Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez

TRIP TO THE BORDER: Blog #5

BorderLinks Delegation:   Tucson to Nogales and Back

Participants: Anne-Marie Patrie, John Schneider, Steve Goering, Susan Ortman Goering,

March 11-14, 2013

The Second Day                                                                                         

Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez    

Submitted by Anne-Marie Patrie                                                            Sent: March 29

You probably haven’t heard of Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez.  Our government agents aimed through the border fence into Mexico and shot and killed him.

 

Here is his picture:

Here’s the story:

Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez was a 16 year old Mexican boy who was shot and killed by US Border Patrol Agents.   They shot him in a populated area of Nogales, Mexico, THROUGH the border fence, multiple times, with all but one of the bullets all entering his back.  Many more bullets were fired, some lodging in the building that houses a medical office and the residence for a doctor –yes, he was home surfing the Internet when the shootings occurred.    This happened in October of 2012, and the investigation by US Border Patrol is not yet complete.  There are video images of the fence and the circumstances that led to his killing, since this is a heavily patrolled and monitored area.  Yet these 4 ½ months later, there is no report. 

The story so far is that drug packages were brought over the fence by 2 men who climbed the fence.  As US Border Patrol moved in, the men dropped their drug packages and climbed back over the fence to Mexico.  At this point, with Border Patrol moving to apprehend the climbers, rocks were thrown over the fence, from Mexico, to repel the Border Patrol.  Border Patrol says that this is a common occurrence –drug traffickers hire anyone (or people are forced by drug traffickers, we don’t know) to throw rocks to distract Border Patrol.

Border Patrol considers rocks a deadly weapon, and in all honesty, in the right circumstances, they can be deadly.  The arrangement of the fence and landscape at the location of the shooting makes it extremely unlikely that the rocks could hit anything very far on the other side of the fence; the accuracy and force would be very limited.  At the site of the shooting, the border fence runs along a bluff, the street is 25 feet below the bottom of the fence; the fence itself is about 18 feet tall.  IF Jose Antonio was throwing rocks, he was throwing them over a vertical height of over 43 feet.   Imagine yourself trying to throw a rock over this high of a barrier – it would be all you could do just to get it to the vertical distance, and impossible to also have any significant horizontal distance. 

Day 4 - Desert ICE

TRIP TO THE BORDER:   Day 4 -  ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)        

BorderLinks Delegation

Participants:  Steve Goering, Susan Ortman Goering, John Schneider, Anne-Marie Patrie

March 11-14, 2013                                                                            

ICE

Our last presentation was from an ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agent.  Rick Crocker acknowledged that he was apprehensive about meeting with us.  He has worked for the Department of Homeland Security since it began in 2001.  He said nobody likes what he does.  Some feel he (ICE) should be doing more, ridding the US of all persons here without papers.  Some feel he (ICE) is cruel and heartless, going after the wrong people. 

He emphasized that HSI works primarily to protect our borders and eliminate crimes including customs fraud, child exploitation, human trafficking/slavery and smuggling – humans/drugs/weapons/currency.  In his current position, he works with the seven ports of entry in Arizona.  Primary concerns in Arizona are inbound drugs and human smuggling and outbound weapons and currency smuggling.  More drugs come into the US through Arizona ports than any others. 

Crocker stressed the violence of the drug cartels and the violence directed at the migrants (he called them illegal aliens).   “These are not nice people,” he said repeatedly.   He wanted to emphasize that part of his work: eliminating the cartels, the drug, human, and weapons trafficking, etc.

He seemed to have sympathy for the migrants, emphasizing that they are extremely vulnerable,  at the mercy of the coyotes every step of the way.  Sometimes they are abandoned in the desert; anyone who can’t keep up is simply left behind.   He also showed pictures of migrants stacked like cordwood in a drop house in Phoenix.  The migrants told stories of paying thousands of dollars to get across the border.  They were then held in the drop house while their captors called family members and attempted to extort additional money.  “If you don’t send another $3,000, we’ll beat your brother.”  And then they would proceed to do just that, beat him so the family members could hear his screams.     With women migrants, the scenario changed to rape; women, he said, expect to be raped, sometimes repeatedly. 

