Humanitarian aid and the production of spatial knowledge and practices in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands

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Content HUMANITARIAN AID AND THE PRODUCTION OF SPATIAL KNOWLEDGE AND
PRACTICES IN THE U.S.MEXICO BORDERLANDS
by
Andrew Burridge
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(GEOGRAPHY)
December 2009
Copyright 2009   Andrew Burridge
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
Since moving to the U.S. from Australia in 2004 I have found an incredible base of
support and friendship over the past five or so years. The Department of Geography at the
University of Southern California (USC) has provided invaluable support throughout my
doctorate research. Professor Michael Dear, my primary advisor, has guided me to this
point with significant care, and deserves the most thanks here. Professors Laura Pulido
and Josh Kun also deserve special thanks, serving not only as my committee members,
but as mentors throughout my time at USC. Further thanks go to Professors Jennifer
Wolch, Ruthie Gilmore, and Greg Hise, who have provided significant guidance since I
began at USC. Thanks also to Jason Byrne and Christina Li for their introduction to Los
Angeles and the department and ongoing support. Alongside the faculty and graduate
student body within the Department of Geography, additional thanks goes to Billie
Shotlow, who for good reason is thanked by every student graduating from the
department. Without Billie we would all be lost. During my research, I was lucky enough
to receive a fellowship from the Urban Initiatives program at USC. Over the two years of
this fellowship Richard Parks, Estela Bensimon, and the late Madeline Stoner provided
significant support.
The focus of this research has been predominantly upon the work of several humanitarian
aid groups based in Tucson, Arizona. Exceptional thanks goes to the dedicated volunteers
ii
of No More Deaths, Samaritans, and Humane Borders, all of which welcomed me and
provided significant time, information, and support while conducting research and
volunteering. This includes also those in Douglas, Agua Prieta, and Nogales, working
with various migrant rights organizations that collaborate with those groups based in
Tucson. While there are many longterm volunteers involved with these groups, many of
which I developed friendships with, there are several who deserve special thanks. Geoff
Boyce and Sarah Launius who provided accommodation for two consecutive summers of
fieldwork and volunteering must be mentioned here. This research owes a great deal to
the many conversations that took place with them over this time, as well as their feedback
on this research. Danielle Alvarado, who was the coordinator for No More Deaths during
my time of fieldwork also provided invaluable information and support. Thanks goes also
to Gene Lefebvre, Dan Millis, and Ed McCullough who taught me many skills while
hiking throughout the Sonoran desert. At the University of Arizona, Dereka Rushbrook in
the Department of Geography, and Kraig Beyerlein in the Department of Sociology, also
provided valuable insights to my work and ethnographic methods.
A great deal of thanks also to Jenna Loyd, who has been a great friend and research
partner over the past several years, and has pushed me to think critically about many
connections I would have otherwise never recognized. Professor Ruth Fincher at the
University of Melbourne has provided ongoing support, and was the person who told me
it was possible to research at the graduate level. Finally, thanks must go to those who
iii
supported me outside of my research. To all those who have lived and stayed in the
various incarnations of the ‘AHouse’ including Matt, Morgan, Megan and Luz, my
family in Australia, and most especially to Jake Peters, I owe the greatest thanks.
iv
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ii
List of Figures x
Abbreviations xii
Abstract xiii
Chapter 1: “Humanitarian Aid is Never a Crime”: Providing Water
and Solidarity in the Sonoran Desert 1
1.1 Research objectives and plan 4
1.2 Why southern Arizona and the Tucson sector? 10
1.3 The role of humanitarian aid in the Tucson sector 22
1.4 Criminalization of immigration and humanitarian aid 26
1.5 Anticipated findings and significance 30
Chapter 2: Critical Responses to Militarization and Deaths in the
U.S.Mexico Borderlands 33
2.1 The geography of militarization and deaths within the
U.S.Mexico borderlands 34
2.2 Open borders and freedom of movement 42
2.3. Humanitarian aid in the U.S.Mexico borderlands 50
2.4 Summary 63
Chapter 3: Researching DirectAid Humanitarianism in the Space
of the Borderlands 67
3.1 Conceptual model 67
3.2 Periodization 74
3.3 Border militarization as structural violence 78
3.4 Militarization and criminalization: creating spaces of
exclusion, denial, and containment 80
3.5 New faces of immigration enforcement in support of the
DHS and USBP 84
3.6 Spatial outcomes: producing practices and spaces of resistance 90
3.7 Geographies of solidarity 93
3.8 Direct action as spatial practice 95
3.8.1 A working definition of direct action 96
v
3.8.2 Direct action as spatial and contextual 97
3.9 Critical engagement and positionality 99
3.10 Data sources and method 106
3.10.1 Field work and photography 106
3.10.2 Document analysis 108
3.10.3 Mapping 109
3.10.4 Media analysis 111
3.10.5 Ethnography 112
Chapter 4: Contemporary Practices and Spaces of Aid in
Southern Arizona 116
4.1 Immigrant rights organizing and the Sanctuary movement in
Tucson, Arizona 118
4.1.1 The Sanctuary movement 119
4.1.2 Civil Initiative 123
4.1.3 The continuing influence of Sanctuary 124
4.2 ‘Communities in resistance’: Humane Borders, Samaritans,
and No More Deaths 127
4.2.1 Humane Borders/Fronteras Compasivas 127
4.2.2 Samaritans/Los Samaritanos 131
4.2.3 No More Deaths/No Más Muertes 133
4.2.4 Sites of operation and varying roles of directaid groups 137
4.2.5 Volunteer makeup and diversity within directaid
  humanitarianism 139
4.3 The township of Arivaca 142
4.3.1 Humanitarian aid in the town of Arivaca 146
4.4 “Humanitarian Aid is Never a Crime”: criminalizing
directaid provision 148
4.5 Practices of mapping as spatial knowledge 157
4.5.1 Humane Borders – mapping migrant deaths in the borderlands 158
4.5.2 Distributing warning maps in Mexico and creating controversy
  in the United States 160
4.5.3 No More Deaths – mapping migrant trails and corridors 163
4.5.4 Labor and the production of spatial knowledge 171
4.5.5 Contested knowledges 173
4.6 Summary 175
Chapter 5: The Strategic Space of Buenos Aires National Wildlife
Refuge in Providing Humanitarian Aid 177
5.1 Buenos Aires as a space of flows 180
5.2 Violence and closure of space 185
5.3 Land management and local law enforcement collaboration with
USBP: militarizing wildlife refuge space in southern Arizona 190
vi
5.4 Provision of humanitarian aid on the Refuge 199
5.5 Ticketing humanitarian aid workers for littering 207
5.6 Altered practices in the spatial operation of humanitarian aid 218
Chapter 6: Differential Criminalization Under Operation Streamline:
Constraining Freedom of Movement and Humanitarian
Aid Provision 222
6.1 Applying Operation Streamline within the Tucson sector 222
6.2 Operation Streamline in the courthouse 225
6.3 Creating demand for immigrant detention and the growth of the
prison industrial complex 236
6.4 The impacts of Operation Streamline outside of the courthouse 240
6.5 Responding to Operation Streamline as a practice of structural
violence 248
6.6 Summary 263
Chapter 7: Responding to Deaths in the Desert: The U.S. Border Patrol
and the Trope of Humanitarianism 265
7.1 The USBP as humanitarian organization 267
7.2 Humanitarian policies implemented by the USBP in the
Tucson sector 271
7.2.1 The Border Safety Initiative and BORSTAR 271
7.2.2 The Arizona Border Control Initiative 277
7.2.3 Operation Desert Safeguard 279
7.2.4 Placing 911 capability on surveillance towers 281
7.3 USBP press releases: deploying humanitarian discourse
in the media 284
7.4 Extraterritorial practices: interior repatriation and lateral
repatriation 289
7.5 Citizen border patrols and the adoption of humanitarianism 294
7.5.1 Citizen border patrols within the Altar Valley 295
7.5.2 Sabotage of humanitarian aid by civilian border patrols 301
7.6 USBP and private companies as a barrier to humanitarian aid:
counterresponses from directaid groups 305
7.6.1 Douglas and Agua Prieta, JuneJuly 2007 305
7.6.2 Wackenhut and the ‘business of detention’ 310
7.7 Summary 314
Chapter 8: The Production of Contested Spaces within the
Border Landscape 317
8.1 Introduction 317
8.2 Evolution of spatial knowledge and the production of space 318
8.2.1 Spatial knowledge 318
vii
8.2.2 Spatial outcomes 322
8.2.3 The production of coterminous spaces within the
  militarized border landscape 328
8.3 Contesting and supporting nationstate sovereignty 332
8.4 Spatialities of resistance/communities in resistance 339
8.5 New faces of power 344
8.6 Mobilities and geographies of direct aid 349
8.6.1 Community response to the presence of humanitarian
  aid groups 349
8.6.2 The communities of Arivaca and the Tohono
  O’odham Nation 353
8.6.3 Aid stations in Mexico 356
8.6.4 Access across a patchwork of land ownership 359
8.6.5 Abuse and criminalization of aid workers 361
8.7 Two distinct but related geographies 363
Chapter 9: CounterGeographies and the Criminalization of
Humanitarian Aid in the Southern Arizona Borderlands 367
9.1 Producing and contesting space within the southern Arizona
borderlands 367
9.1.1 New agents and the growing proximity of divergent actors 369
9.1.2 Evolution of aid groups, spatial knowledge, and the
  production of space 370
9.1.3 Rhetoric and the deployment of humanitarianism 372
9.1.4 Border militarization as spatial denial and containment 373
9.1.5 Criminalization of aid 375
9.1.6 Continuing contestation of space 378
9.2 Reflections and potential avenues of future research 379
9.2.1 Community actors 379
9.2.2 Comparative studies of humanitarian aid 381
9.2.3 Construction of racialized actors in the borderlands 384
9.2.4 Environmental degradation and the response of humanitarian
  aid groups 386
9.2.5 Scholarly activism 388
9.3 “Humanitarian Aid Remains a Crime”: not aid but litter 391
Bibliography 395
Appendices:
Appendix A: Timeline of Water Groups 416
Appendix B: Tucson Immigrant Advocacy Timeline 417
Appendix C: U.S.Mexico Border and Immigration Policy
Timeline 19932008 418
viii
Appendix D: Civil Initiative 420
Appendix E: Faith Based Principles for Immigration Reform 421
Appendix F: Humane Borders Maps 422
Appendix G: No More Deaths Corridor Map 425
Appendix H: Walter Staton Criminal Complaint 427
Appendix I: FWS Statement on Littering Citation 429
Appendix J: Missing Person Report for Josseline Jamileth
  Hernandez Quinteros 431
Appendix K: Open Letter to Buenos Aires and Department
  of the Interior 432
Appendix L: U.S. Border Patrol Memorandum on Food Provision
by Humanitarian Aid Groups 434
ix
List of Figures
List of Figures
Figure 1.1: U.S. Border Patrol sectors, including the Tucson sector
in Arizona 11
Figure 1.2: The ‘deadliest corridor’ of the borderlands 12
Figure 1.3: Proposed fencing under HR 4437 14
Figure 1.4: Permanent internal Border Patrol checkpoints 15
Figure 1.5: Federal owned lands within southern Arizona 21
Figure 3.1: Diagram A 71
Figure 3.2: Diagram B 74
Figure 4.1: One of the many permanent water stations 128
Figure 4.2: Entrance to the No More Deaths’ Arc of the Covenant camp 135
Figure 4.3: The Sonoran desert, showing also the Altar Valley 138
Figure 4.4: The township of Arivaca 143
Figure 4.5: One of several test surveillance towers 146
Figure 4.6: The welcoming sign to the Nogales aid station 156
Figure 4.7: A makeshift stretcher constructed of tree branches and belts 167
Figure 4.8: One of several shrines discovered by directaid volunteers 169
Figure 4.9: A shrine to Jesús Malverde in a rock face within the
Altar Valley 170
Figure 5.1: Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge situated along the
U.S.Mexico border, sits approximately 45 miles southwest
of Tucson 181
Figure 5.2: USBP agents detain a group of undocumented migrants
  on BANWR 183
Figure 5.3: Space closed to public access within BANWR 187
Figure 5.4: Map depicting the construction of pedestrian fencing 198
Figure 5.5: Signage placed on a rescue beacon 200
Figure 5.6: Humane Borders water stations and deaths 203
x
Figure 5.7: The citation of Dan Millis 209
Figure 5.8: One of 64 persistent water sources on the Refuge 211
Figure 6.1: The four sectors in which Operation Streamline operates 226
Figure 6.2: No More Deaths volunteers deliberate with USBP 256
Figure 7.1: A gallon water jug left by humanitarian aid groups 302
Figure 7.2: One of several water stations maintained by Agua Para la Vida 303
Figure 7.3: Centro de Recursos para Migrantes; Agua Prieta, Mexico 307
Figure 7.4: Wackenhut buses with detained migrants in the town of Amado 311
xi
Abbreviations
Abbreviations
ABC Arizona Border Control Initiative
ADPI Arizona Denial and Prosecution Initiative
BAN Border Action Network
BANWR Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge
BLM Bureau of Land Management
BORSTAR Border Patrol Search Trauma and Rescue
BORTAC Border Patrol Tactical Unit
BSI Border Safety Initiative
CASA Center for Applied Spatial Analysis
CBP Customs and Border Protection
CRREDA Centro de Rehabilitacion y Recuperacion para Enfermos de Drogadiccion
y Alcoholismo
DHS Department of Homeland Security
DOI Department of the Interior
DPS Department of Public Safety
EDA Environmental Direct Action
EMT Emergency Medical Technician
FWS U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
FS U.S. Forest Service
GAO Government Accountability Office
GIS Geographic Information Science
GPS Global Positioning System
ICE Immigration and Customs Enforcement
IRCA Immigration Reform and Control Act
IRP Interior Repatriation Program
LIC Low Intensity Conflict
LRP Lateral Repatriation Program
NAFTA North American Free Trade Agreement
NMD No More Deaths
OTM ‘Other than Mexican’
POE Port of Entry
PIC Prison Industrial Complex
NGO NonGovernment Organization
NPS National Park Service
SBI Secure Border Initiative
SPP Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America
USBP United States Border Patrol
WFR Wilderness First Responder
xii
Abstract
Abstract
This research has sought to understand how practices of humanitarian aid groups contest
established spatial orders and normative geographies within the U.S.Mexico borderlands,
and in what manner their presence and operation within spaces of migration might afford
or advocate for certain rights of mobility to noncitizens. In particular, these groups are
deploying water, food, and medical aid intended for migrants in transit within the space of
the southern Arizona borderlands, often against the will of law enforcement agencies. At
this highly localized scale in which humanitarian groups conduct the majority of their
work, this space – and movement throughout it – are highly controlled by law
enforcement agencies, providing few openings for contestation of processes of
militarization and criminalization. This research therefore seeks to develop a method of
inquiry in to the production of space within the U.S.Mexico borderlands, concerned with
multiple agents operating at different scales (from the national to the local) frequently
within the same spaces simultaneously.
