Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter Is Dead

Despite my several month absence fromt the borderlands it seems that things continue to be totally crazy. And all this time I thought it was just me.

Anywho, here's your border round-up:

- 33 people found dead in a mass grave in Ciudad Juarez. In a surprise twist that no one saw coming, the drug cartels are suspected to have some level of involvement.

- Both Colorado and Arizona are considering Bracero style state sponsored programs that would help to bring migrant workers from Mexico for agricultural work. Where do I even start? Arizona and Colorado are two states, perhaps THE two states at the forefront of anti-immigrant legislation. These places are just tremendously hostile, in comparison to the rest of the nation, to having "undocumented" workers living there. And neither of these states used to have shortages in the way that we are seeing now. Incomprehensibly, rather than loosening or eradicating some of the insane policies that have driven workers from the state, they are instead choosing to institute their own immigration laws to entice workers from Mexico. And not surprisingly, the programs are having a hard time getting off of the ground. I won't even get into the economics of paying people more to do farmwork and therefore making the risks associated more palatable...

- Michael Chertoff has come publicly accepted that the virtual fence is not on schedule, doesn't work, and might never be completed. I am, in all honesty, quite shocked. Not that it doesn't work, that was never in any doubt. What surprises me so much is that the system was clearly doomed from the start, they (cynically) threw money at it for years, and continued to claim until very recently that it was hugely successful. It is just stunning that the DHS has accepted any level of defeat here. Still, it's great news.

- On a final, and more personal note, I found out recently that a good friend of mine from the drug and alcohol treatment center died from an overdose. He had been doing very well. His death is just one more testament to the high price that Mexico has paid because of the drug trade. His humor, care, and leadership will be sorely missed.

Update: Oops. Forgot the music.

I have been spinning Built to Spill- Randy Described Eternity like it's my job. This is only a 30-sec clip. Sorry, it's the best I could do. There are a few decent quality videos on youtube if it peaks your interest.

RIYL- Older Modest Mouse, A harder Death Cab for Cutie, Prog-rockish guitar jamming.

Why So Serious?

Ladies and Gentlmen: The Dark Knight

I'm excited. Heath has some pretty awesome looking chemical burns there. It'll be interesting to see how he does crazy differently than Jack. This looks a little bit more "crazy with nothing to lose." I like that.

Blogging should be pretty light over the next, oh, month. Not that I don't have anything to say (I mean really, is that even a question?), just that I'm going to be moving around a lot.

Just a week or so more until I leave hear for good. Very sad. It's a tough place to leave. The other day I was walking down the street when a car went buy with a speaker on top. That's a pretty standard marketing tool around town. The unusual thing about this salesman was that he was pushing bundles of marijuana. By the kilo. No takers that I saw, but there are plenty of dealers standing on street corners in my neighborhood already. The competition is tough. Oh Mexico, you'll be missed.

Bonecrusher n00dz r so hawt right now.

So I was robbed yesterday.

It is sort of a long and complicated story, but the basic plot line is that someone tried to break into my apartment by ripping out the lock, failed, and then came back the next day to finish the job while I was out trying to get it fixed. Annoying, I know.

I didn't actually realize that I had been robbed until about 24 hours after it happened. I woke up this morning, tried to look at my old cell phone to see what time it was, and realized that it wasn't there.

Neither was the cord.

Neither was my guitar.

"Am I going crazy?" I thought. And then, as the haze cleared, "shit."

It took me a while to think about looking to see if anything else was missing. It doesn't look like I have lany fewer DVDs than I used to, but I didn't really check. The three dollars on my dresser are still there. So are my CDs. I guess it's a good thing that I keep my Daddy Yankee and Fat Joe collections in a safe under the bed.

In related news, my digital camera seems to have grown legs and walked away.

