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non-profit group that educates people of faith on border issues. “Our quarrel is with the immigration policy that forces people out into the desert. If the policy could change and people could have a legitimate way to come into the country and find a job, we’d be happy to back off on what we’re doing in the desert.”
Ufford-Chase’s BorderLinks group was one of the original organizations participating in No More Deaths, along with Humane Borders, a Tucson-based effort that maintains water tanks in the southern Arizona desert for thirsty migrants.
More than 110 illegal immigrants have died in Arizona’s desert this year, according to medical examiners’ offices, setting the pace for the deadliest year yet. Border Patrol statistics for the Tucson sector put the number of deaths at 73, an increase of nearly 25 percent from this time last year. The statistics are for the federal fiscal year, which started on Oct. 1
Last year, the bodies of a record 219 undocumented immigrants were found in Arizona, according to medical examiners’ reports.
Thompson described how volunteers helped two undocumented entrants who were lost and without water for two days. One of the men couldn’t get up because he was so sick. The other used two empty water bottles to flag down Ark volunteers.
She said both men were vomiting and dehydrated when they were found along a desolate stretch of Arizona highway somewhere between Sasabe and Tucson.
They were given food and water and taken to Tucson for medical care, Thompson said by cell phone from the Ark shortly after returning from a desert patrol.
“It’s just a pretty emotional experience to be talking to folks like that and knowing that help for them is at the point where it’s really life or death,” Thompson said.
The Ark of the Covenant camp is named after a wooden box that in the Old Testament symbolized the presence of God traveling with the people of Israel when they were wandering through the desert.
In this case, the Ark is a mobile home parked on property in Arivaca — owned by noted Southwestern author Byrd Baylor — about 20 miles from the U.S. border with Mexico and 60 miles southwest of Tucson.
The summer-long Ark campaign is modeled on the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964. The freedom riders headed south to register blacks to vote; the No More Deaths volunteers are trying to reduce and prevent deaths of migrants in southern Arizona.
One factor the humanitarian group is watching closely is the activity of the Border Patrol, which plans to monitor the immigrant aid station around the clock this summer, according to Tucson sector spokesperson Andrea Zortman.
Traditionally the Border Patrol has taken a “hands-off” approach to Tucson aid groups, leaving them alone to do their work.
However, that changed when Border Patrol Chief Michael Nicley came on board late last summer. That’s when No More Deaths volunteers began noticing a constant Border Patrol presence, Fife said.
Zortman said agents would monitor the camp in case “individuals need emergency services.” If so, she said, “There will be a law-enforcement agent to provide immediate access to such services within minutes, if not seconds.”
She said the agency could immediately dispatch its rescue crews and a helicopter. Zortman said that the Border Patrol has rescued hundreds of migrants so far this year.
She didn’t say whether agents would try to apprehend illegal immigrants at the camps, but did say: “If we, in the process of us just being in the area, come across illegal aliens, whether they be in the camps, outside the camps, or whatnot, they will of course be taken into custody.”
Fife described recent meetings with Border Patrol officials as cordial but said he could not predict what might unfold this summer.
“It’s hard to tell, so far we haven’t seen them,” he said of the Border Patrol. “But we have gone out of our way to make this a public issue. So I think they’ve backed off a little. But you don’t know. They may keep surveying us through some concealment. You just don’t know.”
The desert camp initiative is in line with an overture addressing the increasing number of migrant worker deaths in the borderlands that was approved in 2003 by the PC(USA)’s 215th General Assembly.
The measure, submitted by the Presbytery de Cristo, which represents 30 Presbyterian churches in southern Arizona and western New Mexico, calls on Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) to be in relationship with congregations and middle governing bodies in the border areas to provide appropriate ministries and assistance to migrants in life-threatening situations.
In mid-April, the PC(USA) and the Synod of the Southwest sponsored a three-day conference in Tucson called “Death & Life on the Border,” which detailed the crisis.
PDA provided $15,000 to the Synod of the Southwest to help finance the conference. The synod kicked in $12,000. PDA also contributed $20,000 to the Presbytery de Cristo to support a number of border projects, including No More Deaths. Money for the grants came from designated disaster funds and the One Great Hour of Sharing offering.
“I’m pleased that there are churches willing to go out and do what’s necessary to try and save peoples lives again,” said Ufford-Chase, an elder at Southside Presbyterian Church. “I’m just sorry the situation hasn’t changed so that it wouldn’t be necessary to go out into the desert.”
For more information about No More Deaths, or to ask about volunteering at the Arivaca aid camp, visit the group's Web site at www.nomoredeaths.org.
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