Grupos Beta and the Wall

Day 3, Grupos Beta and the Wall

TRIP TO THE BORDER

BorderLinks Delegation

Participants:  Steve Goering, Susan Ortman Goering, John Schneider, Anne-Marie Patrie

March 13, 2013

By: Susan

Grupos Beta.

Just before returning to the US, we spent an hour or so at Grupos Beta.  Employees, supported by the Mexican government, go into the desert on the Mexican side and offer food, water and medical aid to migrants and recent deportees.  They also offer the same to recent deportees.  Beta also allows other organizations such as Kino Border Initiative (see yesterday’s blog) and No More Deaths to come to Beta’s location and offer services.  We saw them handing out compasses and offering safe phone calls home.  Migrants are vulnerable, taken advantage of easily.  One common scam is to offer to let a migrant call family somewhere, either in the US or back home.  Then, when the migrant hands the phone back, the phone’s owner accesses the number just called and makes another phone call to the family to extort money from them.  So, being able to make a safe call to let family know about location and status is extremely helpful to a migrant.

The courtyard was full of migrants.  Many of those present had tried to cross and had been deported.  Some were hoping to make their first attempt soon.  Most were young.  Most were extremely unprepared for the journey ahead.

We divided into small groups with several of us, an interpreter from our group, and a migrant.  Our small group of 3 talked to a young man, I’ll call Juan.   Amazingly, I had seen Juan the day before when we met with West from Kino.  We waited in the van for West to arrive, within sight of the border crossing where most of the big trucks cross with produce and other goods for the US.   Juan had come walking down the hill from the border crossing; I picked him out as a migrant.  He was wearing a backpack and had a bundle wrapped in a black garbage bag.  He waited around the corner and then came into Kino to eat.

Juan was 17, from southern Mexico.  He had ridden the trains north, a dangerous undertaking in itself as people fall off the trains and are injured or killed.  Sometimes they are beaten and robbed.  Juan talked about how cold it was at night, how the cold went right through his jacket and sweatshirt and shirt.  His plan was to go over the fence with a friend and cross at night.  While the fence looks formidable to me, apparently, scaling the fence is not uncommon.  He had a friend in Tucson.  He showed us the phone number on a scrap of paper in his pocket.  He hoped to get a job in a nursery or working on a farm.  He asked how long it took to get to Tucson.  We said an hour by car, but several days walking.  His face fell, but he was still determined.  He had no guide through the desert, no money, no food or water.  “Perhaps tonight, perhaps tomorrow night,” he said.

Days 2-3 HEPAC

TRIP TO THE BORDER:  Part of the Solution

BorderLinks Delegation:   Tucson to Nogales and Back

Participants:  Steve Goering, Susan Ortman Goering, John Schneider,  Anne-Marie Patrie

March 11-14, 2013

HEPAC, South of the Border.  Part of the Solution. March 12-13.                                                

By: Steve

The HEPAC Community Center.  As noted earlier, our Borderlinks delegation stayed at the HEPAC Community Center for the evening of March 12.  HEPAC is an acronym for Hogar de Esperanza y Paz (Home of Hope and Peace).  The activities and the life there are at least part of the answer to the continuing migration challenge.  HEPAC brings justice and reasonable living conditions to the people of neighborhoods in Nogales near the HEPAC Center.

Hogar de Esperanza y Paz Entrance

The Center itself is comfortable, though basic in its amenities, i.e. composting toilets, etc..  It consists of meeting rooms, a dining hall/kitchen, playground and overnight facilities.   Pictures of HEPAC are shared below.   

The areas surrounding HEPAC developed as squatter neighborhoods when people came to Nogales to work in mequiladoras.  As such, electricity and full water/sewer service in these neighborhoods is a patchwork. At least 30 families must organize in any one neighborhood/hill area in order to be serviced with electricity, etc..   Mequiladora is the Mexican name for manufacturing operations in a free-trade zone near the borders, where factories import material and equipment on a duty-free and tariff-free basis for assembly, processing, or manufacturing.  The resulting products are then exported to the point of sale.  the first mequiladoras began in the 1960s and now flourish even more than they did initially, since the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed in the mid-1990s.  As noted in an earlier post NATFA enabled subsidized corn from the United States to enter Mexico, and this undercut Mexican corn farmers.  Nearly 3 1/2 million farmers were displaced as a result and the migration to work near the border and in the United States increased dramatically.  Workers at the mequiladoras work long hours and both parents normally must work for the families to meet minimal expenses.  The typical mequiladora salary is $5.00/day (yes, $35 for the week) for a

The Undocumented - Documentary - PBS - April 29th

On our recent visit to Mexico and Arizona we walked some of the desert trails used by migrants

coming into the United States.  We saw several markers for the unknown dead who died of exposure or injury as the crossed the desert.  Remarkably these markers were within sight of several homes.  It must be incredible fear that stops people on deaths door from knocking on a door.  Steve tells or our desert journey in his blog post.