It was found that since 2003, humanitarian groups have moved from solely discussing
their strategies in relation to the U.S. Border Patrol, to include differing law enforcement
and land management agencies, along with private contractors who play a growing role in
the process of migrant interdiction, incarceration, and deportation. This has resulted in
the ongoing criminalization of both undocumented migrants as well as of humanitarian
xiii
aid volunteers, creating a situation of increased vulnerability for both groups. Although
law enforcement agencies have deployed several practices to disorganize the work of aid
volunteers – including the cooptation of humanitarianism, and the use of spatial denial
and containment – through the development of critical spatial knowledge, aid groups have
countered such efforts to criminalize their work. Spaces of respite, safety, and resistance
were constructed by the humanitarian aid groups in their efforts to maintain “death free
zones” in the face of significant adversity demonstrated by various formations of power.
Yet these spaces are temporary and in flux, and were frequently breached by the USBP
and other enforcement agencies, as well as vigilante groups and local residents who were
unsympathetic or antagonistic to the work of aid groups.
xiv
Chapter 1: “Humanitarian Aid is Never a Crime”: Providing
Water and Solidarity in the Sonoran Desert
A possible issue for Congress concerns whether some of the activities of these
humanitarian groups present an obstacle to the USBP as it carries out its
enforcement of immigration laws along the border. If so, Congress may decide
what, if anything, can be done to curtail those specific activities by civilian border
groups that negatively impact the USBP.
Blas NuñezNeto in his 2005 report on border security to Congress
Where the Tucson Sector goes, that’s where the Border Patrol goes. If you look at
what’s happening here in our region of Arizona, it’s clear that this is ground zero
for the Border Patrol.
U.S. Border Patrol Chief of the Tucson Sector, Robert W. Gilbert, 2007
The inception of programs to militarize the U.S.Mexico border, such as Operation
Gatekeeper in the 1990s and the Secure Fence Act of 2006, has led to the (un)intended
consequences of pushing migration paths from urban areas into more perilous regions,
particularly through the Sonoran desert in southern Arizona. In turn, border securitization
programs, led by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the U.S. Border Patrol
(USBP) under the recently formed Department of Homeland Security (DHS), are now
focusing specifically on this region. With each year that has passed since the inception of
these militarization policies, the death toll of migrants crossing in the deserts of southern
Arizona has continued to grow, often exceeding 200 deaths within a year. In response to
these developments, grassroots directaction social movements have been applying
distinctive and unique methods of solidarity work across varying scales to contest these
1
constraints upon mobility that have led to the deaths and human rights abuses of many
people. In particular, these groups are deploying water, food, and medical aid intended for
migrants in transit within the space of the southern Arizona borderlands, often against the
will of law enforcement agencies.
Since the formation of the DHS in 2003, under which immigration enforcement became
an issue of homeland security, there has also been a notable devolution of scale from the
level of the federal to the state and local within border policing and militarization efforts
in the U.S.Mexico borderlands. Although bills aimed at comprehensive immigration
reform and border securitization within the U.S. in 2006 failed to pass, the proceeding
years have seen a notably piecemeal approach to border militarization and practices of
criminalizing undocumented migrants. Across the nine U.S. Border Patrol sectors that
comprise the southwest border, a series of border securitization projects and immigration
policies have been implemented that are often highly localized in their operation.
Alongside this, a proliferation of different law enforcement agencies have become more
significantly involved in policing migration in the borderlands, supporting the work of the
USBP, thus operating in essence as a de facto border patrol, further conflating
undocumented immigration as a criminal act.
This research argues that these contemporary practices of militarizing space, along with
strengthened collaboration between various law enforcement agencies, are not only
2
leading to increased criminalization of undocumented migrants, but has also resulted in
the criminalization of those providing humanitarian aid within the space of the U.S.
Mexico borderlands. This has occurred most significantly in the USBP designated Tucson
sector, where volunteers with humanitarian groups have been arrested or fined for
providing aid. These policies and practices of militarization and criminalization have also
led to significant privatization and closure of space, isolating migrants by funneling them
through increasingly inaccessible and sparsely populated desert corridors. This in turn
has limited the ability to provide necessary aid by grassroots solidarity movements, most
active in the deserts of southern Arizona.
A series of questions are posed within this research, asking what the impact of these
practices has been upon the provision of humanitarian aid for undocumented migrants
within the Tucson sector, known as both the busiest and most deadly region for border
crossing. How do policies of interdiction and incarceration operate spatially in order to
differentially criminalize undocumented migrants and humanitarian aid workers who are
situated within specific locations of the borderlands? How does the work of such
solidarity movements implicitly or explicitly contest or support the power structures that
they purport to oppose? Further, what can a critically engaged study of direct action
solidarity movements operating in southern Arizona tell us about structural forms of
violence enacted upon undocumented populations? What unique insights do these groups
derive through their presence in the borderlands? Finally, how might we conceptualize the
3
geography of humanitarian aid in this region, and its attendant spatial strategies in
providing such necessary aid?
This research, through ethnographic field work with several humanitarian aid groups,
seeks not only to understand the ways in which the provision of humanitarian aid is
criminalized and interdicted, but also the spatial practices implemented by such groups to
overcome these constraints. It is essential to obtain a more critical understanding of how
and where humanitarian aid is being conducted, and the methods in which Homeland
Security and other enforcement agency measures are limiting its necessary provision,
given this unprecedented period of border militarization, criminalization of
undocumented migrants, and subsequent deaths and abuses within the U.S.Mexico
borderlands.
1.1 Research objectives and plan
In order to answer the questions set out, several research objectives have been developed
for this work. The first research objective is to examine existing literature surrounding
studies of border deaths and abuses, predominantly by geographers; approaches to
developing a theory and argument for open borders and freedom of movement,
considering the centrality of space within this literature; and the existing body of
literature on humanitarian aid provision in the U.S.Mexico borderlands. This review
serves to provide a theoretical frame for research regarding humanitarian aid work within
4
the U.S.Mexico borderlands. Second, I present my research methodology, and develop a
series of conceptual models that help to frame the spaces of this research, the actors
contained within, and the socio and geopolitical factors that impinge upon the provision
of aid in this region. The final set of research objectives comprise of ethnographic
research on contemporary grassroots and direct action humanitarian aid groups, situated
within the Tucson sector of southern Arizona, to understand how such groups operate
within this region in relation to ongoing enforcement strategies concerned with
interdicting undocumented migration. Further, this investigation seeks to understand the
contestations and productions of space, considering how differing actors simultaneously
inhabit certain spaces, and their efforts to maintain or rewrite existing narratives of such
spaces.
First, a theoretical background and emphasis for this research is provided, regarding the
militarization of the U.S.Mexico border and social movements concerned with migrant
rights and mobility in this region. This will allow a consideration of how migrant deaths
and abuses within the borderlands have been framed and understood spatially in relation
to the more recent efforts of militarization in this region. I ask also how academic work
on freedom of movement and open borders politics can help to consider the implications
of such strategies involved in the securitization of nationstate boundaries, and explore
what demands that argue for more than a simple restructuring of immigration policies
consist of. Continuing from this, I explore the burgeoning body of literature that has taken
5
humanitarian aid groups operating in the U.S.Mexico border as its focus, to better
understand what has been written on these groups previously, and how their operation has
been considered from a spatial perspective. Chapter 2, which comprises the literature
review, therefore seeks to provide a critical theoretical framework for discussing mobility,
solidarity, and interdiction within the spaces of the U.S.Mexico borderlands, and the life
or death implications involved therein.
Second, a series of conceptual frameworks are developed to allow a critical understanding
of the socio and geopolitical context surrounding border securitization and
undocumented migration within this region. Several key theoretical concepts are also set
out within this chapter that allows this research to investigate the production of space
within this region of the border, in relation to the operation of the diverse agents present.
In closing a discussion of my positionality within this research is presented, along with a
description of research methods applied. Chapter 3 then, sets out my methodological
approach to understanding the geographies of humanitarian aid and the spatial practices
applied in response to the dynamic operation of law enforcement within the Tucson
sector.
Moving then to the final set of research objectives, Chapter 4 begins the ethnographic
research aspect of this dissertation. I first provide a historical analysis of the Sanctuary
movement in southern Arizona, a precursor to the movements that are focused upon in
6
this research. It is important to understand the influence of this movement on present day
groups, which typically operate within the same spaces, though under significantly
different circumstances. Further, the Sanctuary movement, and its criminalization,
provides insight into contemporary forms of criminalizing migrant aid in this region.
Next, an analysis of the three direct action humanitarian aid groups focused upon in this
research is provided – Humane Borders, Samaritans, and No More Deaths. Here I
consider how they came to form, their operation, goals, and evolution. I explore the
spaces in which they provide this form of humanitarian aid to undocumented migrants,
and some of the constraining factors in doing so, including previous examples of
criminalization they have undergone. Finally, an exploration of the use of mapping by
these contemporary humanitarian aid groups is conducted, to understand how this
movement has developed a critical spatial knowledge and awareness of the spaces in
which they work, informing their practice of providing aid and contesting dominant
narratives of control and interdiction, leading to the production of particular spaces of
aid.
