Little City Gardens

For the next three weeks we’ll be letting our freshly tilled, ammended, watered and mulched field rest while Caitlyn and I get a change of pace and scenery. Tommorow I’m leaving San Francisco and heading down to the Sonoran desert. The purpose of my trip is to volunteer with an organization that i have long admired called No More Deaths, a Tucson based organization that has been working on the US/Mexico border since 2004 on behalf of migrants and out of the desire for humane immigration policy.

Mission Statement: “No More Deaths is an organization who’s mission is to end death and suffering on the U.S./Mexico border through civil initiative: the conviction that people of conscience must work openly and in community to uphold fundamental human rights. Our work embraces the Faith-Based Principles for Immigration Reform and focuses on the following themes:

• Direct aid that extends the right to provide humanitarian assistance
• Witnessing and responding
• Consciousness raising
• Global movement building
• Encouraging humane immigration policy.

History of the organization: “A morally intolerable situation inspired a remarkable humanitarian movement in Southern Arizona in the spring of 2004. Driven by economic inequality, thwarted by ill-conceived US border policy, and ignorant of the harsh conditions of the Sonoran Desert, thousands of men, women, and children had already died trying to cross the Mexican border into the United States. Most of the deaths occurred in the brutal heat of the summer months. With another summer of inevitable deaths looming, diverse faith-based and social activist groups—along with concerned individuals—felt compelled to act to stem the death tide and attempt to save at least some lives. The result was the converging of hundreds of volunteers—local, regional and national—who came together to work for one common goal: No Más Muertes: No More Deaths.”

I am so glad that No More Deaths and a few other grass-roots and/or faith-based organizations exist to perform such an immediate and vital function on a border where enforcement (federally recognized and vigilante groups) is increasingly militarized with limited oversight, accountability, or institutional safeguards for protecting human and civil rights. According to the tally on the organizations homepage there have already been 153 deaths on the Arizona border this season. Migrants to the United States face death in many forms, from dehydration in the desert to excessive force by the Border Patrol.

I am also feeling anxiety and fear. From what I hear and what I can imagine, the Southwest border has an intense climate. Not only does the summer heat reach 115 in the middle of the day, but it is a region where our national racial tensions, the ills of our globalized economy, and federal policies of heightened militarization come to a head. Then add the elements and the inhospitality of the natural world: flashfloods, rattlesnakes, tarantulas, jaguars, fire ants!

While i am there I will be part of the desert patrols. We will be living at a base camp and going out hiking each day with packs full of water, food and medical supplies. We will be leaving water on well traveled paths and looking for individuals and groups that may be lost or de-hydrated or injured.

I imagine I’ll be overjoyed to return to our mediterranean climate. I’ll be excited to get back to farming, and to give a give a report back about what I’ve seen and learned in the desert.