All posts by No More Deaths

Left To Die: Call To Action

A new report from No More Deaths and La Coalición de Derechos Humanos, Left to Die: Border Patrol, Search and Rescue and the Crisis of Disappearance, finds that Border Patrol systematically ignores and mishandles the search and rescue emergencies of migrants, who are funneled into dangerous and remote terrain by the agency’s policy and practices. The report also finds that Border Patrol obstructs family and community search efforts, leaving thousands to die.

Every year, Congress gives more than $25 billion dollars to ICE and CBP to profile, jail, deport and terrorize immigrants. Their records of abuse and consistent rejection of oversight and accountability demonstrate that these enforcement agencies are beyond reform.

To end the crisis of death and disappearance in the borderlands we must decriminalize migration, demilitarize the border and defund Customs and Border Protection, the agency that causes people to become missing and leaves them to die.

Take Action today by supporting community-based search and rescue efforts & joining the #DefundHate Campaign to demand Congress defund Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

What you can do:

  1. Donate to community-based search and rescue groups in the borderlands
  2. Demand that Congress defund Customs and Border Protection with the #DefundHate Campaign! 
    1. Sign the petition bit.ly/DefundHatePetition
    2. Contact your elected officials with the tools below:
      1. Find your representative
      2. Find your senator

Sample Script:

“Hello, my name is [_______] and I’m a constituent of [congressional member’s name]. I thought you would be interested in a new report that analyzes Border Patrol’s search and rescue response system. The report is called Left to Die: Border Patrol, Search and Rescue, and the Crisis of Disappearance.

The report provides overwhelming evidence that Border Patrol’s emergency response system is plagued with systemic and deadly discrimination, routinely ignoring and mishandling life-threatening emergencies and fueling a crisis of death and disappearance. It’s clear that the agency is unfit to be involved in search and rescue efforts.

I’m calling on [Member of Congress] to oppose funding increases for border and immigration enforcement. Instead of using public funds to criminalize migration and militarize the border, we demand that you exhibit leadership and call for drastic cuts in funding for ICE and CBP. This includes cutting funds for “smart border” technologies that only serve to further militarize an already hyper-militarized border, endangering the lives of migrants.”

NEW REPORT: Left to Die: Border Patrol, Search & Rescue and the Crisis of Disappearance

Today, along with La Coalición de Derechos Humanos, we released the third installment of our report series, Disappeared: How US Border Enforcement Agencies are Fueling a Missing Person’s Crisis. The report, Left to Die: Border Patrol, Search and Rescue, and the Crisis of Disappearance finds that Border Patrol systematically ignores and mishandles search and rescue emergencies in the borderlands.

Border Patrol has inserted itself as the sole responder for undocumented migrants in need of rescue. When someone crossing the desert calls 911, county governments transfer the calls to Border Patrol. 

By looking at emergency calls received by the Coalición de Derechos Humanos 24-hour Missing Migrant Crisis Line, we find that Border Patrol did not conduct a confirmed search or rescue mobilization in 63% of cases. This includes 40% of cases where Border Patrol directly refused to take any measures in response to a life-or-death emergency. When Border Patrol did respond, the searches were severely diminished in time and resources when compared to searches for US citizens.

Check out this short video of the findings:

No Migrant Justice without Black Liberation: A Statement in Solidarity with Black Uprisings

To you, and everyone in the streets, organizing within their communities and building a world where Black lives not only matter, but thrive, we thank you and stand alongside you.

It’s midsummer in Arizona, and many of us are in the desert leaving water, responding to missing persons calls and providing care to people crossing during the heat, navigating a humanitarian crisis mid-pandemic. For aid workers, it’s not uncommon to meet people in the desert with a familiar story: Profiled by police, arrested, handed over to ICE, deported and now trying to get home to their families and loved ones. 

