AZ-MEX Boderlands/No More Deaths Summer Donation Drive

No More Deaths is a Tucson-based humanitarian organization that's mission is to help end suffering in the desert along the USA-Mexico borderlands. Throughout the year volunteers patrol migrant trails looking for people in need, giving medical aid, and placing water and food in strategic locations in the hope that it might save a life.

The summer months are a crucial time in this work, and to assist NMD in their mission I am asking for donations from friends, family and strangers to be collected between July 1st-15th. These donations will be driven out to Arizona in the 2nd half of the month.

 For your convenience, there will be multiple drop-off locations around Los Angeles County. (If you or your organization/business/work would like to participate as a drop-off location please email me at xochitljulisa@gmail.com)

 What to donate: 
socks
running shoes
hiking boots
baseball caps
backpacks
jeans
t-shirts
underwear

You can also make a monetary donation directly to the organization by going here.

Where to donate: 

BEYOND BAROQUE LITERARY/ARTS CENTER
 681 Venice Blvd. Venice Beach
HRS: M-F: 8pm-10pm S-S: 11am-10pm (check event calendar for exact times) http://www.beyondbaroque.org/calendar.html

TIA CHUCHA'S CENTRO CULTURAL & BOOKSTORE
 13197 Gladstone Ave Sylmar, CA 91342
(818) 939-3433
Mon–Thurs: 2-8pm | Fri: 2-10pm Sat: 11am-6pm | Sun: Closed (Cerrado)

ESPACIO 1839
1839 1st St Los Angeles, CA 90033
(213) 399-9811
Wed - Thu: 12:00 pm - 8:00 pm Fri - Sat: 12:00 pm - 9:00 pm Sun: 12:00 pm - 6:00 pm

MARISCOS JALISCO
3040 E Olympic Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90023
M-S: 9am-6pm

Last year alone, 179 remains were found along the AZ-Mex borderlands. For more information please visit the No More Deaths website.

Here is a poem inspired by my time on the border with No More Deaths. The video is directed by TV director and movimiento activist, Jesus Trevino.

US Border Patrol: What We Need to Know

PBS now has a documentary series called Need to Know, and on Friday, April 20th, it aired the story, Crossing the Line at the Border: an investigative report that uncovers the sad and disturbing details surrounding the murder of Anastasio Hernandez Rojas, an undocumented immigrant, by US border patrol agents.

Hernandez Rojas was caught not far from San Diego trying to enter the country illegally. While in the custody of border patrol agents, he was kicked in the ankle more than once, and when he asked to report the incident, he was taken to the border by vehicle, with his assailant in the car with him. Once at the border, eye-witnesses crossing back in to the US saw (and video recorded) a group of agents beat Hernandez Rojas, taser him a total of 5 times, and all while his arms and legs were tied. Soon after the incident, Hernandez Rojas died.

Unfortunately, what happened to Hernandez Rojas isn't a chance happening. According to PBS there have been “eight cases in less than two years followed by no public hearings, no criminal charges and no trials, including the Hernandez Rojas case.” One such case in Arizona in March, 2011, was of a 19 year-old Mexican-American who was shot "three times in the back as he climbed the fence back into Mexico.” Because of cases like these, and because of the border patrols' ability to freely police the border without impunity, humanitarian groups like No More Deaths, are calling the US border patrol abuses a Culture of Cruelty.

Talk about need to know. Did you know that “customs and border protection is now the largest law enforcement agency in the nation. Employing almost 60’000 agents and employees”? And yet, they are not held to the same scrutinies and checks that local police, county sheriff, or any other federal agents are held to. Did you know that “border agents are assaulted at a dramatically lower rate than police and, unlike police, are typically assaulted with rocks, not knives and guns”? And did you know “only once in ten years has a US border agent been criminally charged for killing a migrant, and that case was dismissed”?

To those people who say, they came here illegally, they get what they deserve, I ask the question, when did illegally crossing the border become a crime punishable by death? When did a border patrol agent become judge, jury, and executioner?

Anastasio Hernandez Rojas was a man trying to return to his wife and five children in the US. He was a man that begged for his life at the hands of nearly a dozen border patrol agents. He did not deserve to be hog-tied, beaten, and tasered to death.

