doctors and nurses who have cared for these patients are some of the most passionate and devoted volunteers in the desert. Many of them are mothers or fathers who recoil from the idea of anyone’s child dying like “a pig at a luau.” Daniel Strauss and Shanti Sellz are such people.
Compassion drove these young people into the desert burdened with water, food and medical supplies on days where temperatures can soar to 115 degrees or more.
When we teach our children to respond with personal responsibility to the suffering of others, we all win. Our society should not criminalize these students – we need thousands more just like them.
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Epilogue
Shanti Sellz was part of the rescue patrol that drew many civilian volunteers whose hearts were deeply moved by the story of Jesus and his mother. The body of Lucrecia Dominguez was found in July by a search party that included members of No More Deaths.
Sellz and Strauss are scheduled to appear in Tucson Federal Court January 5th, 2006, with a trial date set for January 20th.
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Notes:
[1] See press release from the US District Attorney in Arizona for official penalty information for related charges.
[2] Hutchens, Lea. Personal interview. 22 July. 2005.
[3] Urrea, Luis Alberto. The Devil’s Highway.
New York: Little Brown and Company, 2004.
Vivian Pettyjohn is a member of Samaritan Patrols and active with migrant health organizations.
ePMedia team of fact checkers, editors and contributors: Xicano Pwr, Standingup, txj, Kfred, WanderIndiana, cho,INMINYMA, Stoy, JeninRI, BeverlyinNH, lilnubber, and DEFuning.
Photos courtesy of No More Deaths and Christian Peacemaker Teams.
Cross posted at ePluribus Media Community. Join us for discussion.
I keep thinking about that one “press statement” where one official suggested samaritans should just leave immigrants in need of medical assistance where they found them, and, in the words of one official, “dial 911.”
Thank you, Vivian, for making us aware of this.
Thank you Steve D, for front paging!
Thanks, guys, for your interest. Thanks to Booman for the front page!
These agencies are in need of your help, should you feel so inclined:
http://www.nomoredeaths.org
http://www.samaritanpatrol.org
The reality of the border crisis is much different than has been portrayed in the national media. On the ground, where we are, things are a lot clearer.
That old Miep Gies gene still lives
..or profanity, in this world for me to express how ashamed I am of a country that turns a blind eye to the actions of the money grubbing corporations who
exploit these desperate people for profit, encouraging illegal immigration, while procecuting humanitarian workers acting from compassion for other suffering human beings. This is just flat out insane. Those in charge of making decisions like this have clearly lost thier own humanity.
This is a very timely story Vivian! As one of the target sites for immigrants, it is a super hot topic in North Carolina. This study was just released about the economic impact of this population in NC. The surface figures look like the cost of illegal immigration is millions more than the benefit but a close reading shows that many of the economic benefits are hard to suss out of the mix. For example in the construction industry alone, the lower costs of illegal immigrant labor contributed $1 billion to the economy-but that figure is not added to the Taxes /Costs analysis. Makes a big difference and shows the reason why immigrants keep coming legally or not. Business is making money hand over fist.
http://www.ncba.com/2006HispanicStudy.pdf
Thanks.
The farm and construction sectors run on the backs of these immigrants, whether we like it or not.
(echoing Cho) Thank you Steve D for front paging this.
It’s really disturbing to know that the Department of Justice –I assume since its in Federal Court– is pursuing this as a criminal case and seeking prison terms for these two good samaritans.
The culture of life. Of course, it only applies if you’re white or if it’s politically expedient. (Terry Schiavo) If you’re Mexican or central American, sorry, too bad. But yet it’s okay to blow up abortion clinics and kill doctors in the interest of “saving lives”.
Need is dictating that people are making this trek, just as it did for millions of immigrants in the past.
What is being missed here are the contributions made by the many waves of immigrants. All who want to come here should be able to, just as our grandparents did so many years ago.
I would certainly fight the charges. Transporting someone who is sick or injured, legal or illegal, is definitely different than aiding and abetting an illegal alien. If they had left, and the immigrants died, one would think that they could be libel for, at the least, depraved indifference or manslaughter for leaving them to die. And surely it’s better for Immigration to pick up live deportees at the hospital than for them to pick up dead ones out in the desert.