So I'm oscillating between being a little bit and very upset. Clearly I'm not happy about the idea of being robbed. It's like, "Really? Robbing people? Wow." And I'm not happy that they broke into the outside courtyard, but that I left my inside door unlocked. Because now it's partly my fault. Except that our apartments have this really neat little design flaw where it's entirely possible to be both locked in the courtyard and out of the house AT THE EXACT SAME TIME. So if I could go back, I don't know that I'd do it any differently. But of course I am second guessing myself because making the "wrong" decision has cost me about $800. Sweet.

What really bothers me is the specific stuff that I lost. For one, whoever stole my phone is going to be disappointed that it a) has no service and b) doesn't work even if it did. So they have something which is useless to them, and I no longer have the pictures that I took over the past three years.

And the camera does not make me happy either. It was only a year old, and a Christmas present from my dad. I asked him to help me buy a camera. He bought it for me. He's so generous. It had my only pictures of Deanna on it. It had the pictures of Chiapas that I take around to show people on it. So, no more camera.

But it's the guitar that kills me. I love playing that guitar. And I love that my mom bought it for me. I remember thinking of how much it meant to me. How cool I felt. I remember knowing that she saved up money to buy me that guitar. My sixteenth birthday present. I was always going to keep that guitar because of what it meant to me.

It's not the stuff, it's what that stuff means to me.

The bright side? They didn't steal my hot water heater. That's a popular little item here in Agua Prieta. Three cheers for hot showers.

The Personal is Political

I walked home the other night through the very cold streets of Agua Prieta. Everyone except for me had the good sense to be hiding inside, so all of my usual haunts were closed. No late night tacos, tortas, or burritos to be found, with the exception of "Taqueria In-n-out." It's open late, but it's also super expensive and excessively greasy. And they don't have guacamole. Definitely not my favorite choice, but a boy has to eat.

I stepped inside and made my order, chatting up the man behind the counter. I wouldn't call him a friend, but I recognize him and he calls me "guero." We talked a little bit more as my carne asada cooked on the grill. My spanish is always worse at night but I was making an effort. Eventually the conversation got around to the inevitable "where do you work and what are you doing here?" I explained a little bit about what I do, and then asked him where he was from.

"I spent 29 years living over there" he said.

"29 years?" I asked. "Wow, that's a lot. Why are you back here?"

This is where it always gets interesting.

"They banned me for life," he replied.

Which of course leaves me wondering which law he broke. They almost never ban people for life.

"What'd you do?" I asked.

"I was selling drugs."

And just like that the conversation was over. The point when they tell me that they were driving drunk/selling drugs/beating their wives is always the point when I get annoyed and sometimes stop talking. It's not that I'm judging them for what they did (although clearly I'm not crazy about any of those things). I get so annoyed because it just seems to justify the fence in some small way. If I were in charge of customs and immigration, I'd keep that guy out for sure.

/rant.

Rest in Peace, Juan Antonio Martinez

Another body has been found in Cochise County. Arizona is on pace this year to set a record for the highest number of deaths ever.

It's getting worse.

And it's part of the strategy.

The other day when I was at the Border Patrol station I had an agent tell me that their "job is to make them earn it." That is, the Border Patrol's job is to make crossing the border difficult. If you make it, then you have earned it. Unless you die.

Later, a different agent told me that allowing people to cross in town is too risky. "If someone hops the fence, they can be gone into a house or car in two or three minutes. In the desert we have a few days to catch them."

We give people jobs when they make it to our cities. We eat the food that they pick off of the tables that they clean. And we don't really stop them from coming, we just "make them earn it." It's like an abusive relationship. We break their ribs and then tell them that we'll love them forever.

Watch this. And then imagine what it would be like to sit with your cousin as she slowly dies in the heat. And then remember that the death of Felicitas wasn't senseless. It wasn't random. We planned for it to be this way.

I can't shake the feeling that on the border, death is the punchline to a very cruel joke.

Devastating.

From the Tucson Citizen:

"Thursday, Border Patrol agents were told by an immigrant that he and his group of 12 wanted to surrender and that a woman in the group had died in the desert near Rio Rico. A 6-year-old girl flagged down an agent sent on the call and told him it was her mother who had died. The agent drove on, and the immigrant who had called 911 with the surrender request guided the agent to the woman's body.