Please take 20 minutes to watch the story. Be warned that recordings of the beating and Anastasio's cries for help do air in the story, but please do not turn away. We need to know.

And now that we know, isn't it time we get outraged?

Biking the Border

I met Katy and Eric in Tucson back in August with No More Deaths. At that time they had just come off of a 5 week stay in Nogales, MX helping newly deported migrants make phone calls home, locate their confiscated personal items, and document border patrol abuses. The efforts in Nogales is another major humanitarian project within No More Deaths. I spent one day there serving lunch in a soup kitchen and talking to men who waited at a dusty bus station all day for a chance to make a 5 minute phone call home from a pay-as-you-go No More Deaths cell phone. The one thing that stood out to me in Nogales was the waiting.

When I met Katy and Eric at a Tucson migrant half-way house, they told me of their plan to bike the entire border. I'm relieved to know they made it, and I'm impressed with their conviction to get up close and personal with immigration reform. I only wish more people would be willing to see for themselves what the border and the "illegal-immigration issue" really looks like.

“I think people in the north don't really understand what's going on in the southern borders,” said Katy. “Hearing politicians talk about a wall might sound feasible to people.”

“But when you come down and you witness it, it seems kind of crazy."

9 Days in the Desert: A Photo Essay

First two nights with no more deaths we camped out in an old convent in Tuscon, AZ

A poster from No More Deaths' WRR campaign against SB 1070

The before photo. So fresh and so clean and ready to go.

Day 1: The road to Arivaca, AZ

The road to Byrd Camp aka NMD's home base

The desert in blume

Day 2: My first water drop.

The Surban with a broken frame but a working radio

Me hiking.

We left messages on the water to let the migrants know they could trust it. We also wanted to pass on some hope.

A gila monster we found dead and turned over on the road.

Day 3: Josseline's Shrine

This marks the where the body of Josseline--a 14 year old girl traveling with her younger brother--was found by a No More Deaths volunteer after her coyote abandoned her in the desert.

Hiking among desert blossoms and underneath a blistering sun.

I love the flowers of the barrel cactus.

A breathtaking desert sunset.

Downtown Arivaca, AZ


I do believe it is hot here.

Day 4: A Migrant Trail

Me, ready to quit.

A water gallon slashed by Border Patrol. This is a common occurrence.

My Sharpie sketch of La Virgen de Guadelupe.

Montana Peak aka Hippy Mountain over looking Ruby and Ruby Lake beach.

Ruby Lake, less a lake and more a pool of green sludge, but when you haven't showered in days, you'll take it.

Refreshed and feeling good.

A virtual fence. These towers monitor hidden censors all over the desert that track migrants.

Day 5: We Reject Racism in Byrd Camp

A dead tarantula in camp.

A dead baby gopher snake that a team of ants carried under a fellow volunteers tent.

A shrine to the migrants.

Welcoming and kind instructions for migrants.

The newbies looking good in front of the Frankentent and water supply.

Day 6: Morning glory.

It's hot and dry.

Desert life aka an ant hole

A destroyed and abandoned car in the middle of nowhere

Feeling good after the "Oak Tree" water drop and hiking into a canyon

The view

A live tarantula. They tend to come out at dusk.

Day 7: Dead Man's Pass and a view of the Baboquivaris mountain range looking south.

Border Patrol are notorious for slashing water in Dead Man's

Attempting to look rugged in DM or "Gumdrop Valley"

The view of the east. It's hard not to look out and wonder who is out there, who is in need?

The port of entry at Sasabe, AZ

"The Wall"

Sleepy Sasabe

Day 8: Byrd Baylor's home

Day 9: a rainbow over my tent

Saying farewell to the desert and some fellow volunteers

One last photo to remember the violence and death that is occurring right now in our country, under our watch. Border Patrol slashed this gallon and countless others, very well knowing that people are dying from heat exhaustion and dehydration. Illegally crossing borders is not punishable by death and humanitarian aid is never a crime. No matter what your stance on immigration, let's remember that people are dying, and their only crime is dreaming of a better life for themselves and their families.

For more on Border Patrol abuses please check out A Culture of Cruelty--the extensive NMD report documenting thousands of abuses. It isn't a few bad apples; it's a culture.