Immigration Lessons: Life & Death on the Border

By Sandy Vondrasek

The issues of immigration policy are incredibly complex, politically polarizing, and for most Vermonters, poorly understood.

Seeking to get a better grasp on the realities of immigration, seven Randolph area residents recently headed south for a weekend-long "immersion education" program in and around the U.S./Mexican border at Arizona.

Their "Borderlinks" program gave the seven—Betty Edson, Wendy Ross, Irene Schaefer, Annette Higby, Jeanne Ward, and Fred and Holly Locke—a wealth of information, plus the person-to-person experiences to make that information come alive. They heard lectures on border policy and prisons, stayed at homes, visited soup kitchens and non-profit humanitarian aid sites, and interviewed Mexicans of all ages whose lives and families have been caught up in—and torn apart by—this complex problem.

The experience, said Betty Edson on her return home, left her with the conviction that "Regardless of where you stand politically—this is a humanitarian issue."

"It seems clear to me that there are laws that need to be changed and policies that need to be adjusted, but while we are working on that, there is a humanitarian crisis on our hands that can't be overlooked."

Since 1994, when the U.S. tightened its border policies, and started building miles of 15-foot-high steel walls and new prisons, an estimated 5000 people have died on the 60-mile trek across the Arizona desert.

Annette Higby, an attorney, and Fred Locke, of Brookfield, said they were stunned by what they learned about "the way justice had shrunk," as Locke put it, in U.S. legal proceedings against illegal aliens.

Briefings on the new "private prisons" that had sprung up on the border, lapses in due process, and reports of deaths in detention, left Higby with the feeling that the situation "is like Guantanamo in the U.S."

Their Borderlinks week, said Irene Schaefer, left group members with indelible memories. (See Schaefers’s and Ross’s reflections on the trip, below.)

They also returned to Vermont, the seven agreed at a group interview at Edson’s home, with a commitment to do their part to help others learn about the issue.

June 11 Program

To that end, the local Borderlinks group will give a presentation on their experience Wednesday, June 11, 7 p.m., at Bethany Church (UCC) in Randolph.

The program is co-sponsored by Bethany’s Advocacy Committee, and by the local Peace Coalition.

Immigration issues, pointed out Holly Locke, have some very close-to-home effects. A good number of Vermont farms, she noted, employ undocumented workers. Because of the fear of arrests and federal intervention, these farm employers—and even their friends who know about their undocumented workers—make it a point not to talk about those Central Americans who live and work on their farms.

From Wendy Ross

Here is a story I heard from one of our leaders, Manuel Morales about a man and two women he encountered outside a Catholic shelter on the border. One of the women was crying; the other was staring blankly into space.

This is the story they told him. They had been traveling across the desert accompanied by their two teenage girls, when something caused them to scatter, maybe the border patrol or a search helicopter, who knows? The girls were lost and they could not find them. The three adults were eventually picked up and shipped back to Mexico. When they contacted their Mexican relatives they were told that the relatives had received a call from someone in Tucson saying the girls were there, and if they wanted to see them again they should send a large amount of money. The money had been sent by the relative,s but the girls were never heard from again.

This is evidently not so unusual. There are other stories where girls have been taken for sexual purposes or for extortion.

From Irene Schaefer

At the Center for Repatriated Minors in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, we met a 15-year-old boy who told us his parenst left Mexico for the U.S. three years ago, and left him behind in his uncle’s care. Recently, they had sent the funds needed so that he could join them in New Jersey, where they are now migrant workers.

The uncle had made arrangements for him with one of the "coyotes," (who escort illegals across the border), paid all the expenses, and sent him off.

In the desert between the border and Tucson, the group he was with scattered, and he was left on his own. He made his way by himself to Tucson, by following towers he could see in the distance.

The Border Patrol picked him up as he was wandering the streets.

Now, he was in the CRM, knowing he would not be reunited with his parents after all, and feeling a failure for having wasted the thousands of dollars they’d sent to make the journey possible.

The agony and obvious homesickness of the young man remains daily in my thoughts.