Member Spotlight

Maren Haynes

NNPCW Alumna calls for fair, humane treatment of immigrants

Maren Haynes, (active) alumnus with NNPCW and CoCo, is currently working as a Young Adult Volunteer in Tucson, Arizona, with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).  Her placement is at Southside Presbyterian Church in South Tucson where she lives and works in solidarity with Central and South American immigrants. Contact Maren.

The members of the humanitarian aid groups our church is affiliated with in Tucson have sat and listened to the stories of thousands of migrants who are crossing. What we have found is a complex set of experiences affecting this huge and diverse group of people South of our border. However, many share this story in common: When migrants make the decision to cross into the United States, it is most often at the point of hopeless desperation when they can no longer afford to put food on their families' tables.

50 years ago, we did not see this type of agony. Although people in Central and Southern Mexico were always poor by First World standards, they always had a diversified crop base to keep their families fed and supply their basic needs. Furthermore, Mexican domestic policy required Mexican staple crops (corn and beans, specifically) to be purchased in-country, thus supporting only Mexican farmers. Under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), this policy was demolished. Mexican farmers (the majority of Mexican people) cannot compete with U.S. imports on Mexican staples, particularly corn. In attempting to compete by implementing "modern" agricultural techniques — growing hybrid crops, using updated fertilizers and pesticides — many, many people have lost everything by taking risks which proved fruitless. Today, the Mexican people are watching their children starve to death in Central and Southern Mexico. Although they are honest people, most have no choice but to cross our borders as criminals in hopes of finding menial work in the United States. Most people leave home under dire circumstances, unable to afford to take a chance on the 5-10 year process involved in entering the United States under legal conditions. The lives of their children cannot wait that long. It is not an attempt to take an easy out — it is, rather, their very last resort.

It is a very risky one, at that. Most people must sell off all their assets and take out enormous loans to afford this very costly journey. They then travel thousands of miles by jumping trains from the Southernmost states of Mexico. In the process, many lose limbs (or their lives). When they arrive in Northern Mexico, they meet up with a Coyote, or guide, who is in the business of people smuggling. Migrants pay their guides up to 10,000 U.S. dollars to help them make the journey. Choosing a Coyote is a huge risk as well, as many are involved in the drug smuggling industry, or are bandits who steal from their clients and leave them in the desert alone.

Once migrants are on the trail to the United States, they are, again, at enormous risk. Most are from lush southern climates and have no idea what terrain to expect in the desert. The normal pace a Coyote requires of his group is running speed. Most of the time, migrants travel at night. If anything happens — a person can't keep up, or the group scatters if found by Border Patrol — a Coyote must protect himself, and will leave group members behind. If you are left behind in the desert, it is a sure death sentence.

Even when things go smoothly, it is commonplace to be robbed of all your money and possessions, and to suffer extreme dehydration and starvation. The journey to Tucson from Sasabe, Sonora, is 75 miles. It is impossible to carry the necessary amount of food and water to survive the journey without complications.

Our policies dealing with this here in the United States are archaic at best. At worst, they outwardly promote human suffering and punish desperate people. Here in the Tucson sector, we have buried thousands of dead in our desert. The bodies of 5,000 people have been found in the past 10 years, but humanitarian organizations along the border estimate between three and seven times that many people have met their ends out there, as the desert cleans itself up very quickly. Even our conservative estimates far exceed the number of people who died during the Berlin Wall struggle in Germany.

Meanwhile, the Border is becoming ever more militarized. Desperate people — young mothers and children, fathers and brothers — are beaten by our Border Patrol and police, held for days without food or water, deported to dangerous cities in the middle of the night, are separated from their families in unfamiliar cities without access to communication, and hated and discriminated against within our system. U.S. citizens of Mexican descent are being held and even deported without access to the legal system.

These cases I am disclosing here are not the extreme cases meant for shock value: these are the bare bones of what we see on a daily basis.

I ask you, NNPCW women: For What?

We are fools for demonizing these people. They travel for days, weeks, or months through some of the world's most dangerous terrain with everything to fear and nothing to lose — all to have a shot at this menial, wretched version of the American Dream.

History will not judge these tragedies lightly. I assure you, what we have on our hands rivals slavery and perhaps even holocaust in the inhumane way we are allowing our indifference as a society allow this to continue.

I encourage you, if you have any hesitation that I am honestly expressing the experience of migrants, to come and see what is happening here. My work phone number is (520) 623-6857. I would be happy to show you around, and to introduce you to hundreds of people who have experienced these tragedies I speak of.

If you are convinced, I urge you to take action which acts humanely and respectfully on behalf of the thousands of undocumented Central and South Americans living in our country. I ask you to support and promote legislation which supports family unification, humane treatment of immigrants by law enforcement and, especially, which provides lawful methods for those who find themselves immigrating to the United States for economic reasons to find decent work for adequate pay. Nobody deserves to watch their children starve; nobody deserves to die in the desert for a chance at a better life.

Sincerely and Peacefully,

Maren Haynes