Crossing with the Virgin: Stories from the Migrant Trail

Story Twenty-five

T oday I travel with two experienced Samaritans. One of my companions has a very good sixth sense and guides us to an area I’ve never been before as a Samaritan. We look for migrant sign and come across some fresh water bottles and footprints. We notice a truck coming up fast. We get back in our truck and start cruising, and a Border Patrol agent passes us, does a U-turn, goes back to where we were, and checks out the migrant signs we were looking at. This area must see a lot of traffic, since it’s on the east side of the Altar Valley and the migrants can pass this way on trails hugging the low mountains on their way into Tucson proper. The road eventually plays out, and as we head back toward Route 286 we spot a helicopter cruising up the road we saw the Border Patrol agent on. We continue south toward the border and turn west onto a ranch road. A Border Patrol agent is coming out, and we stop him. We ask him what the Border Patrol uses on the GPS as way points. He tells us, then adds a warning to be careful—all the action is down near Arivaca today. We pass through a gate and find a trail with fresh tracks. We load up with food and water and walk north. We see no one, and the day is perfect for a stroll through the desert. My companions discuss the charges filed against two young people who were arrested nine months ago for transporting three migrants. Their arrest was what brought me to Samaritans. The wheels of justice turn slowly for these two. The date for their trial has been set and vacated twice in the last four months. It may be quite a while before the case goes to trial, if it ever does. (On September 1, 2006, indictments against Daniel Strauss and Shanti Sellz were Story Twenty-five dismissed by federal judge Raner Collins. The judge cited evidence of “selective prosecution” as reason for his dismissal, and said the two had been following guidelines that border volunteers had been using for several years without being arrested.) As for the three migrants, justice, or the lack thereof, was swift. One was detained for six weeks so the federal prosecutor and defense attorney could get a statement and then was deported, while the other two were deported immediately. The testimony of those two will never be a factor, as no one really knows who they are or where they went. We head south on 286, and I pick up the local paper (Arizona Daily Star, March 15, 2006) that is lying at my feet and see three articles about the nearby border: “Entrant held; his child died in chase,” “Marijuana smuggler killed by gunfire was Mexican, 23,” and “Sanctuary policies may cancel aid to cities.” The first article is about a migrant who was crossing with his twelveyear -old daughter. They were with some others on the third day of the journey when a Border Patrol agent spotted the group and started chasing them in his truck. Everyone ran. According to a report by the Yuma County Attorney’s Office, the agent gave chase and after the migrants stopped, the agent got out of his truck, heard moaning, and discovered he had run over this man and his daughter. She died. The migrant was charged with child endangerment, since it was argued that he had placed the child at risk of imminent death by bringing her into the desert . He had been sitting in jail for the past week.“They said it’s my fault for bringing her here, that it’s my fault my daughter died,” he said.“But I wasn’t driving the truck; I just wanted her to get a good education.” He had been heading for Oxnard, California, where his wife was living with their two-month-old son. He had wanted to enroll his daughter in school and continue his work in the area’s strawberry fields. The sheriff ’s detectives determined that the death was an accident, so the Border Patrol agent would face no punishment. The second article is typical in that most of the facts are left out. The driver of an SUV picked up a wounded Mexican, took him to the hospital, then left. The wounded man was in a group of men carrying packs of marijuana. Someone yelled...