In Chapters 5 and 6, two differing practices of border militarization and migrant
interdiction are explored through the lens of grassroots humanitarian aid, developed
during my time volunteering and researching with aid groups. I first look at the case of
the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge (BANWR), a large piece of land situated on
the Arizona border that is a significant migration corridor. Recently U.S. Fish and
7
Wildlife Service (FWS) officers have begun to police the provision of aid on the Refuge,
while at the same time collaborating with the USBP and DHS to further militarize this
space. Second the implementation of Operation Streamline in the Tucson sector is
examined, a policy which incarcerates an average of 70 undocumented migrants a day for
up to six months, rather than being immediately deported. I consider how ‘zero tolerance’
policies such as Streamline are implemented spatially, the impact they have upon persons
crossing, even if they are not apprehended, and the ways in which they prohibit the
effective provision of aid. These two case studies, focusing upon specific spaces and
policies within the borderlands, seek to demonstrate contemporary practices of what I
define as spatial denial and containment that exclude both migrants and humanitarian aid
from particular spaces, while containing them within other spaces through practices of
border militarization, law enforcement, and criminalization.

Chapter 7 presents a case study of the rhetoric of humanitarianism, particularly through
the practices of the USBP and several humanitarian programs implemented within
southern Arizona and the Tucson sector. The use of annual programs to mitigate deaths,
particularly in the summer season, formation of special Border Patrol search and rescue
operations, and press releases in local and national media touting their successes,
amongst other measures, have been developed to promote a humanitarian face to the work
of the USBP and other law enforcement concerned with interdicting migration. I argue
that the subversion of this discourse by the USBP, as well as by other groups such as
8
vigilante organizations including the Minutemen, is used to discredit the work done by
humanitarian aid groups, forming one of several methods applied to limit the social
movement’s operation in this region. These humanitarian policies are then contrasted with
interactions experienced by humanitarian aid volunteers on a daytoday basis with law
enforcement agents, exploring the impacts of these programs upon the provision of aid by
grassroots groups, and their effectiveness in mitigating deaths in the borderlands.
In Chapter 8, an exploration of the outcomes of these practices of border militarization,
migrant interdiction and criminalization in regards to deaths, abuses, and provision of aid
in this region is conducted. A geography of humanitarian aid and migrant interdiction
within this region is developed, informed through fieldwork and time spent volunteering
with humanitarian aid groups, helping to clearly demonstrate how this region has become
highly contested, in which humanitarian aid groups have attempted to carve out ‘death
free zones’ and rewrite the dominant narratives applied to this region by law enforcement.
I consider also the issue of mobility within these spaces, and the privileges and
constraints with which these humanitarian aid groups operate, asserting that while they
may undergo practices of criminalization, placing them in uncertain and vulnerable
positions, their relative freedom of movement creates a distinctive geography in
comparison to those they are working in solidarity with. I assess also the practices of the
humanitarian aid groups, questioning how their actions work to undermine and challenge
the USBP and other law enforcement agencies active in the Tucson sector, or in turn
9
implicitly or explicitly support these agencies. In closing, Chapter 9 provides a summary
of findings within this research, presenting the key theoretical and political implications.
Further, several avenues of future research possibilities are also considered.
1.2 Why southern Arizona and the Tucson sector?
Although differing scales of analysis regarding migration are considered within this
research, a particular focus is taken upon southern Arizona, and more specifically what
Customs and Border Protection (which encompasses the USBP) refers to as the ‘Tucson
sector.’ The CBP has divided the United States in to several sectors, with the Tucson
sector covering a significant portion of Arizona, and comprising one of the largest sectors
along the U.S.Mexico border (refer figure 1.1). In total, the Tucson sector spans 262
miles easttowest of the approximately 2000mile U.S.Mexico border, from the eastern
edge of Yuma County to the New Mexico state boundary, comprising 90 000 square
miles. Though I will discuss and explore issues pertaining to border militarization and
migrant deaths in this region in much greater depth within this research, I want to briefly
highlight the extenuating circumstances that have led this research to focus most
intensively upon the Tucson sector.
10
Figure 1.1: U.S. Border Patrol sectors, including the Tucson sector in Arizona
(source: U.S. Border Patrol Supervisors Association).
Since the inception of border militarization projects such as Operation Gatekeeper in
1994, the Tucson sector has come to be the busiest region for undocumented border
crossings and USBP activity. Of most significance in the past decade has been the rapid
and welldocumented growth in deaths of migrants crossing in this sector that has
received local, national, and international focus both in the media and academic circles.
Since the midlate 1990s this sector of the southwest border has seen upwards of 250
deaths in any given year, the majority occurring within the hottest summer months
(Eschbach et al., 2003). Combined with this have been innumerable human rights abuses,
assaults, robberies, and exceptional physical strains upon those making the arduous trip
north into the United States through this space (Nevins, 2003 and 2008; Hagan, 2007;
Sundberg and Kaserman, 2007). This is due largely to what has been referred to as the
‘funneling effect’, in which migrants are forced to cross in more perilous regions due to
11
border militarization efforts in more urbanized areas, leading many to face up to five days
or more of walking in mountainous and/or desert terrain. Recently, the corridor of
migration through the Tohono O’odham reservation, on the western edge of the Tucson
sector, was referred to as the nation’s “deadliest corridor” (McCombs and Volante, 2007;
see figure 1.2). The reservation, which is the second largest in the U.S., has remained
largely offlimits to humanitarian aid groups, with the tribal government and O’odham
community split over how best to deal with the significant levels of migrant traffic and
deaths on their land (Madsen, 2005; McCombs, 2008g).
Figure 1.2: The ‘deadliest corridor’ of the borderlands is situated on the Tohono
O’odham Reservation (center) within the Tucson sector (source: Arizona Daily
Star, 2007).
Alongside the situation of ongoing deaths in the borderlands has been an unprecedented
12
increase in USBP agents and related infrastructure located within this sector. This in part
has stemmed from the demand for comprehensive immigration reform within the United
States. Though not adopted officially, the recommendations of the 2006 Sensenbrenner
bill (HR 4437) are being implemented in a piecemeal manner, most notably through the
push for 700 miles of additional border fencing to be built, largely within the Tucson
sector (see figure 1.3). By March of 2008, the Tucson sector had over 3000 USBP agents,
up from the 1600 it had in 2002 (McCombs, 2008e). Meanwhile over 600 miles of
pedestrian fencing (812 feet high) and traffic barriers were completed between 2006 and
the end of 2008 across the entire length of the U.S.Mexico border.
Along with efforts to physically fence the border, other projects have been put in place to
create what is referred to as a ‘virtual fence,’ using private contractors to develop
technologies that will operate to seal the border in areas where fencing is not viable, or to
work in tandem with the fencing. The Tucson sector has therefore become a testing
ground for such technologies, largely developed by private companies. The most
sustained effort has been the implementation of surveillance towers equipped with
cameras and infrared capabilities to detect migrants, drug smugglers, and supposed
terrorists crossing in these remote areas. After an initial test of twelve towers through
Project 28 (so named for its coverage of 28 miles of border in the Tucson sector) that
largely failed to operate as desired, an additional round of towers was green lighted by the
U.S. government, bringing the total to 57 surveillance towers to be implemented within
13
southern Arizona, most only a few miles from the physical boundary line (McCombs,
2008d).

Figure 1.3: Proposed fencing under HR 4437 and existing fencing at the U.S.
Mexico border, with predominant focus on southern Arizona and the Tucson sector
(source: Arizona Daily Star, 2006).
As well as the construction of new surveillance technologies, and the growth in USBP
numbers, the DHS has sought to construct several permanent and semipermanent
internal checkpoints within the Tucson sector. This has included the recent push to
establish a permanent checkpoint in the town of Tubac, on the Interstate 19 from Nogales
to Tucson (Devine, 2007; Government Accountability Office, 2009), as well as the
current operation of semipermanent checkpoints on roads known for popular pickup
points by human and drug traffickers. At present, the Tucson sector remains as the only
14
sector without a permanent internal checkpoint (see figure 1.4). As I discuss, this process
of internalizing immigration policing has led to a closing of space within the borderlands,
forcing migrants to walk greater distances before reaching population centers or pre
arranged pickup points.
Figure 1.4: Permanent internal Border Patrol checkpoints along the southwest
border (source: Government Accountability Office, 2009).
Looking beyond the physical space of the borderlands within southern Arizona, it is
necessary to consider the implementation of policies and practices that further affect
undocumented immigration in this region, most notably through the use of ‘special
prosecution initiatives’ applied to reduce recidivism into Arizona, and to eventually
eliminate all ‘voluntary returns’ of Mexican nationals, particularly under the Arizona
15
Denial and Prosecution Initiative. This has included such measures as the use of
Operation Streamline, which aims to prosecute up to 100 undocumented migrants a day
rather than simply being processed and deported by the USBP. Other measures have
included the practice of lateral repatriation, in which migrants are bused to other states to
be deported, in an effort to stop them from reconnecting with their smugglers, and the
Interior Repatriation Program, a binational initiative with Mexico to voluntarily fly
migrants back to Mexico City twice daily during the summer season.
Within the state of Arizona, 20 antiimmigrant bills were sponsored by the Arizona
legislature between 2004 and June 2005, including Proposition 200. Similar to
Proposition 187 that was later declared unconstitutional in California during the mid
1990s (see Lipsitz, 1998), Proposition 200 remains in place. This proposition, which
passed in 2004, requires individuals to produce proof of citizenship before registering to
vote or to apply for public benefits in Arizona (Wilson, 2008). Compounding upon this
has been the sustained efforts of Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County – the largest
county within Arizona, known for having one of the most substantial undocumented
populations within the United States, including approximately 350 000 persons within the
city of Phoenix – to target undocumented persons (Brodesky and Smith, 2008). Arpaio
has set out to make Maricopa County as unwelcoming for undocumented migrants as
possible by deputizing police officers to ask for immigration status, in spearheading
undocumented migrant sweeps, and in building outdoor migrant detention centers
16
(Giblin, 2008; Robbins, 2008). Not unlike programs such as Operation Streamline and
employer sanctions laws (see Gaouette, 2008), these efforts are largely generated to create
an inhospitable climate within Arizona for undocumented persons without addressing the
reasoning behind people’s need to migrate to the United States.
The state of Arizona, and most notably the southern Arizona borderlands, is also known
for its active antiimmigrant, militia, and vigilante movements that have seen a significant
revitalization since 2005. Of note, particularly within the media, has been the operation of
the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps. This group has been particularly active in generating
antiimmigrant sentiment in southern Arizona, and across the U.S., through its civilian
‘border patrols’, protests at local daylaborer sites, and presence within the mainstream
media. Though the efforts of this group and similar organizations across the U.S. have
been documented heavily, it has also been demonstrated that the most significant
presence of this group has often been in the media, rather than in the physical space of the
borderlands (see for example American Civil Liberties Union, 2006; Loyd and Burridge,
2007).
Antiimmigrant sentiment and pressure to militarize the border against undocumented
immigration is coming also from the level of land owners and ranchers situated along the
border. Though they may not organize and operate in a mediagrabbing manner that is
17
seen by groups such as the Minutemen, such individuals and families have created
significant pressure upon State and federal government to aggressively police
undocumented migration in the southern Arizona borderlands (Banks, 2005). Private
ranchers and land owners have also been known to collaborate with Minutemen and
militia groups, for example allowing them to patrol on their land and remain out of the
eye of the public and legal observers concerned with human rights abuses conducted by
these groups (Chacón, 2006; Chavez, 2008; Taylor, 2008). Ranchers such as Roger
Barnett in Cochise county on the eastern edge of southern Arizona, for example, have
frequently been in the media and the courtroom for their practices of detaining, abusing,
and shooting migrants on their land (Vanderpool, 2009).
The significance of the Tucson sector as ground zero for border militarization and
undocumented migration has not been lost on political leaders at the federal level. The
previous chief of the Tucson sector, David Aguilar, became the highestranking agent on
July 1 2004, when he took the position as Chief of the USBP. Similarly, Janet Napolitano,
formerly the governor of Arizona, was awarded the position of the third ever Secretary of
the Department of Homeland Security on January 21 2009, under the newly appointed
Obama administration. These appointments to highranking positions that oversee the
entirety of the U.S.Mexico border demonstrate that those previously tasked with securing
the border in southern Arizona and the Tucson sector are seen as the most well informed
for doing so at the national level. In addition, in September 2008 the National Center for
18
Border Security and Immigration Research was opened at the University of Arizona in
Tucson, with a second center at the University of Texas, El Paso, funded by the DHS.