As the uprisings have increased in the United States, we’ve also seen Customs and Border Protection drones circle Minneapolis, Border Patrol deployed to Washington D.C. and armed CBP agents posing in front of community shrines in San Diego. ICE and Border Patrol have long extended the militarization of the border into cities and the interior of the country and through these actions are only reaffirming their racist and xenophobic agendas. 

The murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, Riah Milton, Dominique “Rem’mie” Fells and Dion Johnson are only the most recent examples of police brutality, actions of an institution rooted in white supremacy. What we recognize as modern day policing in the U.S. was born from a need to prevent uprisings amongst slaves, and to preserve Black people as property. 

This legacy of white supremacy lives on in the prison system, which is a clear reimagination and continuation of slavery, incarcerating Black people at a rate five times that of white people. Immigration detention and deportation are an extension of the same racist policing and court systems, often occupying the same buildings and being run by the same for-profit corporations.

Migrant justice and Black liberation are inextricably linked. 

Immigration is a Black issue. The stories of Black migrants are often erased or minimized, as are the struggles of Black people everywhere. Routine discrimination against the undocumented community is increased even more by anti-Blackness, making Black immigrants far more likely to be funneled into the deportation machine.

In the most recent installment of our Disappeared report series, we demanded that Border Patrol be defunded and dismantled, with reparations paid to family members of all those killed or disappeared by U.S. border enforcement policy. This recommendation was built on the understanding that no reform could end Border Patrol violence and extrajudicial killings. In making these demands we took guidance from centuries of Black abolitionist thought and organizing. 

Black feminist, activist and professor Angela Davis summed up the current political moment in a recent interview: “What we are seeing now are new demands: demands to demilitarize the police, demands to defund the police, demands to dismantle the police and envision different modes of public safety. We’re asked now to consider how we might imagine justice in the future. This is a very exciting moment. I don’t know if we have ever experienced this kind of global challenge to racism and the consequences of slavery and colonialism.”

No More Deaths/ No Más Muertes affirms our call to defund ICE and CBP and joins the call to defund the police nationwide.

When we defund and demilitarize the police and pay reparations to the communities they have terrorized for centuries, we may finally begin to construct a society which is not based on brutality and murder.

So we invite you, as friends and supporters of migrants, immigrants and racial justice to give generously to Black immigration organizations at this pivotal time in history. Donations to organizations such as Movement for Black Lives or to Black Trans groups will save lives.

In solidarity and gratitude,

No More Deaths/ No Más Muertes community

Communications from the Missing Migrant Crisis Hotline

Since January, No More Deaths’ Missing Migrant Crisis hotline has logged 6,640 calls in their mission to help migrants lost, injured, and dying in the desert borderlands.

“When we established the hotline in 2017,” an operator remembers, “there were very few of us.

Often it’s a mother calling, consumed with unimaginable pain and worry, searching for her son or daughter. Cases include detention searches and migrants missing in the desert of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and California.”

If you Google “Searching for Someone Lost at the Border” or “Persona Desaparecida Arizona,” No More Death’s hotline comes up. When a call comes in, volunteers ask the caller’s relationship to the missing person and where the individual crossed, urging callers to contact their home country consulate. When the person is detained, No More Deaths helps them navigate the detention system, explaining their rights while in detention and how to open a phone account and commissary.

For those seeking asylum, No More Deaths offers legal resources. If the person is not detained, the volunteer ascertains who had the last communication and when, where the person departed from, and any other source of information, such as someone who crossed with them or knew their route. The window for potential rescue is two to five days.

“Our response depends on time frame, whether the missing person has a phone, and their physical condition,” a volunteer explains. “It’s a tremendous emotional strain for the same few people on call, so it’s healthy to build up the team. Soon, there will be eight trained operators. We’ve established protocols for interacting with Border Patrol. We are expanding our relationships with several consulates, the Colibri Center (who works with the Pima County Medical Examiner), the Tohono O’odham Nation, and allied search groups.”