The 6-year-old and a 17-year-old girl in the group were turned over to the Mexican Consulate in Nogales to be returned to relatives, and the adults were taken into custody, pending their return to Mexico."

Six years old.

We Walk For Life

The first thing I have to say about the migrant trail is this: I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Every day that I was out in the desert a body was recovered somewhere in Arizona. Every hour, whether laughing, or sleeping, or eating Thai food (yes, Thai food) was spent in the physical and spiritual presence of people crossing, something that has come to mean so many different things to me throughout the past year. In many ways it means suffering. But it also means hope.

The view from the end. Looking back towards Mexico you can see mountain ranges on either side of the valley floor. When we started our journey those ridges were at least two days beyond our first camp. 80 miles really is a long way to walk in only a few days.

Alejandro Rangel Luna. My companion for the week. I started out in Sasabe with him strapped to the outside of my bag, but as time went on I found myself needing him closer at hand. It was very difficult to part with him. At times his presence felt like a burden. On several occasions asking for his forgiveness gave me peace.

The beauty of the natural world continues to capture me. Midway through the week I realized that death was out of place in the desert. The loss of life that was occurring all around me became a tangible symbol that, as much as we love the garden, we are living in the time after the fall. I spent many hours thinking about what it means to have grace in the desert.

I have talked fairly openly about militarization and the border this year, but it wasn't until the migrant trail that I would finally feel able to call southern Arizona a police state. Military convoys passed us every day. In the picture above there are four young men wearing flack jackets and battle helmets. Yes, helmets. We were chased by a helicopter in the dark and at one point circled by ATV's at night while we tried to sleep. We passed by the new camera towers erected by the Boeing Corp. They are inland from the border by many miles. The high powered cameras can swivel 360 degrees. The price of freedom indeed.

Standing on the side of the road as the Border Patrol arrested a family. I had very mixed feelings about our role there. I believe that observing the Border Patrol is a good way to ensure that the rights of the people being arrested are not being violated. But what about when it turns the people themselves into a spectacle?

A road spike that we found while walking down the highway. Border Patrol will get into high speed pursuits with vehicles. As a way to lessen injury to bystanders they will lay spike strips down on the highway. Sometimes the vehicle fleeing is packed with drugs. On many other occasions it is packed with people. I don't need to tell you what happens when an SUV filled beyond capacity hits a spike strip and rolls over at 80 mph.

Everything about this picture amazes me. The clouds opening up. E's beard. That weird glint on his glasses. By far the best thing about the trail was all of the unbelievable people that I met.

On the road again.

Here I am again, back where I began.

Try as I may I can't get away from you.
And all of these roads lead me to roam, bring me back home.
Here I am again, right where I began.

-Caedmon's Call


I won't be posting here for more than a week. I had hoped to get a big post up about Michael Pollan before I left but I don't think it's going to happen.

Tomorrow I will be participating in a Christian Peacemaker Team action at the U.S./Mexican border. We are going to pray, paint the fence with crosses for people who have died, and be "present" with God. I'm looking forward to it.

After that I am heading up to Tucson for a house warming party, to pick up supplies for the Migrant Resource Center, and to prepare for next week. On Monday I start a seven day, seventy-five mile trip from the Mexican town of Sasabe back up to Tucson. Walking. About 50 people are coming together to participate in the Migrant Trail. We'll walk between ten and twenty miles every day, mostly in the early morning, and hide from the sun all afternoon long.

The point is not to actually experience the life of a migrant, but to remind people that this is a trip that thousands of people start every single day.

I'm excited for everything but the blisters.

I hope to have pictures of it to post when I get back.

What say you, and all your friends, meet all of my friends in the alley tonight?