Recognizing the proximity and relationship of the universities to the border, the DHS has
committed US$16 million to the centers, with research focusing upon “new technologies
such as detection, surveillance, screening, data fusion, sensor networks and other
technologies” (Cruz, 2008).
Unsurprisingly, the space of the Tucson sector is a highly contested domain, particularly
since undocumented immigration began to be funneled largely in to this region. Further,
unlike other regions of the border such as Texas, which consists predominantly of
privately owned land, southern Arizona is a patchwork of land ownership and control. Of
note, approximately 85 per cent of land along the border in southern Arizona, and 62 per
cent of land within 100 miles of the border, is federally owned. Management is comprised
of several agencies, including the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the U.S. Forest
Service (FS), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), the National Park Service (NPS),
and the Bureau of Indian Affairs which oversees the Tohono O’odham reservation (see
figure 1.5; Segee and Neeley, 2006). This is interspersed with privately owned ranch land,
particularly in the eastern portion of the Tucson sector, and with various USBP sites and
other enforcement agencies dotted throughout the landscape. Further, to the west is the
Department of Defense and Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range, a notable military
19
presence within this region. These various spaces of land ownership create an
increasingly complex and often contradictory set of restrictions against undocumented
migrants and humanitarian groups providing aid in this region, alongside the ability of
USBP agents to freely traverse any of these lands within 100 miles of the border,
including private property.
Though not all encompassing, and not always entirely unique to southern Arizona, when
taken together these factors paint a particularly interesting and important picture
regarding the state of undocumented immigration policing and border securitization in
the United States. With unprecedented levels of migrant deaths and abuses, border
militarization, and public debate surrounding undocumented migration, it is essential to
understand the ways in which certain groups and individuals are organizing to challenge
such processes in this region.
20
Figure 1.5: Federal owned lands within southern Arizona (source: Government
Accountability Office, 2004).
A note on the use of spatial descriptors within this research: while this research takes as
its central focus the space of the Tucson sector, which reaches to the northern border of
Arizona, I am concerned primarily with the southern Arizona portion of this sector.
Where there is a need for less specificity, I refer interchangeably between the Tucson
sector and southern Arizona. At times the USBP and other sources will release
information and statistics that cover the entire southern Arizona boundary with Mexico,
which includes a portion of the USBP’s Yuma sector, meaning specific figures for the
21
Tucson sector cannot be derived. I use also the spatial descriptor of the Sonoran desert.
While the Sonoran desert covers several states in both Mexico and the U.S., unless
specified, I refer specifically to the Sonoran desert in southern Arizona and northern
Sonora, Mexico. Finally, fieldwork conducted with several humanitarian aid groups takes
place within the specific locale of the Altar Valley – encompassing Pima and Santa Cruz
counties – a corridor running north from the international boundary roughly between the
towns of Sasabe and Nogales, where aid groups operate most intensely. This corridor
contains the town of Arivaca, the only notable urban agglomeration between the border
and Tucson, and the closest community in relation to the operation of aid groups.
1.3 The role of humanitarian aid in the Tucson sector
In response to the situation found within the Tucson sector, there has been a significantly
active base of grassroots humanitarian and immigrant rights groups operating within this
region. Though not entirely new to the region (there is a long and sustained history of
immigration related activism in southern Arizona; see Van Ham, 2006), groups
committed to reducing the death toll of undocumented migrants are becoming
increasingly active and prominent in the space of Tucson and the southern Arizona
borderlands. Emily Gilbert (2007), in researching the implementation of transnational
border securitization programs, has made note of the importance of such resistance,
stating:
22
The increasingly visible and resilient protests against the toughening of citizenship
and immigration policies in North America since 9/11 also point to sites of
opposition, and the public dimensions into which these debates around migration
and mobility are being propelled (original emphasis; p.9394).
Grassroots work surrounding immigrant rights then, is taking place across varying spaces
and scales, however the activism of humanitarian aid groups in southern Arizona is
particularly unique, due to its application of direct action provision of humanitarian aid in
the Sonoran desert. Their work has also become notably visible within the media and
public eye, garnering significant support as well as critique. I argue that a critical spatial
study of such groups can be informative in understanding how and why direct action is
used to contest immigration policing, alleviate migrant abuses and deaths, and challenge
militarization in the U.S.Mexico borderlands, while also providing a unique lens with
which to understand structural forms of violence enacted against undocumented
populations. My research will contribute to studies and spatial understandings of direct
action activism – what Paul Routledge (1996, 1997a, b) refers to as “spatialities of
resistance” – by considering the reasoning for its application, organizational practices, the
use and constraints of differing spatial contexts, operation at different scales of
interaction, and production of distinctive spaces of contestation and aid.
In exploring the use of direct action and spatialities of resistance by these groups I intend
to answer a series of questions that will help develop an understanding of the geography
of these practices, and their contestation. What conditions have led to the formation and
23
sustained operation of such groups, committed to the practice of humanitarian aid
through the use of direct action? How are such groups situated within the wider
framework of the immigration debate in the United States? What makes these particular
groups unique in relation to other migrant rights, or even antiimmigrant, groups? What,
if any, impacts do these groups have upon processes of border militarization, and in
reducing migrant deaths and abuses? How do these groups envisage, and operate within,
the spaces they are located? How do they create new spaces: spaces of protest,
contestation, safety, or otherwise? By looking through the lens of humanitarian aidbased
migrant rights groups, is it possible to gain a different, or more informed understanding of
the situation surrounding undocumented immigration in the U.S.Mexico borderlands? In
turn, what are some of the unintended consequences generated through providing
humanitarian aid in this region?
I have found that humanitarian aid groups working in this region intersect and traverse the
same spaces that almost all actors involved around undocumented migration are situated
within. Importantly, this occurs at an everyday level, on the ground, and typically faceto
face. Whether encountering USBP agents or vigilante groups, evacuating persons in need
of medical aid alongside paramedics, conducting searches for missing persons with next
of kin, giving reports to media, witnessing at court trails, or campaigning in the nearby
cities of Tucson and Phoenix, these groups demonstrate an engagement at the most
localized of scales. Yet these issues are typically discussed and analyzed from afar,
24
particularly by media and government officials. Working alongside these groups has
allowed me to contrast the official policy put forth by the USBP and DHS, media
accounts, and academic analyses, with an everyday view of border militarization and
migrant interdiction practices as they happen on the ground. This is not to suggest
however, that the operation and influence of these groups is limited only to the local
scale, as I will come to discuss in this research.
After conducting initial research and fieldwork within the border regions of southern
California (San Diego, El Centro, and Yuma sectors), southern Arizona (Yuma and
Tucson sectors), as well as El Paso, Texas (El Paso sector), it was decided to focus
specifically upon the operation of humanitarian aid groups in the Tucson sector. While
there are, or have been, several other humanitarian aid groups involved in placing water in
the desert for undocumented migrants (see appendix A), I chose to research and volunteer
with the three organizations of Humane Borders, Samaritans, and No More Deaths. In
part, this was in recognition of their sustained operation over several years, but was also
in relation to the significant attention they have received in the media and from the U.S.
government, including the arrest and prosecution of two volunteers for having transported
undocumented migrants in 2005. Further, these groups have coincided with the
exceptional efforts to secure the border within the space of the Tucson sector witnessed
most recently. Though there are untold numbers of migrant rights activists and
organizations throughout the southwest borderlands region, the unique operation of these
25
groups within the space of significant migration and deaths is of exceptional importance
to analyze and comprehend.
1.4 Criminalization of immigration and humanitarian aid
Though this research does not delve in to the long history of immigration and its
subsequent criminalization within the United States, it is recognized that today’s practices
of criminalizing, incarcerating, and deporting migrants is not new, nor is it entirely
unique. Such practices today are inevitably influenced by, and build upon, many decades
of immigration enforcement, both at the nation’s peripheries and internally (for a detailed
history of the criminalization of migration in the U.S., see Nevins, 2002; Ngai, 2004). As
Schmidt Camacho (2008, p.2) notes, “The criminalization of the migrant has occurred
since the nineteenth century alongside the development of a capitalist economy that
actively recruited laborers from Mexico and Latin America.” However, the significant
conflation of immigration and criminality more recently throughout the 1990s, and
particularly, since the formation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2003,
informs this research most specifically. As Mathew Coleman (2007a) notes, during the
1990s a series of immigration laws were developed which:
…significantly enlarged the category of crimes which would count as aggravated
felonies – a specific class of crimes committed by noncitizens, applicable only in
the context of immigration law, and warranting deportation from the US (p.58).
Following from this, in 2003 the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) was
26
subsumed under the newly formed DHS, and became the Department of Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE), while the Border Patrol was situated within Customs and
Border Protection (CBP), now also housed under the DHS. This resulted in a further
conflation of immigration control with criminal law enforcement, as immigration was
now seen explicitly as an issue of homeland security. The situation, postSeptember 11
2001, combined with existing laws developed throughout the 1990s, has resulted in the
continued removal of immigrant’s rights, in which the criminal grounds for deportation
have been expanded, while legal oversight of these procedures has been increasingly
limited (Coleman, 2007a; see also De Genova, 2002; Bibler Coutin, 2005).
Although this research is not explicitly concerned with immigration enforcement within
the interior of the U.S. – such as the operations of ICE in its workplace raids and other
practices of criminalization that ensure the border follows undocumented migrants long
after they have arrived – this research does not suggest that one form of migration
enforcement, legal or extralegal, is more important or significant than another, nor
should an analysis of one scale of enforcement be privileged over another. Yet the specific
concern of this research is with the southern Arizona borderlands, in which direct
humanitarian aid is conducted.
My primary focus considers not only the criminalization of migration, most notably over
the last decade or so, but also the criminalization of humanitarian aid during this time.
27
Not unlike the criminalization of immigration, the targeting of humanitarian aid and
immigrant rights groups by the State is not entirely new or unique. Specifically, in the
case of southern Arizona and the humanitarian aid groups considered in this research, a
longer history of criminalization can be seen beginning largely with the Sanctuary
movement, which I shall expand upon in Chapter 4. This research is therefore concerned
with both the operation and criminalization of humanitarian aid visàvis the mobility and
criminalization of undocumented migration.
In December 2005, the United States House of Representatives passed the Border
Protection, AntiTerrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act (HR 4437), also known as
the Sensenbrenner Bill. An “enforcement only” bill offering no amnesty, it promised to
turn the presence of illegal aliens into an aggravated felony, make assistance of illegal
aliens by U.S. citizens a felony offense, and build a 700 mile wall along the U.S.Mexico
border. Though it failed to pass within the Senate, in part due to the significant presence
of immigrant rights marches that took place across the U.S. (see Bauder, 2006; Loyd and
Burridge, 2007), much of the bill has been implemented in a piecemeal manner, such as
through the construction of border fencing.
In light of the arrests of two humanitarian aid workers for driving a group of severely ill
migrants to hospital in southern Arizona only months before HR 4437 was proposed,
significant concern had arisen around a specific clause within the bill. Under Section 202,
28
it was stated that it would become a criminal act to assist an undocumented immigrant to
"remain in the United States...knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such
person is an alien who lacks lawful authority to reside in or remain in the United States."
It was argued by several immigrant rights groups that this would lead to a “fear that
humanitarian aid workers, emergency health technicians, immigration lawyers, religious
workers, and other wellintentioned citizens and residents could face imprisonment,” due
to their provision of assistance to someone who may be undocumented (O’Rourke, 2006,
p.201; see also Failinger, 2006; National Immigration Law Center, 2006; Portillo Jr.,
2006).
Although this bill did not pass in to law, it sent a clear message as to how humanitarian
aid within the borderlands and beyond was perceived in a contemporary context by the
U.S. government. How then have previous attempts at criminalizing humanitarian aid to
undocumented migrants set a precedent for presentday aid in southern Arizona and
across the U.S.Mexico borderlands? Has there been a continuity of practices, legal and
spatial, to deter volunteers and ‘good Samaritans’ from providing necessary aid? What
are some likely trajectories for aid groups who continue to provide this aid, oftentimes
against the will of law enforcement agencies? Through critical engagement using
ethnographic research I consider these questions, in an effort to understand the current
and likely future implications of providing humanitarian aid through direct means in the
U.S.Mexico borderlands to undocumented migrants.