Many families don’t want to talk directly with authorities who work within the system that has deliberately disappeared their loved one. Detention center employees don’t always speak Spanish. Often relatives are put through to an answering machine. The ICE locator is the only public database for detainees, and it can be difficult to navigate or inaccurate because authorities enter the name wrong, and there can be long delays.

“We act as a humane cushion between the family and authorities,” an operator observes. “We give emotional support during recoveries, disappearance, and death. We meet with the family, have
dinner with them, light a candle for their loved one, offer what comfort we can.”

If families can help with a search, No More Deaths teammates take their lead from the family. “We accompany them on searches, assist with logistics and navigating maps, and give moral support,” a volunteer says. “But we have to be clear about our capacity and not give false hope. We try to stay realistic.”

When medical examiners confirm the identity of remains, No More Deaths team members travel to be with the families, if in Arizona or Sonora, Mexico. Struck by the families’ strength and resilience, volunteers strive to uphold their stories, to prevent them from being defined only by a dot on a map, lost in the flood of statistics.

— Katherine Pew, No More Deaths volunteer

NMD Confronts Local Sheriff’s Office About Discriminatory Search & Rescue Practices, Demands Change

In response to the death of an undocumented teenage boy last May when governmental agencies did not deploy a search and rescue operation when requested, a coalition of concerned community members called an emergency meeting. The No More Deaths Abuse Documentation and Search & Rescue teams met with Pima County, Arizona Sheriff Mark Napier, the Colibrí Center for Human Rights, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Community Law Enforcement Partnership Commission, and a member of the deceased’s family. The goal of the meeting was to strongly urge the Pima County Sheriff’s Department to deploy its resources in response to borderlands search and rescue emergencies in the future for all people without prejudice.

The death of this individual is tragic, and unfortunately not an anomaly. The No More Deaths Missing Migrant Crisis hotline received at least 857 calls about missing migrants from May through July of 2019, and Pima County’s 911 dispatch line receives between 4-5 emergency calls from people crossing the border every day. Historically, Pima County has transferred all 911 calls from people crossing the border between ports of entry to the U.S. Border Patrol with no follow-up, documentation, or mobilization by Pima County’s Search and Rescue team.

The Abuse Documentation Team’s upcoming third installment in the report series Disappeared: How U.S. Border Enforcement Agencies are Fueling a Missing Persons Crisis, exposes systemic governmental non-response to reported borderlands emergencies. The report will include analysis of two years of over 456 case notes from the Missing Migrant Crisis Line and over 2,000 emergency 911 calls. In 60% of cases in which an emergency search was requested from Border Patrol, there was no confirmed search.

In a follow-up meeting in August, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department informed us that they had taken steps to improve their Search and Rescue protocols. The Department has committed to
respond to search and rescue cases that are within their jurisdiction and when Border Patrol will not respond or the county deems the Border Patrol effort inadequate. The department also committed to documenting the outcomes of cases in their jurisdiction which 911 dispatchers transfer to Border Patrol. In response, the Abuse Documentation team is working to widen our coalition to continue to advocate for Pima County and all government agencies to ensure effective emergency Search and Rescue services for all distressed people in the borderlands.

The next installment of the Disappeared report series detailing Border Patrol emergency non-response will be released in early 2020.

You can read the first two reports in the series here: www. thedisappearedreport.org.

— Parker Deighan, No More Deaths Abuse Documentation Coordinator

NOT GUILTY! Statements from Dr. Scott Warren and Volunteer Geena Jackson

On November 20th, a jury acquitted Dr. Scott Warren on 2 counts of felony harboring. Below are statements shared after the verdict was released:


Dr. Scott Warren:

“Everyone here did diligent, detailed, and amazing work. And regardless of the verdict our preparation and commitment has always paid off. I love you all. And to those who aren’t here because they are keeping up the humanitarian work in the desert, I love you, too.

And to local residents who have always provided the stranger at their door with food, water, and humanitarian relief—you know I love you as well. Both in and out of court our work here has been to educate. To explain the complicated context of the border with clarity, and to bring an understanding of the humanitarian crisis to those who will listen.