That said, I’m a cold-hearted bitch in that I think that there is absolutely no excuse for immigrants coming into the country illegally. They have legal paths that they can follow, if they wanted to. Yes, the legal way is cumbersome. It is time consuming. It probably is expensive too. But it’s there. Just because the proper channels are difficult is no excuse for ignoring them. Just look at the fury being vented for the ol’ Shrub not following the legal paths. “But they are so poor…”, “They’re just trying to feed their family…”, Etc. etc. etc. All true. Still no excuse. There’s poor people everywhere. Most of them are willing to work hard. Does that mean we should scrap our immigration laws and just open up our borders? While I concur that most illegal aliens are (relatively…) honest in that they just want to do a job of work, get paid for it, and cause no trouble, I cannot defend them. Their attitude about law and order is not conducive to, well…law and order. If they have enough contempt for the law to flout it by crossing illegally, purchasing counterfeit documentation and endangering others by ignoring workplace safety laws, then they should stay where the law is pretty meaningless, i.e. the country of origin. One can have all the compassion in the world, but it changes nothing. The illegals do have choices. They can apply for a visa. Sure it’s slow, and there’re no guarantees, but at least it’s legal and safe. Or they could try to improve their own country by holding their leaders accountable, by insisting on respect for the law, and demanding harsh punishments for corruption, one of the many reasons investors stay away. Instead they elect to drag their small children into the desert without a care in the world. Now this is speculation on my part, but with the number of returned border jumpers and the number of businesses who cater to them, surely if they ask around they’d know that it’s gonna take a lot longer than a few hours to get where they’re going. After all, I’m sure it took them longer than that to get to the border. But instead, they blithely take their children into hell and then blame the border patrol when something bad happens. And those on this side of the border join right in the chorus of condemnation. If you don’t like the law, if you think it’s too harsh, or too restrictive, or not doing the job it’s intended to do…get it changed. Convince your fellow citizens. Lobby your congresscritters. Join a grass-roots project. That’s how Americans do it. That’s how it should be done in a democracy.
Do you have any idea how difficult–no, impossible–the visa process is for most people in the world?
They don’t have either the time or the ability to go through the visa process successfully.
Also, be careful with that word, “illegal.” It’s illegal only because we make it so. There’s nothing absolute about it–and many countries at many times have made just as ethical actions “illegal.” The fact of “illegality” is a poor defense for anything. If another argument can’t be found, there’s something wrong with the position.
Huh? Everything that’s illegal is only illegal because we made it so. Collectively we decide what things are desirable in a society and which aren’t. We call these choices “laws”. Actions that are in accordance with the law are considered “legal”, the ones that violate that law are called “illegal”. You have to have a law before you can break it. So exactly why should I be careful about calling someone who breaks a law (whether I disagree or agree with said law is immaterial…) a criminal and their actions illegal?
As for the argument of “legality”…most of the time, laws aren’t made for problems that don’t exist. There are a myriad of challenges in unchecked migration. Up to and including housing, employment, education, social values (misogyny anyone?), and a difference in attitude regarding law, civil rights, and religeon. And in some cases, training is needed to live in an advanced country. Did you know that when they resettled a group of Somali refugees in Massachusetts, they had to provide a trainer to them because none of them had ever seen a light switch, a microwave, washing machine or even a modern bathroom? They didn’t even know what a commode was for, let alone the tissue roll beside it. They couldn’t figure out why anyone would need one, since they could step right outside anytime they needed to. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame the refugees for not understanding our culture. But it illustrates the challenges they face. Nor does it bother me that they came here (legally I might add…). But it does illustrate why there are quotas on immigration. We can only absorb so many people at one time. If you want to expand the visas available, or if you want to expand family reunification limits…brother, I’m right there with you. BUT…currently it is illegal to enter the country without permission. I will call unauthorized persons “illegal immigrants” regardless of who it offends, because it is factually accurate. They have come here illegally.
Let me repeat: the fact of “illegality” or “legality” alone is no basis for any sort of moral or ethical argument.
There are many, many immoral and unethical laws.
Breaking a law is not necessarily an immoral or unethical act.