A week ago today a team of hit men and enforcers from a drug cartel here in Mexico attacked a police armory in Cananea, a city in Sonora about 50 miles from Agua Prieta. After overwhelming (and killing) some of the officers on duty, the group left the armory with an unspecified amount of stolen weaponry and fled the city. On the way out of town they encountered and murdered four more police officers. They were chased, and eventually cornered, at a ranch in Sonora by members of the Mexican police and the Mexican military. All told, 22 people died.

There are many things that I could say about this event. It is clearly a tragic loss of human life. It is quite shocking that it took place in the state of Sonora. Violence like this is, unfortunately, not unheard of and in some cases quite common. States like Sinaloa and cities like Tijuana might as well be in Iraq. But Sonora has never really seen all out war between the drug cartels and the police. It is just one more sign that the long history of drug violence in Mexico is spiraling out of control.

On Friday a rumor was circulating the borderlands that another team of cartel members was headed to the town of Naco, Sonora. Naco is the next town over from Agua Prieta, a little pueblo that doesn't even have a gas station but does have an incredible amount of drug smuggling. The response to that rumor in Agua Prieta was, understandably, widespread panic. Schools were closed, the border was shut down temporarily, and people stayed off the streets well into the night.

All of this has left me feeling deeply unsettled.

In the midst of this violence my thoughts have been primarily selfish. I have thought little of the families that lost loved ones, or of the places in Mexico (and around the world) where violence like this is so common. Instead I have spent a great deal of time dwelling on a feeling that I have been unable to shake, a voice in the back of my head that refuses to go away. Even in Tucson, away from the border and doing more "normal things," I could not take my mind off the killings. And all of this navel gazing has left me chasing tangents through my mind, searching for the thought that might pull all of these strands together. I remembered my pothead high school friends and our ignorance about the true cost of getting stoned. I thought about the war on drugs and the morality of allowing legal drug use. I thought about the violence that profitable smuggling has unleashed. I thought about friends who are addicts, and all of my time spent in Skid Row. And I thought about the cost of securing our borders from drugs, in money and in human life.

I spent almost a week wandering in the cloudiness of my thoughts before dawn finally broke. The thing that has made me so deeply unsettled by these killings is not the loss of human life, although that is clearly tragic. What was so unsettling, and what continues to trouble me, was how quickly and easily my relationship to violence changed when I was confronted with the possibility that I might not be safe. Let me explain.

Since I have been in Agua Prieta, many people have been killed. The police chief, a reporter, a migrant, and an untold number of lesser "thugs," have all fallen victim to the violence that is laced into the fabric of the borderlands. In spite of these murders, I have never felt truly afraid. A man was beaten to death in a remote place that I visit every single week, but I do not hesitate to continue my trips there. I have almost no fear that I might meet the same fate.

This sense of security is a luxury afforded to me by my secret love of violence. I know in my heart of hearts that it will keep me safe. In the past I have justified my sense of security by saying that I am safe because I stay away from trouble. And it's true, I do stay away from trouble. I don't smuggle drugs, or spend time with people who do. But there is another, greater truth that I have protectecd myself from. I am convinced that I will be safe because I believe that violence has the power to protect me. I believe that, as a U.S. citizen, I can cross the border and be protected. I can depend upon the literally thousands of U.S. government employees running around in the desert to keep the "bad people" from me. I can trust their guns.

When I am in the desert, or in Agua Prieta for that matter, I can trust my whiteness to keep violence at bay. I know that killing me is bad for business. Kill a Mexican? Happens all the time. Kill a white kid doing humanitarian work? Doesn't look good for you. Whether it is the Mexicans or the Americans, I know that the threat of violence from the government keeps me safe.

So I complain about all of the Border Patrol agents here, not because I want just anyone to be able to walk into the U.S. anytime they want to, but because I hate the migrant deaths. I complain about all the guns on the border, not because I love the drug smuggling, but because sometimes those guns are used to kill innocent people. But when it comes down to it, I love my own safety, and the violence that protects it, more than I love the lives of other people.

And I trust violence more than I trust God. When it came down to my own safety, I gave up my belief that God is powerful, and I worshipped violence instead. "Thank God," I thought, "for all of those men with guns."