Migrant bodies in morgue waiting for identification
Frame from documentary

The Undocumented is a documentary that describes the challenges and impacts of the desert crossing for migrants.   The documentary will premiere on PBS on April 29th - check your local PBS listings at this site.

IMDB describes the documentary as:

"THE UNDOCUMENTED investigates the deaths of undocumented migrants in the Arizona desert and the efforts to return their remains to families in Mexico. Woven from multiple narrative threads the film depicts the efforts of Tucson's medical examiner and Mexican Consulate to name unidentified dead migrants. It follows Border Patrol agents who are challenged to balance law enforcement with lifesaving. In Mexico, the film captures the reunification of the dead with their families, and documents families whose loved ones left home to cross, never to be heard from again. These characters provide an intimate view of the border and migrant deaths, expressing a wide range of opinions on border policy and illegal immigration. The one thing they agree on is that migrant deaths must end."

The link below is the documentary's website.   Be warned that the trailer on this site includes some gruesome images of death in the desert.   See the site here.

Border Patrol Accountability

Today NPR ran a story on the death of Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez as an example of the confusing and disconcerting actions of our Border Patrol.  Anne-Marie wrote a blog post regarding this very event a few days ago which you can check out here.

Here is John and Anne-Marie's comment to the story that is posted on the NPR website.
"I'm a US citizen. In March I visited the site of Jose Antonio's death, we saw the stray bullet holes outlined in red on the medical office building that he was next to when he died. The sidewalk where he died is 23, very steep, vertical feet below the bottom of the fence and is across a wide street. He was standing about 150 feet from the border fence when he was shot. Our Border Patrol shot a kid, multiple times, while he stood a good distance away in a foreign country. Has the US declared war on Mexico? It seems that the ever growing militarization of this border and our Border Patrol's unwillingness to provide a transparent review is a clear measure of our Nation's fear, uncertainty, and embarrassment over these issues."

Location:  The shooting occurred at this location on Google Maps:  http://goo.gl/maps/ofOuc.  Jose Antonio died near the grated window under the sign saying Emergencias Medicas.  I saw several bullet holes in the wall around the grated window.  If you scan on Google to the other side of the street you will see the old wall.  This wall was replaced in about 2010.  The new fence type the Border Patrol Agent shot his weapon through is called a Bollard Fence.  If you Google Bollard Fence Nogales you will see multiple images of this type of fence."

Here is Steve's comment to the story as posted on the NPR website:
"This shooting is an abuse of power and plausibly criminal in nature. I have been to this site. The geography is such that there is no way that an unarmed 16 year old boy could be of any threat to border patrol personnel on the Arizona side. Most border patrol personnel are good people and seek to do their jobs responsibly. However, when abuse of power is apparent, our government should hold accountable those responsible and do that with transparency and honesty. To not do so sends the message that America does not value humanity in Mexico, and in other countries, the same as our own."

And Susan's:
"I'm so happy to see this NPR coverage of a story that has been largely absent from the news here. I have been to the site in Nogales, Sonora. Nobody could throw a rock from that location that would pose any sort of threat to border patrol; the fence is too high, too far from the street. Even if Jose Antonio was a rock thrower, and I don't think this is certain, shooting at him was absolutely excessive force. Was it border patrol or Mexican drug lords who shot him? Well, I don't hear any denials from Border Patrol. If they hadn't done it, they would be quick to say that. It is shameful that border patrol members would shoot someone across the border. If a Mexican law enforcement agent shot across the border and killed an American, you can bet that the investigation would be swift and noisy, and not like this 6 month silence."

See or listen to the NPR story here.