Sit-ins by blacks at whites-only lunch counters. Hiding Jews in Nazi German. These were illegal, too.
You are using “illegal” as a pejorative… and that’s my problem with the usage.
Just because someone came here illegally does not make them a bad person. It only means they broke a law.
Be careful with comments like yours on the Somalians. You are patronizing, at best.
As one who lived in West Africa for four years, and who has direct experience with the first experience of modern plumbing and lighting by people from subsistence villages, I find your comments slightly repulsive.
They need no more help than I needed, setting up housekeeping in an Africa village with no electricity or running water. Someone to show me the ropes, that’s all.
Boston Globe archives will get you to a multi-part feature describing the problems faced by the Somali migrants. Truthfully, I paraphrased from memory. If you want to dispute the facts of the story, take it up with the Globe. And do you really think it’s patronizing to describe real problems that the Somali refugees faced when they relocated? Why exactly do you think that? Did I sneer at them? No, I didn’t. Did I mock them? Certainly not. Would I have as difficult a time adjusting to their society? I’m sure I would. I intended to illustrate some of the challenges migrants face and somehow even talking about it becomes “patronizing”? It is my opinion that you are making a huge effort to deliberately distort the meaning and intent of my comments. So much for real discussion here. If you can’t refute the facts, just insult the speaker. That’ll sure negate their points. Typical rethug tactics…
I raise a concern that is, from my experience, quite legitimate. Your comments, in my view, were patronizing of the ability of people from another culture to adapt to ours. Should I ignore that? Should I not point that out?
My comment has nothing to do with facts but with attitudes. I was pointing out that your attitude bothers me. I’m not disputing the story at all (though I probably could).
It bothers me more, now, when you attack me, accusing me of “rethug tactics” and “insults” when I am simply being honest and raising a concern.
You need to do some deep looking within yourself… and think about elitist (and possibly racist) attitudes while you are at it.
Five hundred years too long. It is very tempting to say let’s just round ’em all up and boat ’em back to Yerp and let them apply for visas and lobby the various tribal councils via airmail.
However, this would not be humane, as most of them would cause needless hardship and probable tragedy as the repatriated illegals cause auto accidents in their ancestral homelands by driving on the wrong side of the road.
Not to mention the sheer trauma of suddenly being exposed to so much cheese that does not come in a can.
Frankly, I think you are an idiot to try and equate the laws and norms of the 15th and 16th centuries with the legal atmosphere of today. In case you’re too stupid to know it, there were no immigration laws then. There were also no environmental laws, property rights laws, labor laws, or child labor laws. Would you then say that we should all be free to pollute, squat on someones land, abuse or endanger our employees, and send our children to the factories instead of school?
Your logic is silly and your argument is less than useless in any kind of reasonable dialog. Sorry, but it’s true. You may disagree with me regarding illegal immigration, and that’s fine. But to use such silly-ass reasoning…it defies logic.
It is our trade policies — treaties like NAFTA and CAFTA — that create the conditions where so many people are so desperate as to risk death to immigrate here in order to survive.
Trade policies that “create new markets” for American agricultural products at the expense of local farmers — our surplus from factory farms that can be sold cheaper (once those “unfair tariffs” are eradicated) than the crops produced at small, family-run farms where labor is done by hand and not by machine. A family cannot make enough money to keep their farm running, because they cannot afford to sell their produce as cheaply as the American imports. The only work they can find are at American-owned manufacturing plants, where (thanks to the lack of unions), conditions are hard and pay is barely enough to survive upon, if that.
Most immigrants would prefer to stay in their own country, if they could get enough work to support their families. But in the interests of ever-greater profit, American and multi-national corporations are making that impossible. Small wonder that so many are willing to risk so much to make the run to the border — too many of them have very little left to lose except their lives.
Small wonder also that popularly-elected socialist leaders like Chavez and Morales are coming into power, when so many have seen what American-style “democracy” and corporate interests have to offer — exploitation of the many for the enrichment of the very, very few, without any apparent care at all for the millions left in poverty in their wake.
If we want to stop illegal immigration, our trade policies have to start benefitting the poor and working people in the countries we are trading with as well as American corporate interests.