Violence is my golden calf. Is it yours?

Death season.

Yesterday I was digging around my comptuer for pictures of the Migrant Resource Center when I found this map. It's a map of migrant deaths from the year 2003. Sorry that the graphic is so small. If you click on the map you should be able to see a full size image.

Sometimes I worry that my posts here are too negative (edit: especially recently), or that there are too many negative posts and not enough of the positive. There's so much hope down here, but it's a lot harder to share over the internet.

That being said, we're now entering the "death season" (hence the title of the post). Heat, more than anything else down here, kills. It was a colder than normal winter, I'm praying that the summer stays cool as well.

And it came to me that every plan is a little prayer to father time.

The world in which we live.

The State Department issued a travel warning for northern Mexico. Drug related violence has been shockingly high this year in many cities. AP, thanks be to God, still seems relatively safe.

The Border Patrol agent who shot and killed Francisco Dominguez Rivera, 22, has finally been charged with murder. Nicholas Corbett, 39, will stand trial on four counts related to the shooting. It's tragic that both of these families are losing their sons.

Bodies were found this week near Douglas/Agua Prieta on both sides of the international border. A body was found about thirty feet away from one of our water tanks on the Mexican side, and another was found at an undisclosed location in the U.S.

Update: The body of a journalist from Agua Prieta who has been missing for several weeks was found near Janos in the state of Chihuahua. Early reports are saying that he was tortured.

I'm not sure about using this as a theology, but right now I'm thinking that the greatest gift Jesus has ever given us is the gift of Hope.

What is it that you do? Version 2.0

This just in from the Migrant Resource Center: January-March 2007

Total number of people served: 2,315

Men served: 1857 (80.2%)

Women served: 370 (16.0%)

Children served: 88 (3.8%)

Bottles of water distributed: 1,792

Food distributed: 1,739

Persons who received orientation: 1,242

Persons who received first aid: 114

Socks distributed: 371

Shoes distributed: 80

Clothing distributed: 371

I've got my hands up high, my feet down low...

Time lapse of the Migrant Resource Center, a story captured in moments.

Last Night- While trying to pour himself a cup of coffee a young man accidentally spilled the not-quite-hot-yet liquid all over his hand, where it dripped off to form a pool on the plastic table. I was heating up some burritos for his 25 companions just steps away. Seeing the coffee streaming off the table and onto the floor I began to laugh.

Turning to me the man said, in perfect English, "Do you think that's funny?"
"Yes," I replied, my laughter having sprung forth not from his misfortune, but from a deep well of appreciation for a coffee machine that defies logic in its dispensation of the aforementioned liquid.
"Well I don't think that's funny," he cut back, the tension rising in his voice.
"Lo siento, I'm sorry," I said, in the best accent I could muster. "Friends?"

My plea for peace went unanswered. Rebuffed. Setting down the cup, he turned his back and walked out the door into the April night.

Last Week- I arrived at the Center totally spent, bankrupt in every conceivable way. It soon became apparent that I wasn't going to be much good for conversation, less so in Spanish. Leaving my friends sitting at the desk I headed to the front door, setting up a post to await the "customers" that would undoubtedly pass by. My fatigue defeated my attempts at reading, and I soon found myself "waiting" under a blanket, flat on my back. From there I migrated over to a cot, a little metal bed that's tucked away in the space that used to house Viagra and Cialis back when the Center was a pharmacy for snowbirds in search of a deal. Three hours later I woke up. A more honest telling of the story would be that I was awoken. I had slept through the coffee, the burritos, the jokes, and all of the night's migrants.

Two weeks ago- My friend James and I sat behind the desk, fighting off the sleep that wooed us back towards pillows and sheets. Public policy, migration, education, and old times weighed heavily on our minds and spilled freely from our lips. Migrants passed by the open doors to the Center. I let them go, knowing only too well how few resources we had to give them. Sometimes it's better to save the burritos for the person hungry enough to come searching for them.