Wait of a Lifetime

After Christmas my family was stuck in traffic for an hour heading to the airport.  The entire freeway was being detoured through a single stoplight on a neighborhood street.   This would not do, my daughter needed to be dropped off and we were going to be late!  In the morning she needed to be at school and she was going to miss her flight!   We didn't expect that the intersection at I-70 and I-270 was closed - it's always open.   People were joking and laughing at us as they drove by on the frontage road not 30 yards away.   Who do they think they are?   I set my phasers to calm and had to shoot myself  twice to begin easing the tension in the car.   Road rage narrowly averted.  We later found out that a truck had hit a bridge and traffic was detoured for out own safety.  The bridge never did fall.  I think we were going to be okay.

This 60 minutes really strung my family out.   When was your last 60 minute wait?  Can you imagine a wait of more than 20 years?  My daughter is turning 20 next month and she would consider that a lifetime.   The image on the right shows waiting times for US work visas with waits up to 24 years for some countries - 24 years.  Twenty four years is a really long time.  

Other blog posts and the US Immigration Process page on this site talk about the long lines to get an work visa to the US.  An April 10th article in US News/NBC online describes these long visa waiting lists with some cool infographics.   The full article on the obstacle course of immigration is here.

Tucson to Nogales and Back

TRIP TO THE BORDER

BorderLinks Delegation:   Tucson to Nogales and Back

Participants:  Steve Goering, Susan Ortman Goering, John Schneider,  Anne-Marie Patrie

March 11-14, 2013

March 12. Nogales South of the Border                                                          

The Iniciativa Kino para la Frontera (The Kino Border Initiatives).

By: Susan and Steve

Crossing the Border.  The auto trip south from Tucson to Nogales is only about 70 miles and 1 ¼ hours.  Walking the desert would be a whole different story.  Nogales, AZ, U.S., has a population of about 21,000; Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, is approximately 10 times that size, or about 220,000 as of 2010.  Nogales has four primary border crossing points and has the largest port of entry along the Arizona border. Billions of dollars of agricultural produce and manufactured products pass through these ports of entry each year. The Nogales area, east and west along the border, is also an important drug trafficking area from Mexico to the U.S. Drug cartels are ruthless criminals and a threat both to men and women seeking to come to the United States and also to persons in the United States. More about that later in our reports of conversations with ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

First glimpse of the Border Wall

As we approached the border, we were advised to put away all cameras, etc.  The “Wall” identifying the border is imposing in its own right and pictured below. John will speak more about “The Wall” in the next two days. Our Borderlinks delegation easily passed through the border crossing into Mexico.  There is seldom an issue going south.  It is only going north into the United States where vehicles are searched, and passports checked, especially if one or more passengers are Latino. Tito, one of our two delegation leaders, and an Associate Pastor at a Presbyterian Church in Nogales, drove our van through the unfamiliar web of Nogales streets.  We were glad he was driving as traffic was heavy with cars and vans merging lanes in active ways!  We arrived at HEPAC, sister organization to BorderLinks, where we were to stay for the night, got situated and then headed to the Iniciativa Kino para la Frontera.

Crossing into Sonora, Mexico

The Iniciativa Kino para la Frontera (The Kino Border Initiatives).

Letters to Congress

Tuesday afternoon, April 2.

Fort Collins and Boulder.

Blog #6, Letters to Congress

Dear Friends,

Attached please find immigration letters sent to our congressional representatives.  John is the primary author here.  This is a critical time to contact Representatives and Senators as immigration reform  is being drafted in the moment.  If you do not have a time to write, please give them a call and visit with the staff person on immigration. They need to hear voices.  We want to encourage them not just to do reform, but to do reform with moral basis. Any immigration reform must carry a sense of dignity and respect for immigrant peoples.

The letters can be found at these links:

Letter to Colorado Senator Bennet

Letter to Colorado Senator Udall
     Udall Reply

Letter to Colorado Congressman Polis

Letter to Senator Bennet with specific Immigration Reform proposals

Peace to all

Steve and/for (John, Anne-Marie, and Susan OG.)