29
1.5 Anticipated findings and significance
This research has developed out of a response from academic and immigrant rights
activists’ calls that a specific recognition must be made regarding the explicit role that
policing and militarization of international boundaries, along with the expansion of
immigration controls, play in creating the deaths and human rights abuses of many people
across the globe, predominantly those migrating from the global South to the North
(Hayter, 2000; Nevins, 2003; Sharma, 2005). Through the analysis of particular
literatures and research, and specific, detailed case studies, this work also demonstrates
the need to consider alternative discourses surrounding the debate over immigration,
particularly concerning freedom of movement, largely absent within discussions by
political parties, the mainstream media, or within academia (Wright, 2003; Loyd and
Burridge, 2007).
There is a need to reconsider contemporary forms of debate and methods of action in
challenging current processes of increased border fortification and migration detention. A
continuing trend of growing migrant death tolls, human rights abuses, and lowintensity
warfare methods applied against those leaving their country of citizenship is being
witnessed across the globe particularly at the interface of developed Western nation
states, such as the U.S.Mexico border and the expanding edges of the European Union
(Dunn, 1996; Balibar, 2004; Pickles, 2005). At the local and national scale in the U.S.,
30
this lowintensity warfare upon migrants is being actively witnessed, particularly within
southern Arizona. As Sundberg and Kaserman (2007, p.729) have argued, Arizona is the
state “that has seen the highest increase in undocumented border crossings since the
implementation of the Southwest Border Strategy and, consequently, has received the
most attention from media outlets and government officials.” This research will therefore
expand upon previous work conducted on the militarization of the border, such as that of
Joseph Nevins’ Operation Gatekeeper (2002), assessing the contemporary processes and
impacts of border securitization.
I have chosen to frame this research through a focus upon grassroots direct action
solidarity movements committed specifically to contesting the growth of immigration
controls in their various aspects for several reasons. To date there has been little research
regarding such social movements, and therefore a critical understanding of how such
movements can contribute to debates surrounding immigration using alternative
frameworks, discourses and practices (particularly through the method of direct action) is
not possible.
I therefore have several anticipated findings from this research. First, that grassroots
direct action social movements are becoming increasingly active in the U.S.Mexico
borderlands due to recent developments in methods of border securitization, government
rhetoric on homeland security, and the significantly increased rates of migrant deaths.
31
Second, that such movements present new and unique forms of protest and action in
response to immigration controls and neoliberal policies that create the demand to
migrate, and in turn jeopardize migrant lives. Third, that these movements operate with a
critical spatial understanding of the U.S.Mexico border through the production of
complex placebased knowledge and action, operating across scales – from that of the
body, to the local, regional, and global – creating new spaces of interaction and
contestation. Fourth, that a proliferation of law enforcement agencies tasked with
immigration policing is leading to a further criminalization of humanitarian aid, and
through their collaboration with USBP/DHS, are actively reducing access to necessary
aid. Further, this research will demonstrate that such movements have played an important
role in acting in solidarity with migrant groups, providing much needed humanitarian aid
while also advocating for migrant rights. And finally, that these groups may at times be
implicitly supporting the work of the USBP and DHS, even when contesting such work,
due to the complex situation in which they are involved.
32
Chapter 2: Critical Responses to Militarization and Deaths in
the U.S.Mexico Borderlands
The first section of this literature review is conducted to allow an understanding of the
changing nature of militarization in the spaces of the U.S.Mexico borderlands,
particularly focusing upon the time frame of 1994 (when Operation Gatekeeper and
subsequent border fencing efforts began) until present. Currently there is an
unprecedented level of border militarization taking place, particularly in the region of
southern Arizona, the site of substantial levels of crossings and of deaths. There is a need
then to comprehend critically the impacts that such militarization is having upon
migration patterns, deaths and abuses, and responses to such practices. How has the
geography of migration within the U.S.Mexico borderlands shifted in response to border
militarization efforts? To do this, it is therefore necessary to understand the processes that
have led to this current situation, and so a review of literature on border militarization and
deaths is undertaken.
Second, this review considers critical research regarding open borders and freedom of
movement. This literature is often dismissed as utopian, or dealing too simply with issues
surrounding international migration, not taking in to account the myriad issues at hand
with opening international borders. I argue that this literature is necessary in contributing
to debates surrounding undocumented immigration, considering alternative cartographies
33
and ways of thinking about nationstate interfaces and sovereignty. I also assert that this
literature provides necessary critiques of state apparatuses and immigration controls, and
will in turn help this research to think beyond the existing binaries of legal:illegal, and
economically viable:unviable migration.
Finally, I review the small but developing body of literature that has taken as its focus
humanitarian aid provision in the U.S.Mexico borderlands. It is necessary to provide an
understanding of what has previously been written on these humanitarian aid groups from
differing theoretical perspectives. In particular, I consider the spatial analyses provided by
these studies, allowing a recognition of what has been written on these groups, and the
areas that have yet to be approached adequately in understanding the importance and
contested nature of the operation of humanitarian aid in this region.
2.1 The geography of militarization and deaths within the U.S.Mexico
borderlands
Over the past few decades, academic writing surrounding the continuing militarization of
the U.S.Mexico border has developed, providing a critical analysis of such processes.
Though such work is not only concerned with the fortification of the nationstate
boundary, I am interested here in academic writing that takes the specific focus of
militarization and its attendant outcomes. The inception of the Southwest Border
Enforcement Strategy, including Operation Gatekeeper in the San DiegoTijuana sector of
34
the U.S.Mexico border, and Operation Hold the Line between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez
sector, saw the beginning of a significantly intensified process of fortifying and
militarizing the border during the 1990s (Andreas, 2000; Nevins, 2002). In turn there has
been a significant growth in academic writing surrounding such processes, with an
increasingly critical lens (Cunningham and Heyman, 2004; Newman, 2006; Varsanyi and
Nevins, 2007; Hagan and Phillips, 2008; for a longer history of writings see Alvarez,
1995).
Important to understanding the contemporary processes of securitization, is the longer
history of methods of solidifying the dividing line between the United States and Mexico,
what Nevins (2002, p.10) refers to as the “historical geographical process that has made
the boundaries of the United States and their accompanying social practices seem
increasingly normal and unproblematic” (see also Purcell and Nevins, 2005). This longer
historicalgeographical process is also discussed in the work of Dunn (1996), who
considers the use of lowintensity conflict in the militarization of the border, as well as
the focus on the ‘war on drugs’ at the border – spanning the timeframe of 19781992 –
that has allowed the conflation of undocumented migrants with criminal activity (see also
Andreas, 2000). Alongside this history of fortification of the border, have been studies of
immigration policies implemented against those crossing from Mexico into the United
States, such as the work of Daniels (2004) and Ngai (2004), discussing the construction
of ‘illegal alien subjects’ in the United States (see also Heyman, 1999). Though many of
35
these processes were instigated and implemented by the U.S. federal government, Purcell
and Nevins (2005) note that it is necessary to recognize the role of localities and local
state actors in pressuring the nation state to “fulfill its perceived duty of making the
boundary ‘real’” (p.221; see also Heyman, 1999; Coleman, 2005, 2007a, 2007b).
Recent literature on the militarization of the border has also focused upon the continuing
growth in human rights abuses and deaths that have subsequently occurred from changing
migration paths. As several authors have noted, the construction of fencing and
heightened levels of patrolling, particularly in more developed and urban areas along the
border, has forced many crossing undocumented into the deserts of Southern Arizona and
other remote regions (Palafox, 2001; Nevins, 2007; Sundberg and Kaserman, 2007). The
work of Eschbach (et al., 1999) and Eschbach (et al., 2003), along with reports by groups
such as the Binational Migration Institute (RubioGoldsmith, et al., 2006), have further
demonstrated the growth in deaths from changing migration paths, through rigorous
research and compiling of statistics surrounding border deaths that often vary
considerably from ‘official’ U.S. Border Patrol reporting (see also Cornelius, 2001;
Nevins, 2003; Government Accountability Office, 2006; Hagan and Phillips, 2008; for a
discussion of disputed death tallies, see Magaña, 2008). Within academia and outside,
there have been demands for a greater focus upon the deaths that are occurring. As
Eschbach (et al., 1999, p.430) note, “Debates about United States border control policies
have generally ignored the human costs of undocumented migration.” Nevins (2003,
36
2005, 2008) has provided a critical analysis of work by academics surrounding human
rights and deaths of migrants in the U.S.Mexico border region, arguing that “[m]igrant
deaths are the inevitable outcome of a border regime” (2003, p.172). Further, Cornelius
(2001) has found that it is not possible to demonstrate that the Border Patrol’s
‘preventionthroughdeterrence’ approach has or does actually deter people from crossing,
stating that quite the opposite is the reality at the border, but instead has resulted in
increased deaths. Importantly, the work of these authors has demonstrated clearly the
connection between the geography of border militarization and the subsequent shift in
migration paths, resulting in a significant growth in deaths, as crossings shift from urban
to desert corridors (see also Hagan and Phillips, 2008).
Combined with the substantial growth in deaths of undocumented migrant crossers have
been the reported increases in human rights abuses. The journal Social Justice produced a
special issue, titled “Gatekeeper’s State: Immigration and Boundary Policing in an Era of
Globalization,” focusing upon such matters in 2001 (Vol. 28, No. 2). Though considering
the rise in fatalities (see Palafox, 2001), the special also considered the practices of
militarized border rape (Fálcon, 2001); murders by authorities (Dunn, 2001); as well as
local police collaboration with Border Patrol and immigration, and the internalization of
migration policing (Huspek, 2001; Khoka, 2001; see also Fernandes, 2007; Coleman,
2007a, 2007b; Loyd and Burridge, 2007; Ridgeley, 2008). Staudt and Coronado (2002) in
their publication Fronteras No Más, have focused specifically around issues of human
37
rights abuses and social justice at the U.S.Mexico border, noting the struggles of human
rights groups to form transnational alliances in this region (see also Fregoso, 2003).
Preston (2003), discussing the impacts of strengthened immigration controls, particularly
noting the internalization of border controls, argues that “the geography of the border is
shifting with enforcement and interdiction taking on multiple forms at multiple locations”
(p.184). This, she notes, is leading to the furthering of human rights abuses and social
inequalities imposed by immigration controls.
Along with the U.S. government’s active militarization of the border has also been a
uniquely different form of policing the border, led by civilian groups or vigilantes, most
notably grassroots organizations such as the Minutemen (Dear and Burridge, 2006;
Chacón, 2006; Newman, 2006; Fernandes, 2007; Chavez, 2008; Doty, 2009). As several
authors have noted however, civilian border patrols are not new (see for example Palafox,
2000; Purcell and Nevins, 2005), and often use falsified claims to give the impression of
larger involvement than is actually true (American Civil Liberties Union, 2006; Loyd and
Burridge, 2007). These civilian border patrols have however led to reports of further
human rights abuses upon migrants crossing into the United States (Gálvez, 2006). Other
work has considered also the role of nonstate actors, such as local community, in the
further reproduction of border control and pressure upon the State to actively militarize
the border (Vila, 2004; Coleman, 2005; Purcell and Nevins, 2005).
38
Research surrounding the U.S.Mexico border has also drawn parallels between the
fortification of the border and nationstate identity. Nevins (2002) discusses the direct
relations between the fortification and protection of nationstate boundaries with the
protection of a supposed national identity. He also notes the use of defining such
boundaries in order to aid the processes of criminalizing noncitizens; “The modern
nationstate requires both nationalism and absolute boundaries; both facilitate the
construction and maintenance of unity (among citizens) and difference – the essential
prerequisite for the alien” (p.157). Considering efforts at stopping flows of migration in
relation to the goals of economic policies such as the North American Free Trade
Agreement to open the border, Heyman (1999) notes that nationalist beliefs and practices
are used also to respond to such contradictions (see also Cunningham, 2004; Saldaña
Portillo, 2005).
Combined with this has been recognition of the normalcy conflated with border
militarization and fortification, as has been noted by authors such as Nevins (2003),
Fregoso (2003), and Sundberg and Kaserman (2007). This acceptance of border
militarization must be unpacked and contested, in order to question “the naturalization of
violence in U.S. border enforcement policies” (Sundberg and Kaserman, 2007, p.741).