Three weeks ago- I was sitting at my desk, chatting up (I was hoping) the leader of a group of high school kids. Five migrants had come in about thirty minutes before, a group of cousins traveling together, all under the age of 17. All of a sudden I realized that both the visiting students and the migrants were standing in a big circle in the space by the door. Unexpectedly, the entire group burst into song. One by one the students stepped forward into the circle, each one in their turn taking up the mantle to cut the proverbial rug. An impromptu dance party. At first it was clear that the migrants had no idea what was going on, and even less idea of what they should do. But the mood was infectious. They started dancing. I started dancing. Everyone was singing. Before you knew it there were two lines and we had broken into a soul train. And just then it dawned on me: this is why I have come to the border. This is what the kingdom of God looks like. No border. No fence. No desert. Just some teenage kids and a dance party. And who doesn't love that?

Meet Your (Legalized?) Neighbors

This is going to be a long one.

As some of you may know, and as most of you almost certainly don't, a piece of legislation was introduced into the House of Representatives this week under the name the "Gutierrez-Flake STRIVE Act of 2007." From what I can tell it made a very small splash.

To make an almost seven hundred page piece of public policy mercifully short, it's an immigration bill. The jury seems to be hung on whether it's the one we've been waiting for.

Some specifics for you, as digested by me:

1. This STRIVE Act includes amnesty. That means, more or less, that anyone living inside the United States without proper U.S. documentation since June 1st, 2006 or before will be given the opportunity to gain legal status, and eventually the possibility of citizenship. Among the criteria that must be met are proof of employment, a criminal background check, and payment of a series of fines. Not surprisingly, the details are complicated. Supposedly priority would be given to reuniting families.
2. A new type of visa, the H-2C, would be created to accommodate at least 400,000 new temporary immigrant workers per year. Workers would be given legal status for a period of 3 years, with the possibility of a further three year extension. Spouses and children would be given legal residency status during this period as well. Workers would be forced to leave the country if employment lapsed for more than 60 days. Employers hiring these workers would be required to prove that they first sought, and failed to find, domestic employees. This program would be monitored by a new, still undeveloped, electronic government system to be implemented at businesses across the country. The employment of unauthorized immigrant workers would carry stricter punishments.
3. Both the DREAM Act of 2007 and the AgJOBS Act of 2007 are included in the larger bill. The DREAM Act works to allow undocumented children in the United States to pursue their education past the high school level. The AgJOBS Act specifically targets migrants seeking employment in agriculture and offers them modified benefits for consistent work in this area.
4. Large amounts of new funding would be allocated to the Department of Homeland Security to ensure "operational control" of the border. This is a fancy little Border Patrol term that means that we decide who comes in and who doesn't. Technology, staff, and infrastructure would all be increased drastically. That means more cameras, more helicopters, more trucks, more agents, more buildings, more fence, more roads. More more more. The amnesty and legal guest worker clauses in the law would only be implemented after the DHS can prove to an unspecified degree that border security is being increased and that the employee tracking system has been designed and implemented.
5. Increased penalties and enforcement for illegal smuggling, gang activities, etc., having to do with illegal immigrants.

That's basically it. Now let's break this thing down.