A Path to Work

Rogaciano is 19 years old.  His family is living in the village of Revolucion in southern Mexico.  He speaks a native dialect and only knows the little Spanish he learned attending school through 4^th grade.  Rogaciano said his family are poor farmers.   He said his parents have done everything for him and he has a responsibility to take care of them.  His brother left home several years ago and sends money home to his parents.   He believes his brother lives in New York.  He is traveling with 2 friends about the same age.  We met him in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico.  In his village, he says, there is not enough work for him to find a job.  These three were planning to cross the U.S. Border fence in the next couple days to find work.   He says all the young men in his village have either left to for the US or are planning to leave.  Rogaciano planned on finding his way to New York.

No photos were allowed at Grupos Beta.
I snuck one of their truck.

We met him at Grupos Beta.  Grupos Beta is a Mexican Federal Agency that provides advice for those newly deported or planning a crossing.  

These 3 boys looked fit, as 19 year olds do, and were about to go on a major expedition.   Although Rogaciano was a quiet sort it seemed these boys were excited for this adventure.  

These guys ought to be excited - they had one of the big journeys of their life ahead.

What stands in their way? 

Why don’t they just get a visa?

A tourist visa to the U.S.

There are a couple types of visas that are possible.  Unfortunately they are out of reach for the Mexican poor.  One is a tourist visa.  To get a tourist visa you must demonstrate that you have $5,000 to $10,000 on deposit in a Mexican bank.   You could get a H2B service worker visa.  That is possible, but they are few and you need to be fortunate enough that you have an employer sponsor in the U.S.  If you have a immediate family member who is a U.S. citizen you can apply for a work permit.  Remarkably the waiting list for these work permits is over 20 years long.  Other than that you need to be wealthy, have special skills, or be famous.   The visa avenue is never going to cut it for the poor in Mexico. 

No Visa?  You’ve got to cross the wall.

Supplies:  These boys were about to walk 70 or more miles across the desert.  They each had a small backpack which held a jacket and a couple cans of food.  They were planning on bringing 2 gallons of water each.  These boys seemed to have sturdy shoes but we saw others who were wearing street and tennis shoes.  Other than that they had the clothes on their back and each had a baseball cap.   They expected to walk continuously, day and night, for at least 3 days.  He said they want to be able to move fast.  They had no compass or map. Would REI be satisfied with this plan?   How does this stack up to supplies you might take on just a 1 day hike?

Borderlinks Slide Show

Click on the link and see a slide show from our Borderlinks Experience of March 11-14, 2013

The wall

Borderlink Slide Show  When you get in click Slideshow at top right

Nature's border patrol

The Desert

TRIP TO THE BORDER

BorderLinks Delegation:   Tucson to Nogales and Back

Participants:  Steve Goering, Susan Ortman Goering, John Schneider,  Anne-Marie Patrie

March 11-14, 2013

The Second Day                                                                                                      By: Steve

The Desert Walk: A Time for Prayerful Reflection                                         Sent: Mar 27, 2013

The morning came early on the second day. We hustled from our overnight quarters and joined our group for breakfast.  Conversations began early with scripture and meditation.  Tito, one of our two leaders who lives in Nogales and Nick from St. Cloud read scripture from Isaiah that spoke to desert images. The images of dryness, of the desolate and that of water.  These were hints of our experience of the morning –the Desert Walk. 

We loaded into the 15 person van and headed south towards the border; however the Desert Walk was much closer to Tucson than anticipated.  Somehow, I expected the walk to be in a completely isolated, desolate region.  Yes, it was desert, but we could see nearby houses, exactly as some migrants experience it.  There was an amazing variety of cacti; one was fluffy looking (the jumping cholla) with brutal stickers that would go right through a normal non-leather walking shoe.  We needed combs to pull them out. Make no mistake; this was true desert. Brutal in summer and winter. In summer, the ground surface temperatures can rise to 165 °F. In winter, temperatures drop well below freezing.  As migrants traverse these paths, they have no cover, often bad shoes, limited water and food.  They are driven by hope. So they continue to try. We have no way really to imagine their decision.  We are privileged; we literally cannot walk in their shoes and their experience. Leaving all behind.  Everything. And still deciding to go.