There are others who disagree with our humanitarian work. Some of those folks are in this very courthouse—but they are also our neighbors, friends, and very own family. I understand that they follow a moral compass that guides them to different conclusions about the border than me. And I know that I have much to learn from their perspectives, experiences, and frustrations as well.

And to migrants like Jose and Kristian, who are truly the ones at the center of this story, our hearts are with you for the dignity, respect, and self determination that is your right.

Unfortunately, the damage to land and life in the border region not only continues, but has been ramped up, way up, since all of this began. Throughout the trial we mistakenly referred to the land surrounding Ajo as a military range, a wilderness, a Border Patrol area of responsibility. But it’s O’odham land. All of it. And now, a new 30 foot high wall threatens further dispossession of native people and the destruction of this important and beautiful landscape.

Let’s all take a deep breath, get some rest, and be ready for—and open to— whatever comes next.”

Geena Jackson, long term desert aid volunteer:

“My name is Geena Jackson and I am a volunteer with No More Deaths. 

Today the defense attorneys said in closing arguments that despite varying moralities in our current society, we have one thing in common, and that is the law. But this community, in Southern Arizona, and in every community along any border, we know that we have much more in common. We have our humanity, and no law or border can touch that. We have been saying for years that humanitarian aid is never a crime, and today 12 jurors agreed. But today I also want to remember that just being human is never a crime. They can try to regulate our communities, our movement, our communication, and our humanity, but we will resist. We can never stop caring for each other, and as living, loving beings in this desert we can never stop sharing water, food and our homes. 

Scott was accused repeatedly of providing orientation to those who needed it. In court Greg Kuykendall said, “It is a human right to know where you are.” In these borderlands communities, we know where we are. We live near a border, along the lines that the state uses to determine citizenship, to define whether or not you belong. Global migration patterns are going to intensify. The climate crisis will lead to more and more displaced families. This wall being built on stolen land is not just an attempt to stop those currently walking in the desert, it is being built to try and stop the thousands who are coming seeking refuge. Now is a moment for orientation. Know where you are, and give orientation to those who don’t. Know who you are, and how you will respond, and never let any government or law challenge that. In our communities, we know where we are, and we are so much deeper than any border can define. We know what resilient people and communities look like. 

I want to hold space now for the entities that this courthouse has violated. Jose and Kristian, the two people arrested with Scott, have been talked about for weeks, their intentions and actions have been deliberated over and over again. Pictures of their faces and their bodies have been flashed in this courthouse over and over again. And that was wrong. I want to take a moment to honor that a smiling selfie during an incredible journey to tell your loved ones you are ok, is a powerful and beautiful act of resiliency and comfort. Jose and Kristian’s actions and pictures do not belong anywhere near a courtroom. I want to take a moment of silence for these two men wherever they are today. 

I also want to take a moment to honor this desert. Being in that courtroom I heard our home referred to as a vast nothingness over and over again. But this desert is full. It holds the lives and loves of our communities. It holds the spirits of the thousands of disappeared. It holds plants and creatures that thrive on just enough rain. This desert has taken the beating of border militarization and wall construction and remains powerful, despite what any human hands try to do. 

This battle has been long and exhausting. I resent that we ever had to fight this battle in the first place. But through it all, we never stopped providing humanitarian aid. We thank all of our supporters far and wide who have followed this trial and who have taken actions big and small to help us get through to today.  We hear you and see you and we know we are not alone. We know that there are communities all over the country, indeed all over the world, that are organizing in their own homes, schools, and churches.. Thank you for continuing to put water in the desert, for searching for the lost and the missing, thank you for welcoming in those who needed a rest.

Thank you to those who never stopped fighting deportations, trying to prevent anyone from ever having to make this journey in the first place. This battle has been long, and there are so many greater battles yet to come, but let’s take today and just celebrate that we won.”