1. Amnesty is going to be highly unpopular with a massive number of people living in the United States. Lou Dobbs might literally explode in outrage. Why? The Reagan amnesty, more than any other single factor, is blamed by many people to have caused such a massive surge in immigration. A second amnesty, in their view, would be repeating this fatal mistake. In some ways it's a valid criticism. Why reward people for breaking the law? Why reward people who broke the law last year but not any of the people who want to come to the United States right now? There's a simple answer for all of that. Basically, amnesty is a compromise. It recognizes the work that illegal immigrants have done in this country and accepts that we can't really kick them out now.It's a way to bring millions of people, some who have lived almost their entire lives here, into the folds of the United States' legal order. This is good for everyone. Immigrants will be more likely to report crimes without fear for their own status. They will be more able to participate in the conventional economy, a boon for everybody. It's a win-win-win-win-win situation, as many people are stating. Amnesty, in my view, is good. The way this amnesty is done isn't. Some estimates for the time it would take to achieve citizenship are as high as 25 years. What, exactly, is the point of that? Who does it benefit? And how long will it be before the system even kicks in? Before you dismiss this criticism as unimportant, think about the logistical nightmare, for everyone, that millions of people trapped in legal limbo would create. How is that even being proposed as a policy? That's the current policy with a sugar coating.
2. Worker visas. The good: We are currently arresting 1.2 million people a year as they try to cross illegally into this country. Worker visas are a very good way to bring those people out of the deserts and through the ports of entry. This would save lives, make border enforcement both possible and ethical, and legalize millions of hard workers and the people who employ them. Sounds great. The bad: Again, this system would not kick in until some unspecified date. Securing the borders means getting workers out of the desert. One is impossible without the other. Temporary visas, while having some attractive qualities (more participants, the ability for people to earn money and return to their country, etc.), invite all sorts of unethical business practices. Nothing says "take advantage of me!" like the guarantee that in a short time they will be gone. Strikes? You don't work for 60 days, you're gone. No provision for workers organizing. That's bad for all laborers in the U.S. You know what else is potentially bad for all U.S. workers? Short term employees of any kind. Long term health care? Retirement benefits? Higher wages? All of these things could suffer, depending on the fields of employment, when you have a large and disposable pool of workers. And now the ugly: Speaking of disposable, where are the worker protections in this bill? If a worker loses his arm in a meat plant, what rights are that worker guaranteed? Their family? Also terrible, but more so from a policy perspective, who actually thinks that the government can set up this program to hold employers accountable? Who actually wants them to? Are they going to somehow lure away google engineers to do it? It's enough to make any liberal want to starve the beast.
3. Agricultural workers are clearly needed. Molly sent me an article talking about how Colorado, after tough new enforcement standards scared of laborers, is using prisoners to do the field work once done by migrants. But is it good for a nation that is morbidly obese (literally, 3 in 5 overweight, 1 in 5 obese) to have an unending supply of cheap food labor? Shouldn't we be pursuing sustainable policies instead, ones that promote a higher quality and lower quantity of food? This might be a pipe dream, but don't forget that once public policy gets made it can be hard to change. A precedent once set is, well, set. Think about it. I clearly won't knock the DREAM Act. Kids going to college? You bet.
4. Supporting this one sort of depends on which side you fall on for increasing border militarization. I'm in favor of decreasing it, but I'm not a fan of human trafficking, the violence of the drug smuggling trade, or international gangs. So I think having a few guys watching the line is a good idea. But this is an incredibly stupid way to do it. I'll say it as many times as I can so that the point sticks: the border is impossible to secure without at least 5 times the number of agents we have now, or a drastic decrease in the people trying to cross. Personally I believe that it is impossible to secure in its current state. There is ample evidence to support that. Bizarrely, this is the border equivalent of the Iraq surge. Send more people to realize unspecified goals in an unspecified length of time. Democrats knock it there but want to try it here? Legalizing people is the only way to make them stop crossing illegally in a quick and relatively painless manner. And haven't we pretty much all agreed that these workers are good for the economy? Who's opposing regulating who comes in and out of the country? No one. Stopping illegal crossers means drastically increasing legal ones. When all the maids and cooks and roofers are out of the desert the only people remaining will be the ones you really don't want. Instead, they apparently want to spend tons of time and money on a policy that is killing people, just to appease the military industrial complex (Eisenhower's term, not mine) and the far-right wing. Why? Democrats really need to stop worrying about looking tough and start solving policy problems. It's hard to knock success.
5. Increased penalties for committing crimes is another non-starter. Our prisons are already overcrowded. Doesn't it make more sense to enforce the laws that we already have for things like gang activity and smuggling? Again, wouldn't that be a lot easier if we had the people not committing crimes, just looking for work, in a legal system as soon as possible?