Ed Lord of the Green Valley Samaritans led our desert walk.  The Green Valley Samaritans are people of faith and/or conscience who believe that providing aid to people in desert distress is witness to the fundamental value of human life. They drive the desert, leaving water and picking up migrants who have been left to die by their coyotes. They serve the belief that there should be no more desert deaths. Deaths do happen here.  Our friends living in Tucson noted that 30-40 deaths per year still occur on the large Tohono O’dham Indian Reservation west of Tucson.  That number is multiplied many times over the long border regions.  Several thousand have died over the years.

The actual desert walk terrain was harsh as is presented in the attached pictures. It was probably about 85 °F that day; it felt hot but was 30 degrees cooler than on summer days. We were advised to be sure to take adequate water. Migrants, walking 40 miles in this terrain try to carry a minimum of 2 gallons of water, but they often run out.  We walked about 1 ½ miles on this Tuesday morning.  We wondered how far one could walk in a normal day given that the border is a good 40 miles from Tucson or alternately I-10.  We guessed that even if one could average 15 miles per day in a straight line, one here would only manage northern progress of 5-10 miles per day.

Dreamers

TRIP TO THE BORDER Blog #3

BorderLinks Delegation:   Tucson to Nogales and Back

Participants:  Steve Goering, Susan Ortman Goering, John Schneider, Anne-Marie Patrie

March 11-14, 2013

The End of a Long Day One.

Scholarship A-Z

March 22, 2013

Susan

Background.

In the early evening of the 1^st day, we met with three young undocumented youth, David, Louisa, and Maria (we have changed their names). They are part of the group now referred to as “The Dreamers.” They are unauthorized immigrants who were brought here by their parents when they were children.  They have lived in the United States most of their lives; this is their home and yet they have no legal status. They also do not have meaningful homes in their country of birth since they have not lived there for many years.  In some cases, they are not even fluent in Spanish.

The Dreamers live in a sort of limbo, always fearful that they or their parents will be picked up for some reason and deported. Once they graduate from high school, most are unable to go to college.  Prop 300, signed in 2006 in Arizona, made them ineligible for the financial aid most college students depend on. Since they do not have legal residency, they cannot obtain a green card and cannot get a job. They have no future as compared to those of us who were born into privilege.   

The Dream Act, as Federal legislation, was first proposed in the Senate in 2001 and has been reintroduced several times since then. The last proposed legislation was in 2011-2012 legislative session. The Dream act would have provided 360,000-400,000 undocumented youth of good moral character and who are in school with the legal means to work, attend college, and eventually become citizens if they met specific criteria. However, it did not pass the Senate.  

In June 2012, President Obama, by Executive Order, initiated DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. DACA is not a path to citizenship, but does provide qualifying young people with temporary relief from deportation and work permits for a two year period.  In Arizona, Governor Jan Brewer issued an executive order preventing the state of Arizona from issuing driver’s licenses and public benefits to young illegal immigrants who receive deferred status and work authorization under the new program. In addition to driving privileges, Governor Brewer’s order bars illegal immigrants who qualify for deferred action from receiving state-subsidized child care, health insurance, unemployment benefits, business and professional licenses, and government contracts.

The undocumented youth we spoke to via Borderlinks started a program called Scholarship A-Z which was founded in 2009.  It provides support and resources to the many young people who are unable to become citizens.  Scholarship A-Z does networking and fundraising, and also helps young people apply for those college scholarships that are available to the undocumented.  Scholarship A-Z has helped 900 students go to college and has lobbied for in-state tuition for students who fall under DACA.  Recently, the Pima County Community College has agreed that undocumented students will be charged resident tuition which was a major victory for these young people. They have taken major risk to publically advocate for these changes – that risk being to be vulnerable to deportation.

The Law and Operation Streamline

TRIP TO THE BORDER                                                             By:  Susan

Day 1 , March 11                                                                           Sent: 3/22/2013

We arrived in the BorderLinks office in Tucson just before noon on March 12 after a very early flight.  (We left the house at 5:30 – too early for people our age!!)  We were in time for lunch.  BorderLinks staff members take turns cooking for the delegations.  Food was vegetarian, interesting, plentiful, and delicious!   

Old Immigration cartoon shared at beginning of Borderlinks experience

A Brief Introduction to Immigration Law.

 

We caught the last half of an immigration lawyer’s presentation outlining immigration law.  Immigration law is complex and sorely in need of reform.  We learned the following:

--The US Immigration Department is years behind in processing visa applications for persons wishing to come to the US from Mexico or Central America.  They are currently processing applications submitted in 1993.  Thus, an application made now might not be processed for twenty years.

