Crossing with the Virgin: Stories from the Migrant Trail

Story Twenty-three

Story Twenty-three I awoke this morning early and left for the shed a little after 6:00 a.m. The dawn is coming earlier now as the earth begins to tilt toward the sun in the northern climes, and everything is ghostly bluish as I pedal the few short blocks to the church. At the shed one of my companions from last week is loading the truck. The third of our party arrives, and we are together again the same as last week, three musketeers, or stooges, depending on your point of view. One of our party saw on the news that it was raining west of the Baboquivaris last night and suggests we head out to the Tohono O’odham Nation to look for those in need of dry clothes and warm blankets. We drive out Route 86. West of Three Points the road is wet with last night’s rain. We see hardly a soul on the highway and no migrants in need, and after an hour of driving we head back to the junction of 286 and go south toward Mexico. We drive into Brown Canyon, park, and hike in a ways. We see recent signs of migrants passing this way, the footprints of their tennis shoes leaving sign cut into the trail. Farther south and at the crossroads of Arivaca Road and Route 286 the Border Patrol is loading up a big bus. We stop to offer food and water, and the Border Patrol agent says fine. I count twenty-one souls lined up single file waiting to load; there are three women with the group. We carry the food packs over, and each migrant takes a pack from me as they step into the bus. It is a very young group. I guess their ages to be in the late teens, and certainly none appears to be over thirty years. They are laughing and in very good spirits, and we find out they had been out in the desert only one night before being caught. It almost seems as if they are on a high school field trip without the teacher chaperone. 132 stories from the migrant trail My companion offers food and water to the Border Patrol agents, and one accepts, which she says is a first. She asks if there are any other detainees , and the agent points to three trucks parked nearby. We walk over, and this group is older than the group they are loading on the bus. They had been walking two days, and the atmosphere is much different. Two of the men are sitting on the ground and are crying.An SUV is stuffed with seven migrants, and three who are sitting together on the passenger bench seat watch as we approach. We offer food and water, and the three shake their heads no. Their eyes betray a deep-seated frustration and anger. I tell them the food and water are free, and they still refuse to take it. It seems they want nothing from the gringo except the opportunity to clean his toilets, repair his roofs, and harvest the bountiful crops that the gringo is too lazy to do himself. Their eyes seem to say,“Why are we chased like animals and treated like criminals? You come offering your pitiful little plastic bag of crackers, Vienna sausages, and Jell-O pudding . Why don’t you really help us and allow us to live and work in your rich country that throws away as garbage in a day what could feed my country for a week?” I have no answers for these questioning looks. The Border Patrol has four-wheel-drive pickup trucks that appear to be dogcatcher vehicles. They transport migrants they have captured in the back of these metal shells. You can only stoop inside of them, and the seats are metal. An agent opens the back of his cage; eight migrants are crammed inside. They accept the offer of food and water. We continue on our journey and go check out an abandoned trailer in which thirty-eight migrants including a baby were discovered hiding a few weeks ago by a group of Samaritans picking up trash. Trash pickup is a community service Samaritans offer to private landowners and on public lands. In this case a person went over to check out what appeared to be an abandoned trailer with a bunch of trash around it, and when she started to open the door someone...