So let me put it this way: this is not the bill we've been waiting for. It's got amnesty, sure. It's got the DREAM Act, which you have to be insane not to support. And what else does it have? I guess the promise that maybe at some point in the conceivable future we would get people out of the deserts. But when would that be? And then what? This thing's a mess. But what if it's the only mess we're going to get? I don't think so, and I'll pass. This problem's not going away and there's gotta be a better way than this. Thankfully I think the Senate has a lot more up its sleeve.

I think I'll fill this out in a later post, but many of the terms that I used here I strongly disagree with. Illegal, undocumented, amnesty, operational control...I could go on. I think that they obscure the truth and treat good people like criminals as an operating principle. Just for the record.

By the way, in spite of this post and my last one, I got a surprising amount of work done today. Some days you just have to blog. Some days you just have to work. I guess today was both. Academic deconstruction, public policy analysis, and non-profit social justice work. Plus I ate an avocado AND at my favorite burrito joint. Aaron's day for the win. On the other hand I only slept four hours last night. I've been up since three in the morning. I'm bound to crash soon.

Update: Border Patrol Shooting

From the paper two days ago:

Border Patrol agent's account of Jan. shooting doesn't match evidence, witness accounts

Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 03.26.2007

A U.S. Border Patrol agent's account of what led him to shoot and kill an unarmed illegal entrant in January doesn't match witness testimony or forensic evidence, records released Monday by the Cochise County Attorney's office show.

The documents appear to support the claims of witnesses, including family members of Francisco Javier Dominguez-Rivera, 22, of Puebla, Mexico, who have said the agent already had a gun in his right hand when he drove up to them in a Border Patrol vehicle the afternoon of Jan. 12 about 150 yards north of the border between Bisbee and Douglas. The area is southeast of the Paul Spur Lime plant and Arizona 80 and is routinely used for smuggling of both people and drugs.

The witnesses said the agent ordered them to the ground and had switched the gun from his right to left hand as he physically pushed Dominguez-Rivera, to the ground. That is when they said the gun fired.

The agent, Nicholas Corbett, has not cooperated with investigators. However, he reportedly told colleagues on the day of the shooting that he was in pursuit of three members of a larger group of illegal border crossers and had moved to intercept them in his vehicle. He exited the vehicle with his gun drawn and spotted a man at the rear of his vehicle with a rock in his hand.

When the man made a motion as if he were about to throw the rock, Corbett said he raised his weapon and fired a single round.

The bullet that killed Dominguez-Rivera entered the left side of his chest, passed through his heart and liver and exited the abdomen a couple of inches to the right of Dominguez-Rivera's navel, according to an autopsy report by the Cochise County medical examiner's office that was released along with hundreds of other pages of documents related to the shooting investigation.

The documents were released Monday because of a public records request from the Arizona Daily Star and other publications.

Cochise County Attorney Ed Rheinheimer said he has not yet decided whether the agent will face charges, noting that that decision will not be made until he's had a chance to review a video of the incident captured by a Border Patrol surveillance camera.

That videotape is in the hands of the FBI, he said, where it is undergoing "video enhancement."

Corbett has returned to active duty since the incident, Border Patrol officials said.

Thorns

Thorns seem to cover the desert outside of Agua Prieta. Mesquite trees have thorns that can be up to three inches long. Migrants walk by night, tearing clothing and skin on things unseen.

On the fence, but not to offend

A shoe left along the trail. People who spend a week out there come back with raw hamburger in the places where they once had feet.

"We look at each other, wondering what the other is thinking
But we never say a thing.
And these crimes between us grow deeper.

Take these chances, place them in a box until a quieter time.
Lights down, you up and die."
-Dave Matthews, "Ants Marching"

Sail, belly up to the clouds...

A migrant super highway. Also known as a dry river bed outside of the borderlands.

Seeing the forest through the trees.

Trying to follow a friend from the CRREDA on a desert trip.

Coronado Pass