--There are complex systems for getting priority points for obtaining a visa.  It depends on whether you are married or single, have immediate family members who are US citizens, etc.

--If you have entered the US not legally and wish to obtain legal status, then you must return to Mexico and apply for a legal visa.  However, there is a ten year bar before you can even re-apply (and then face a potential waiting period of twenty more years).

--Federal executive orders have been issued that ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) should focus on criminal, and not non-documented migrants who have been lawful.  However, the non-documented are always at risk of being picked up via a traffic violation or something similar.

--Committing a crime can be grounds for deportation, but these are prosecuted at the discretion of the prosecuting attorneys.  In the case of a minor offense, the prosecuting attorney may or may not deport.

--An immigration industrial complex has developed.  This includes construction/maintenance of the wall, highly increased border patrols, migrant lawyers, US Marshalls, detention centers and prisons. 

--The system is intimidating.  It is difficult for the average person to grasp and even more difficult to vision what immigration reform should look like.

--A visual picture of these complexities is shown at the following link from Time Magazine, June 2012.

http://ideas.time.com/2012/06/14/so-you-want-to-be-an-american/  

Operation Streamline.

After lunch we walked to the Courthouse to observe Operation Streamline.  Operation Streamline is an initiative of the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice begun in 2005 in Texas and 2008 in Tucson with the intention of establishing “zero-tolerance” immigration enforcement zones

along the U.S.-Mexico border.  Under Operation Streamline, unauthorized migrants face criminal

prosecution and potential prison sentences in addition to formal deportation and removal from the

United States.  Previously, illegal entry was

Our Trip to the Border

TRIP TO THE BORDER

BorderLinks Delegation:   Tucson to Nogales and Back

Participants:  Steve Goering, Susan Ortman Goering, John Schneider,  Anne-Marie Patrie

March 11-14, 2013

March 22, 2013

Susan

Background

Our daughter, Katrina is in Mennonite Voluntary Service, serving at BorderLinks in Tucson. We have been aware of immigration issues and the need for immigration reform for some time now, particularly related to immigrants from Mexico and Central America.  However, it is Katrina’s involvement that pushed us to go on a delegation and learn more.

A second motivation is simply the desire to be peace and justice makers related to our faith. It is about “following Jesus” day to day which is integral to our inward/outward faith journey.  We have done this kind of experiential travel in the past, to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.  Each time it has changed us and opened our world to new ideas and understandings.  It has changed our life stories and how we live. John and Anne-Marie have traveled more extensively than we have and have also been shaped by those experiences.  Together we now share our reflections; we also will be open to personal conversations with anyone(!) and hope to share our perspectives with state and national legislators.   

BorderLinks has been around for about twenty-five years  and grew out of the Sanctuary Movement for Central American refugees in the late 1980s; its mission includes experiential educational delegations. Delegations are immersed in border and immigration issues; staff design an itinerary suited for each delegation, considering their specific needs and wishes. Delegations interact with undocumented persons, representatives of Customs and Immigration Enforcement, lawyers involved in immigration issues, public defenders, and a variety of agencies and individuals that assist migrants in different ways.  Delegations may also choose to go into Mexico, experience the wall on the border, and walk in the desert to see the places where bodies have been found. Delegations hear the actual human stories of those involved on all sides of the issue. Visit their website for information about delegations, and their other programs and mission.   (www.BorderLinks.org)

In order for a delegation to be financially viable, it must include 7 people.  Steve and I, and our good friends John and Anne-Marie from Louisville were able to join another small delegation.  We thoroughly enjoyed getting to know a group of five 18-22 year old students and their leader, all from the Newman Center at the University of St. Cloud, St. Cloud, MN.   They dubbed themselves the “less mature” segment of the delegation.  We took on the designation of “more mature” or “life-long learners.”  Sigh. Together we created a wonderful group of newer and longer life learners.     

Please check out the BorderLinks website for more information about this grassroots organization, and consider developing or joining a delegation.  Read our daily blogs to follow to get a taste of our experiences.   (www.BorderLinks.org)

© Susan Ortman Goering

March 23, 2013