Reflection by Rosemarie Milazzo
When the international president of Medecins Sans Frontieres accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999, he spoke of the humanitarian aid his group offers the broken world. As part of his acceptance speech he said, “Hundreds of thousands of our contemporaries are forced to leave their lands and family to search for work, to educate their children and to stay alive. Men and women risk their lives to embark on clandestine journeys only to end up in a hellish immigration detention center, or barely surviving on the periphery of our so-called civilized world.”
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Read more... [Nogales, Summer 2010]
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The Accidental Outlaw: Volunteering at the U.S./Mexico border (Huffington Post) |
By Emma Fletcher
I am not an activist. I am not even rebellious. I am a law-abiding US citizen and, until that moment, the only place I'd been unhappy to see a law enforcement officer was in my rear-view mirror. So what the hell was I doing volunteering at the US/Mexico border with a group called, No More Deaths? I mean, the name alone is ominous enough.
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Read more... [The Accidental Outlaw: Volunteering at the U.S./Mexico border (Huffington Post)]
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Border Visit Presents Other Side of Issue (Columbia Daily) |
By Michael Ugarte
I had the privilege of listening to some of these stories this summer as a volunteer for 'No More Deaths' (nomoredeaths.org), an organization whose mission is to prevent fatalities in the Arizona desert along the U.S.-Mexico border. I was sent to Douglas, Ariz., a border town just north of Agua Prieta in the state of Sonora. My co-volunteer and I crossed the border every day for a week to lend a hand at the Migrant Center of Agua Prieta, some 10 yards from where our border patrol leaves the migrants apprehended trying to cross into the Land of Liberty and Prosperity.
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Read more... [Border Visit Presents Other Side of Issue (Columbia Daily)]
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By Dan Millis
It’s no secret that the need for humanitarian aid in our borderlands is massive. Every year, thousands of migrants attempt the trek to El Norte, the U.S. government responds with an enforcement-only border policy and miles of destructive new border walls, and hundreds of dead bodies are recovered from our border deserts. Quantifying this tragedy would be impossible. Still, from my experiences as a No More Deaths volunteer, I want to share these “numbing numbers:”
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Read more... [Numbing Numbers]
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Guilty, but No Punishment |
By Dan Millis
On Monday U.S. Magistrate Judge Bernardo Velasco finally delivered his verdict in regards to my July 25 littering trial. The ruling was delivered as a memo to my lawyer, and said only that I had been found guilty of the Class B misdemeanor offense of littering on a National Wildlife Refuge, and that sentencing was suspended. A suspended sentence means no sentence whatsoever - no fine, no jail, I don't even have to pay the original $175 ticket. Apparently, the U.S. government believes that humanitarian aid is a crime for which no punishment is warranted.
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Read more... [Guilty, but No Punishment]
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Feds Accountable for Desert Deaths (op-ed, Ariz. Daily Star) |
By Corinne Bancroft
As a volunteer for No More Deaths, I walked down a canyon near the border that looks like the wash behind my parents’ house. It has the same sand, sun and soul as the creeks on Mount Lemmon where my Pocahontas-self played and is similar to the ‘river’ I ran along in high school.
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Read more... [Feds Accountable for Desert Deaths (op-ed, Ariz. Daily Star)]
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By Tony Cate
I wanted to take a moment to express my gratitude for the kindnesses that you (and all others) extended to me last week.
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Read more... [Many Thanks]
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