Through the constant process of fortifying the nation’s borders in an attempt to maintain a
clear definition of the boundary of the nation state, and taking a specifically ‘law and
order’ approach to policing undocumented immigration, it is possible for the United
39
States to rationalize, justify and normalize such processes, arguing that it is protecting a
unified and singular concept of its citizenry (Heyman, 1999; Nevins, 2002). Academics
and analysts have argued that this has a number of important implications for those living
in the borderlands, and particularly for those attempting to cross or live in the United
States who are undocumented. By creating a fortified boundary, imposing clearcut laws
about who can enter, and by what methods they can do so, it is possible to criminalize
undocumented migrants as ‘illegal’ (De Genova, 2002; Aimé Gastélum, 2005; Bibler
Coutin, 2005).
Another focus upon the militarization of the U.S.Mexico border has centered on
processes of recent forms of globalization, and in particular the implementation of
NAFTA, occurring within the same year that Operation Gatekeeper was put into effect.
This has led to what Mitchell (2002, p.383) refers to as a “contradictory dialectic
landscape” (2002, p.383), while Alvarez (1995, p.451) notes that “no other border in the
world exhibits the inequality of power, economics, and the human condition as does this
one.” Authors have noted the inherent contradictions in the almost simultaneous opening
of the border to commerce and economics, along with the closing of the border to those
unable to cross legally into the U.S. (Heyman, 1999; Palafox, 2001; Nevins, 2002; Purcell
and Nevins, 2005; Varsanyi and Nevins, 2007; see Gilbert, 2007 for discussions
surrounding the recent Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America). As Staudt
and Coronado (2002) have noted, NAFTA has brought some benefits to border
40
communities and the Mexican economy, but has also fallen short on many promises,
forcing many to migrate to the United States (see Alvarez, 2005; SaldañaPortillo, 2005;
see also Nevins, 2007 for a specific example of coffee growers forced to migrate).
Considering the effects of NAFTA on the borderlands region, Purcell and Nevins (2005)
note that NAFTA has led to an increasing integration across the border, yet therefore has
also led to an increase in enforcement efforts at the border. Most notably, they also point
out that levels of unauthorized crossings have not declined, suggesting that the
militarization of the border has operated most successfully as an “image of control”
(p.228), with the added consequence of the rise in deaths in the borderlands (see also
Andreas, 2000).
Though I have tried to provide a comprehensive review of work relating to the
militarization of the border, there are certainly several other lenses in which this process
has been viewed, including artistic responses (Kun, 2000; Dear and Leclerc, 2003), the
occurrence of feminicides in border towns (Fregoso, 2003; Quinones, 2003; Schmidt
Camacho, 2005; Walker, 2005), the formation of a hybrid or ‘thirdspace’ within the
borderlands (Leclerc and Dear, 1999), and crossborder economic impacts (Alvarez,
2005), amongst others. Further, a body of literature surrounding more theoretical
conceptualizations and understandings of the border provides important insights in to the
conditions of the U.S.Mexico borderlands. However, I draw upon the work of Pablo Vila,
and in particular the concluding chapter to his book Ethnography at the Border, entitled
41
“The Limits of American Border Theory” in my study of the U.S.Mexico borderlands.
While Vila acknowledges the central importance of border theory, including the writings
of Gloria Anzaldúa (1987) and Renato Rosaldo (1989), amongst numerous others, he
notes several criticisms of such work, including that the U.S.Mexico border is often
portrayed “with such theoretical sophistication [that] has little resemblance to the border
they [local communities, migrants] experience from the other side of the (literal) fence”
(p.307). As Vila continues, “It is one thing to write about the metaphor, but quite another
to cross it daily” (p.313). Further, as Cunningham and Heyman (2004, p.291) have noted,
there is need for caution in conflating border theory (“using borders in a largely
metaphorical and conceptual manner”) with border studies (“focused on actual social
processes at specific borders”). Therefore, while I recognize the importance of border
theory and theoretical explorations of the U.S.Mexico border, my research is concerned
explicitly with more literal studies of the borderlands and subsequent militarization
processes, and the conditions experienced by those attempting to cross undocumented in
this region.
2.2 Open borders and freedom of movement
The relatively small but sustained body of literature regarding ‘open borders’ centers
upon the key concern of freedom of movement for those migrating between nationstates
for reasons including economic or asylum based needs. Central to the work of open
borders research is the recognition of the ability for anyone to freely leave their country,
42
under the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human rights law, yet noting the contradictory
absence of an equivalent law for persons to enter another country, unless claiming asylum
(Hayter, 2001; Bauder, 2003; Nevins, 2003; Megoran, 2005). Writing on open borders
related theory does not generally advocate for an immediate opening or removal of all
borders, irrespective of wider issues such as economic disparities between nationstates.
Nor does it typically advocate for the abolition of nationstates. Instead the work of open
borders calls in to question laws that restrict freedom of movement, commonly leading to
stigmatization of certain ethnic and class groupings that result in human rights abuses and
the deaths of many across the globe. The focus then is less on the abolition of the nation
state (though this is certainly evident in some writing), but rather on the removal of
immigration and border policing, and the critical questioning of nationstate sovereignty,
advocating for forms of transnational citizenship (Dowty, 1988; Bauder, 2003; Düvell,
2003; Fernandez, et al., 2006; Nyers, 2006). Those espousing an open borders framework,
argue that their demands are not utopian, but instead are necessary in the current context
of global immigrations, and particularly in protecting human rights (Wright, 2003;
Cohen, 2006). As Nevins (2003, p.172) argues:
…it is imperative to engage in a critical dialogue about the factors that give rise to
the fatalities [of migrants]. I assert that by not calling for an end to boundary
enforcement as it relates to immigration or by legitimating such enforcement, the
authors [academics and policy analysts] are resigning themselves to migrant
deaths.
What sets this work apart from other academic writing on immigration is the explicit
insistence that immigration controls and forms of border militarization and policing, no
43
matter how drastically reformed, will remain racist and exclusionary at some level,
impinging upon the supposed human right to freedom of movement (Hayter, 2000, 2001,
2003; Bauder, 2003; Shantz, 2005; Sharma, 2005). This recognition of the racist
implications of immigration controls is certainly not unique to the study of open borders,
however it is the connection of such practices of exclusion, and the subsequent reasoning
for their removal that does distinguish the work.
At the scale of the global, open borders literature is centrally concerned with the issue of
‘global apartheid’, the difference of economic status between nationstates (typically
between Western and nonWestern states), “combined with geographic and social
separation” (Richmond, 1994, p.xii). Considering this process of global apartheid,
Sharma notes the application of neoliberal immigration policies that create the ability to
distinguish between citizens and ‘illegals’ or ‘temporary migrant workers’, thus allowing
certain groups to be criminalized and therefore having minimal rights against the state or
their employers. This Sharma (2005) argues, is “part of the regime of global apartheid…
whereby discrimination against ‘foreigners’ is not only accepted, but accepted as
necessary” (p.105).
Neoliberalism and related immigration policy is therefore a key focus within open borders
discourse, making the connection between free trade agreements and demands for labor,
alongside intensified policing of nationstate boundaries from unwanted migrants (see for
44
example Fernandez et al., 2006). As Wright (2003) has noted, neoliberal discourse has
allowed the construction of binaries such as good immigrant/bad immigrant, legal/illegal,
or political refugee/economic migrant. This is combined with the recognition of the
contradictory conditions of free movement of capital, but restricted movement of bodies,
in contrast to suggestions by postmodern scholars of the increasing insignificance of
nationstates and their boundaries (Brenner, 2004; Smith, 2004). Work surrounding
global apartheid is important, though lacking in some key areas. A lecture given by
Joseph Nevins in the department of Geography at the University of Southern California
(11.02.07) pointed to the usefulness of the application of the framework of global
apartheid, particularly referring to the work of Nandita Sharma, however noting the lack
of a strong racebased analysis by other authors, expanding upon the short reference to
global apartheid in his work Operation Gatekeeper (2002).
One position taken within academic work surrounding the concept of open borders has
been from a libertarian viewpoint. This approach to arguing for open borders within
academia was most notably first seen in the work of Joseph Carens, in his article Aliens
and citizens: the case for open borders (1987), taking a specifically theoretical focus on
immigration, applying the work of Rawls and Nozick (see also Gibney, 1988; Meilaender,
1999). Following from this work, David M. Smith (2004) has noted the ‘moral
philosophical case’ for open borders and free movement, contrasting this with
geography’s more recent engagement with ethics. Processes of determining “who belongs
45
to and may participate in a political community, and who is permitted to join them…[has]
profound implications for our understanding of the changing spatiality of what we
suppose to be democratic politics” (p.116). Smith goes on to argue that current debates
surrounding the right to freedom of movement “reflects above all the extent of spatial
disparities in life chances, internationally and within nationstates” (p.126). He also
recognizes, along with other libertarianbased arguments for freedom of movement (see
Carens, 1987; Bauder, 2003), that it is necessary to change the “background conditions
that impel people to leave their home and homeland” (p.126). Yet as Smith concludes,
referring to earlier arguments by Nett (1971), “no matter how persuasive philosophical
argument might be, anything approaching free population movement still appears to be a
right we are not ready for” (p.126).
Following from this, Weiner (1996) examines the debate over whether migration is a basic
human right, or if national sovereignty – “the moral obligation of states to do the best for
their own citizens” – outweighs this right. Weiner suggests that without a coinciding
removal of other inequalities, such as in access to health, education and welfare services,
an opening of borders would lead to a “nightmare” situation. In closing, Weiner argues
that human rights and moral considerations must be balanced with state interests and their
right to limit flows of immigration. As Hiebert (2003) also notes, though migration
restrictions are based in protecting privilege of citizens of particular nationstates, to
remove these restrictions would not end such differences in privilege. Hiebert also points
46
to the risk of basing such demands on “systems of absolute morality,” and universalism of
such debates (p.189). These are important critiques, though from my reading of work
advocating open borders, I have found that in general authors have noted and addressed
these concerns (though not always being able to provide answers to such concerns). Their
work on open borders then, is a step towards challenging these systems of inequality
through a critical questioning of immigration controls and nationstate sovereignty.
The specific work of geographers regarding open borders to date has been relatively
limited, and has (along with other studies on open borders policies) been mostly restricted
to academics within Canada and the UK. Within the U.S., though not specifically calling
for open borders, Joseph Nevins, particularly in his article on academic and human rights
writings on migrant deaths (2003, as quoted above), makes the explicit distinction
between those who stop at critiquing border policing and controls, and those who actively
call for their removal as the only way to assure the rights of people migrating are
maintained.
The special issue of ACME (Vol.2, No.2, 2003) has been the most notable discussion
regarding open borders by geographers, though this special issue was based around the
central article submitted by Harald Bauder (2003). Bauder argues that migration controls
are not sustainable, either from a liberaltheory perspective, or from a politicaleconomy
viewpoint. Bauder presents the challenge to geographers to “critically examine political
47
boundaries and to imagine these boundaries and their purposes in new ways” (p.167) – to
question the legitimacy of immigration controls. Drawing upon the work of liberal
theorists, Bauder notes that the principle of nationality often outweighs the principle of
humanity – that human equality is applicable only within boundaries of the state, but not
beyond. Though Bauder limits his analysis to Canadian immigration, he presents several
ways in which to think about national sovereignty in an alternative manner, particularly
across different scales. Though he does not put forward any solid answers as to how
geographers can present a case for an open borders policy, he notes the importance and
application of our ability to think critically in spatial terms regarding free mobility of
people. As Preston (2003) states more modestly in response to Bauder, “The ‘borderless’
world is an elusive goal. Geographical analysis that draws attention to the contradictions
inherent in selective and exclusionary immigration policies has the potential to reduce
social inequality” (p.186).
Several authors also note debates surrounding freedom of movement and open borders
within social justice movements, presenting a sustained challenge to the new left. As
Bauder (2003) states, the demand for “open borders” and “social justice for people who
transgress borders” has more recently come to light, occurring predominantly on the
fringes of political and academic work, such as that of the transnational social movement
of the No Border Network (p.168). Sharma (2003) states that groups espousing a no
borders agenda embody a true notion of transnationalism, developing an “integrated
48
politics calling for an end to displacement worldwide, the free movement of people and
committed support for Indigenous struggles for traditional land and selfdetermination”
(p.39), recognizing that borders and nationalist practices help to maintain global
capitalism “by creating a system of Global Apartheid.” Cynthia Wright (2003) relates that
a “no borders/no one is illegal politic” is gaining popularity within alterglobalization and
global social justice movements, with many taking on this perspective through their
desire to see a stronger antiracist and antinationalist analysis within the movement, and
due to a radicalized perspective due to growing immigration controls in their home
countries (see also Graeber, 2002; Shantz, 2005; Fernandez et al., 2006). Referring also
to the work of scholars such as Hardt and Negri, Wright asserts that these intellectuals
have placed an open borders demand at the “top of a new left agenda” (2003, p.6).
Academics based in Canada have also noted the growing work of activists collaborating
with selforganized migrant groups in efforts to promote migrant rights through a no
borders politics (Lowry and Nyers, 2003; Nyers, 2003, 2006; Wright, 2003; Sharma,
2005; Shantz, 2005).
Questions surrounding the notion of nationstate sovereignty, and ways of challenging and
providing alternatives to this, provide interesting points of departure for the work of open
borders (see for example Bauder, 2003; Fernandez et al., 2006), as do arguments for
ensuring that human rights are maintained for citizens within and outside nationstate
boundaries (Nevins, 2003; Sharma, 2005). This research seeks then to explore some of
49
these points of departure, through a consideration of humanitarian aid groups that
challenge immigration laws and border militarization strategies that result in human
rights abuses of those migrating without explicit permission of nationstates.
2.3. Humanitarian aid in the U.S.Mexico borderlands
To date very little has been written by academics surrounding the provision of
humanitarian aid in the U.S.Mexico borderlands, somewhat surprisingly given the
importance of such work and the controversy it has created in the media and public
sphere. In relation to media coverage then, academic writing on more direct means of
humanitarian aid provision in the borderlands is exceptionally limited. There are however,
several pieces that have more explicitly considered the role of humanitarian aid groups in
this context. I therefore want to provide a review of existing literature to allow an
overview of what has been written on these groups, noting the shortfall of existing
literature in understanding the complexity of the situation in which humanitarian aid
groups are working.
While there is limited research on humanitarian aid organizing, an extensive body of
literature exists however regarding human and immigrant rights movements, and social
justice organizing at the U.S.Mexico border. Academic writing surrounding social justice
in the borderlands includes gender violence and the disappearance and murder of women
in the border town of Ciudad Juárez (Fregoso, 2003; Schmidt Camacho, 2005; Walker,
50
2005; Wright, 2009); transnational social justice and NGOs (Staudt and Coronado, 2002);
gender (Castilo and Tabuenca Córdoba, 2002); organizing within colonias in the
borderlands (Dolhinow, 2005); youth (Rosas, 2006); working conditions and rights within
maquiladoras (Iglesias Prieto, 1997); environmental justice (Di Chiro, 2004); and several
other issues concerning social justice organizing. This is certainly only a small selection
of the notable body of literature concerning social justice in the borderlands however,
particularly since the beginning of the USBPs prevention through deterrence doctrine in
the 1990s that has resulted in the development of many social justice issues. Though
exceptionally important in its content and findings, I distinguish the groups focused upon
in this body of research from those that I am interested in within my research, namely
those that are involved in the provision of aid and solidarity in the deserts through the use
of grassroots direct action.
Taking an explicitly spatial perspective, the work of geographer Juanita Sundberg, and
anthropologist Lawrence J. Taylor, has provided a critical analysis of the operation of
humanitarian aid in the U.S.Mexico borderlands. Taylor's Centre and Edge: pilgrimage
and the moral geography of the US/Mexico border (2007), focuses upon what he
describes as two forms of ‘pilgrimage’ – to the center, and to the edge – “as forms of
meaningful movement that contribute to the moral geography of peoples and nations”
(p.383). Taking the spatial frame of the Sonoran desert, Lawrence considers the
movements of various actors in this region, most notably those that move south to north
51
(migrants), with those that move laterally along the border (USBP, vigilantes,
humanitarian groups). Taylor frames the work of these humanitarian aid groups
specifically as a form of ‘direct action’, stating that their work is enacted through “action
on the ground that deploys objects, words and actual movement through the desert,
inscribing the landscape” (p.389). In discussing movement within the Sonoran desert,
Taylor notes the role of pilgrimage as a means to “narrate, perform and geographically
inscribe versions of America,” arguing that the movements of migrants, aid groups,
vigilantes, law enforcement, and indigenous groups, either help to reinforce the edge of
the nation, or work to blur the boundary. This practice of ascribing symbolic meaning to
the landscape through various forms of ‘pilgrimage’, he argues, creates a ‘moral
geography’ within the borderlands.
Not unlike several other writings on the work of such groups, Taylor also frames the work
of humanitarian aid in regards to religion, noting that their practice of providing aid
defines migrants as pilgrims, and that the act of offering sustenance allows the aid givers
to share in migrant’s “holiness.” This, Taylor argues, therefore positions the aid givers as
Samaritans. Regrettably, Taylor’s article suffers from a simplistic black and white
description of actors’ roles in the borderlands, stating that:
…all these movements have as their main aim the achievement of clear and rather
simple political and and/or personal goals: migrants reaching the US; agents from
the US, volunteers, and to a far lesser degree Mexican officials, stopping those
migrants; and humanitarian groups saving or abetting them on their journey
(p.383).
52
Not only does Taylor describe these groups as acting in a simplistic interdiction:aiding
binary, he also frames humanitarian workers as inhabiting the role of ‘savior’ within the
space of the borderlands. This framing not only simplifies the work of these groups, and
the varied political and positional stances of volunteers, but also sets up a dependent
relationship between migrant and savior. Though as I will come to discuss in my
ethnographic analysis this view is certainly taken on by some volunteers, suggesting that
they are only out to ‘save’ lives is a common and problematic analysis that appears
frequently.
Sundberg’s ‘Trashtalk’ and the production of quotidian geopolitical boundaries in the
USAMexico borderlands (2008), builds on earlier work regarding discursive practices of
using ‘trash’ to frame undocumented migrants’ position of ‘not belonging’ within the
space of the Sonoran desert (see Sundberg and Kaserman, 2007). In this work, Sundberg
provides a case study of Humane Borders and its practice of ‘trash pickups’ by
volunteers, cleaning trails used by migrants in their movement through the Sonoran
desert. In this sense, Sundberg’s piece is not an explicit exploration of the work of
Humane Borders, instead focusing on one specific aspect of their work, albeit an
important one to analyze. Unlike Taylor, Sundberg situates the work of humanitarian aid
groups in both contesting and reaffirming dominant narratives of undocumented migrants
‘belonging’ in the Sonoran desert in a much more critical manner. She frames the work of
humanitarian aid groups in this region as a “compassionate approach,” highlighting its
53
often wellintentioned meaning, whilst remaining critical of its outcomes and potential to
radically alter perceptions of migrants in this region.
Taking the particular scale of the body and ‘embodied spatial practices’, Sundberg
explores how humanitarian aid groups such as Humane Borders reinforce notions of
American citizens as ‘clean’ and migrants as those that ‘need to be pickedup after’.
However, she also recognizes the power of this embodied spatial action of trash collection
as creating the possibility for volunteers to make an emotional connection with migrants
and question more critically how and why migrant belongings (rather than simply ‘trash’)
came to be in this space, and how it may lead to “political mobilizations of social actors
in the borderlands” (p.877). Sundberg also explores the interwoven and often
interdependent geographies of migrants, aid volunteers, and public land managers. In
exploring these overlapping geopolitical spaces, Sundberg begins to draw out the
complexities involved in providing aid in this region, and the need to often appease law
enforcement, land management agencies, and local communities, which I shall develop
upon in greater detail within this research.
Sundberg has also provided a short ‘field note’ on her time working with No More Deaths
in Women Studies Quarterly (2006), which intimates the daily operation of this
humanitarian aid group. Though a short piece which is used as a conduit to put out
thoughtful questions, rather than explore them in detail, Sundberg importantly discusses
54
issues of positionality and privilege regarding the typical volunteer makeup of the aid
group No More Deaths. Similar to the connections Sundberg makes in her 2008 piece on
Humane Borders, she notes that embodied spatial practices that include encounters with
migrants on a very personal, bodily scale, can allow volunteers to make connections
between the contradictory notions of globalization and free trade, with the reality of
crossing though the treacherous desert environment.
Such important issues regarding the positionality and practices of aid workers
unfortunately go unanswered in this short piece, but help to draw out critical lines of
thinking around the work of humanitarian aid groups in the borderlands. During her time
of volunteering and writing, two volunteers of No More Deaths were arrested for
supposedly illegally transporting three men to hospital (see Chapter 4). Sundberg notes
that this particularly specific moment in No More Deaths’ history created a situation of
‘vulnerability’ for the volunteers, and wonders if “this encounter with the law will
challenge NMDs’ imaginary, which positions volunteers as saviors or helpers and
migrants as victims” (p.104). In closing she posits that it might be possible that the arrests
of volunteers could “create a space for NMDs volunteers to perform themselves in ways
that disrupt the solid identities sustaining the global order” (p.105).
Though relatively brief interventions are provided by Sundberg through her academic
writing on these groups, they are useful in beginning to understand their unique
55
geographies, and to open up critical lines of inquiry around their operation. Sundberg’s
use of a feminist geopolitical approach, concerned with the scale of the body, is a useful
way of exploring the relation of these groups with migrants and the state’s policing which
has created the situation of death and abuse in the space of the borderlands. In her critical
analysis of these groups however, Sundberg only begins to delve into the contested
geographical positioning of these humanitarian aid groups, something I wish to explore in
much more detail in this research.
Shifting to a legal framework, two pieces were produced in 2006 by academics in the
field of law. Daniel Scharf’s For Humane Borders: two decades of death and illegal
activity in the Sonoran desert provides a useful, yet problematic exploration of the impact
of Humane Borders’ efforts to place water barrels on public lands in the Sonoran desert.
After giving a succinct analysis of the Border Patrol’s role in forcing migrants into deadly
corridors within the desert, creating a new geography of migration in this region, Scharf
suggests that the U.S. has come to rely “on humanitarian groups to help minimize the loss
of life that has resulted” from border initiatives of prevention through deterrence (p.146).
This is an important recognition, though its implications are not fully considered here by
Scharf. In this research I seek to explore some of the ramifications of humanitarians’ role
in conducting the work that may help to shore up the practices of exclusion and spatial
denial by the USBP and other enforcement agencies.
56
Importantly, and as I shall come to explore further in Chapter 7, Scharf briefly
acknowledges the role of humanitarianism by the USBP such as through the Border
Safety Initiative implemented in 1998 in response to the rising death toll of migrants.
Scharf situates the response of Humane Borders’ as recognition of the failed initiatives of
supposed humanitarian aid by the USBP, however he positions the operation and presence
of these groups as relatively unproblematic in relation to law enforcement agencies,
stating that:
Border Patrol and local park officials not only permit groups like Humane Borders
to operate in the Desert, they also make the humanitarian group’s job as easy as
possible…In fact, the Border Patrol has even commended Humane Borders’ work
as a ‘humanitarian effort’ (p.167).
This statement’s inaccuracy demonstrates a lack of critical engagement with Humane
Borders or any other humanitarian aid group, particularly in light of the arrest of the two
aid workers in 2005, a year before the publication of his article. These findings presented
by Scharf are actually drawn from a New York Times article published in 2001 (see
Goodstein, 2001), early in to Humane Borders existence, when relations between
humanitarian groups and the USBP were somewhat more cordial, but far from making
their work “as easy as possible.” Scharf does note however the contradiction of aid
operating within the same space of the USBPs practices of interdiction, stating that “the
presence and necessity of humanitarian groups” demonstrates the U.S. government’s
“awareness of at least one inhumane consequence of its Border control strategy” (p.158).
57
Failinger’s (2006) analysis surrounding the attempts of the U.S. government to convict
two No More Deaths volunteers for the illegal transport of migrants to a hospital, marks
the beginning of the current climate of criminalization of aid givers in the space of the
southern Arizona borderlands. Within her study, Failinger argues that the successful
prosecution of the volunteers would have implied the government’s acceptance of deaths
in the border region, and their continued denial of aid provision. While the volunteers
were ultimately not convicted (see Chapter 4), Failinger notes that such practices that
actively criminalize aid givers leads to a situation of uncertainty and apprehension by
future aid givers in the space of the borderlands.
Another important set of writings regarding humanitarian aid provision in the U.S.
Mexico borderlands focuses upon the religious context of such work. Lane Van Ham’s
(2006) dissertation research on Humane Borders, Samaritans, and Derechos Humanos (a
migrant rights and advocacy group in southern Arizona), provides one of the most
significant engagements with these groups within academic writing. Van Ham’s
ethnographic study of humanitarian groups, while focused on the semiotics of immigrant
advocacy through the use of religious symbolism, does make some productive insights
into the strategies of aid provision. The author distinguishes the work of immigrant
advocacy by these groups as “the provision of direct material aid to migrants,” through
“persontoperson contact with migrants en route…[providing] them with material and
medical aid as needed…a more proactive exercise of humanitarianism” (p.89). Through
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interviews with volunteers, Van Ham concludes that this approach was largely adopted
due to a belief that Border Patrol search and rescue operations were not sufficient. Within
his research, the differing scales of operation of humanitarian aid groups in this region is
recognized, noting the multiscalar and multisitedness of their actions and operation,
such as in the desert, through public awareness campaigns in the urban areas of Tucson
and Phoenix, and at vigils for migrants who have lost their lives crossing. In particular,
Van Ham discusses the operation of humanitarian aid groups, such as the Samaritans,
within the space of the Sonoran desert, stating that:
In the field, countless variables affect Samaritan and migrant interactions, but the
biggest of these is the presence of the Border Patrol. Samaritans does not see its
relationship with the Border Patrol as antagonistic, but there is an underlying
tension between the two in that the Samaritans disavow any role enforcing
immigration law (p.93).
This positionality of aid givers in the desert visàvis law enforcement agencies is an
important aspect to consider and that I explore further within the following case studies,
though is not dealt with significantly in Van Ham’s work. While it is evident that Van
Ham’s ethnographic work involved some volunteering with the groups in the desert, the
complexity of these ‘variables’ in either allowing or prohibiting the provision of aid is not
drawn out.
In Pierette HondagneuSotelo’s edited work Religion and Social Justice for Immigrants
(2007), two pieces are provided that consider the work of the humanitarian aid groups in
the U.S.Mexico borderlands, taking a specifically religious framework; Hagan’s The
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church vs. the state: borders, migrants, and human rights, and Menjivar’s Serving Christ
in the borderlands: faith workers respond to border violence. In considering groups that
are in operation within the borderlands, Hagan makes the important distinction between
groups who advocate for migrant rights, and those who directly engage with migrants
within their spaces of transit. Humanitarian aid groups operating within the borderlands
then, are primarily concerned with migrants in transit rather than advocating for those
who have reached their destination (though they often engage in advocacy work also).
Further, Menjívar argues that humanitarian groups also specifically:
…respond to violence that takes place at the physical border but also in other
borders; that is, to the kind of violence produced by broader structural forces that
generate and exacerbate other forms of violence. The workers’ responses are
fundamentally linked to social justice teachings; they view their actions as
advancing social change with a focus on the marginalized and excluded (p.105).
This critical analysis of the involvement of humanitarian aid volunteers in response to
violence in the borderlands is an important distinction not typically made by others who
have researched these groups. I am interested also in understanding how these forms of
structural violence are enacted upon by the humanitarian groups, and the subsequent
response from the State and law enforcement agencies. HondagneuSotelo also
contributes to the body of literature surrounding the religious organizing of these
humanitarian aid groups in her book God’s Heart Has No Borders: How Religious
Activists are Working for Immigrant Rights (2008). HondagneuSotelo notes that the
formation of humanitarian aid groups in the borderlands “challenge the new status quo of
violence and deaths of undocumented migrants” (p.141). Along the lines of Taylor and
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Van Ham, she argues that these groups can be seen as “direct action,” using “innovative
projects of emergency assistance” (p.142), noting the immediacy of the work conducted
by humanitarian groups operating in the spaces of transit for migrants in the borderlands.
Again, like Hagan, the distinction of providing aid to migrants who are in transit is made,
in relation to other migrant rights and advocacy groups in operation.
Anthropologist Hilary Cunningham has written several important pieces of research,
particularly concerning Humane Borders, providing one of the most extensive
engagements with such groups. Extending from her study (1995) of the Sanctuary
movement in the 1980s and 1990s, Cunningham’s more recent work on humanitarian aid
in the borderlands, which she situates as “postSanctuary activism,” takes a notably
spatial perspective. Most importantly, and as I come to discuss further, Cunningham
(2002, 2004) critically assesses the relation between humanitarian groups and the USBP
as providers of aid in the space of the ArizonaSonora borderlands, considering the
practices deployed by both groups, as well as the complex roles and tenuous relationship
between the two. Writing early in to the operation of directaid humanitarianism in the
southern Arizona borderlands, Cunningham posits some questions that at the time could
not be answered, but that several years later are now able to be addressed. In relation to
the operation of Humane Borders, and the USBPs concern over their presence, she asks:
To what extent, then, will the new cooperation [with USBP], embedded in a
strategy of community outreach, shape the strategic choices and meanings of these
social movement actors at the border? Such questions are, at this time of writing,
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openended…In light of this, it seems doubtful that a cat and mouse relationship
will suffice for the future. But one never knows (2002, p.192).
Within my ethnographic case studies then, I respond to these unanswered questions with
the benefit of some hindsight, arguing that this initial promise of cooperation is tenuous
at best, and that recent efforts to criminalize the provision of aid by the USBP and other
enforcement agencies suggests the contrary to Cunningham’s hypothesis that a “cat and
mouse” situation between the USBP and humanitarian groups seemed doubtful.
In Erfani’s (2007) work, the engagement of diverse actors within the borderlands in
response to ongoing militarization efforts is considered. Erfani argues that more recent
efforts of the U.S. government to “crack down” on border crossings has led to the
proliferation of various social networks both legal and illegal in the borderlands, such as
humanitarian groups, professional human and drug smugglers, migrants, vigilantes, state
and local enforcement agencies, and so forth. Within her study of this situation, Erfani
also recognizes the complex relationships constructed within and between these groups,
who although appear initially at odds, are often also in collaboration with each other. In
discussing this highly complex space of interaction and interdiction, Erfani notes the
unique situation of the space of the ArizonaSonora borderlands, as unlike other border
regions: this region is a “relatively remote, sparsely populated desert area” that is
comprised predominantly of federal lands, which in turn creates specific practices by the
various social actors engaged here. In particular, Erfani discusses the operation of groups
such as Humane Borders within national park lands, which are often major corridors of
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migration, such as the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. While Efrani draws
attention to these complex interactions within such spaces by various actors, this analysis
is not developed; it is such complexities that my research intends to draw out in an
understanding of the provision of aid and productions of space in the ArizonaSonora
borderlands.
Overall, I have found that one of the most significant problems of academic writing on
humanitarian aid provision within the borderlands has been the lack of critical
engagement by academics in their research. This issue of critical engagement, or lack
thereof, in coming to understand the operation of humanitarian aid in this region, is
something that I address further in my methodological approach set out in Chapter 3, and
within the proceeding case studies. Further, most writings gave a brief discussion of the
operation of these groups on a daily basis, though typically left their analysis at a
descriptive level (Sundberg and Cunningham being the main exceptions here). These all
point to significant gaps in a critical understanding of these groups in relation to the
operation of the USBP and other enforcement and land management agencies active in
this region.

2.4 Summary
Drawing upon the literature considered in this chapter, my research seeks to develop
further several aspects of significant importance discussed here. As noted in this review,
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processes of border militarization and its outcomes are dynamic, and generate distinctive
geographies. While there has been significant attention by academics surrounding border
securitization in the U.S.Mexico borderlands, particularly since the mid1990s, alongside
efforts to critically understand how migration paths have shifted in response, the past few
years have seen rapid changes within the borderlands. It is necessary then to explore
critically the outcomes of the most recent efforts of militarization and immigration
enforcement in this region. In particular this research is concerned with southern Arizona,
where the majority of migration has shifted too, and the most prominent region for
migrant deaths.
This research then, which takes a significantly qualitative approach to understanding such
effects and outcomes of border militarization, approaches such issues through a notably
groundlevel analysis, working within the space of the borderlands and directly engaging
with actors who work to reinforce, or alternatively, contest and transgress these practices
and spaces of control. While open borders research, which critically challenges nation
state based immigration controls and border militarization practices, presents some
differing lines of analysis and thought surrounding immigration and migrant rights, such
literature is notably devoid of examples in which individuals, groups, or social
movements seek to challenge such controls over mobility, particularly from a spatial
perspective, on an everyday basis. Academic writing regarding militarization in the U.S.
Mexico borderlands, further, has often ignored such practices of contestation, therefore
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resulting in a lack of critical understanding as to how such processes are contested
through the production of alternative spaces concerned with migrant rights.
Existing literature concerned with the operation of humanitarian aid as response to border
militarization has provided some important insights. However, much of this work
demonstrates a lack of critical engagement with this social movement and specific
groups. Such work then, often remains at the descriptive level, providing at times analyses
of these groups that do not sufficiently comprehend the significant complexities of
challenging processes of migration controls and border securitization efforts through the
use of humanitarianism. In particular, comparative studies of humanitarian aid groups in
operation within southern Arizona are largely missing, making it difficult to understand
critically how such groups operate together, and in their individual and unique responses
to efforts by the state to prohibit such work. Further, to date only cursory
acknowledgements have been made regarding the operation of aid groups visàvis the
significant number of other actors present within the borderlands, including state, private,
and nongovernment, such as local communities in both southern Arizona and northern
Sonora, Mexico. This includes also a lack of understanding of how these groups are
perceived by other actors, and their relations with them, as well as the ways in which they
challenge or reinforce dominant narratives of spaces within the borderlands. Though
existing work has made important insights into the operation of humanitarian aid in the
65
highly militarized borderlands, this research seeks to provide a critically engaged analysis
of such groups within the region of southern Arizona, where aid to migrants in transit is
most active.
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Chapter 3: Researching DirectAid Humanitarianism in the
Space of the Borderlands
This chapter consists of several components to develop a method and model for
researching directaid humanitarianism within the U.S.Mexico borderlands. First, a
series of models are presented framing the actors and spaces that are considered within
this research, and specifically highlighting the main dimensions that the analytical
component of this work will focus upon. Second, a periodization of this research is
presented, framing the temporal boundaries of inquiry. Third, it is necessary to explicate
upon a number of theoretical concepts that inform this research and the models presented
here, allowing critical understandings of the production of space within the borderlands –
particularly surrounding the provision of humanitarian aid through direct means – to be
developed. Finally, a discussion regarding positionality and methods is provided,
recognizing the political nature of this work, and the need for a critical approach to
studying humanitarian aid through the application of diverse methods.
3.1 Conceptual model
In the broadest sense, this dissertation is about the production of space within the U.S.
Mexico borderlands. Needless to say, typically, the production of space is at the heart of
the project of human geography. In Lefebvre’s (1992) wellknown exposition, for
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example, a tripartite emphasis is placed on the perceived, conceived, and lived
dimensions of place production. Lefebvre specifies the following:
- spatial practice;
- representations of space; and
- representational spaces
Many researchers have explored the precise processes by which abstract spaces are
transformed in to humanly occupied places. For instance, Dear (2000, p.23) begins his
exposition on the geographical problematic by noting how social relations are:
- constituted;
- constrained; and
- mediated
Others have noted the practices that are employed in the production of place, including
the diverse suites of strategies and tactics that human agents employ (see for example de
Certeau, 2002). Such practices are not always transparent in their operation; indeed many
agents use deliberately obfuscatory strategies and tactics in producing place (see for
example Debord’s Society of the Spectacle, 2006).
Understood from this broad perspective, my dissertation proceeds from some fairly well
established conventions in human geography that pertains especially to two fundamental
themes: the manipulation and control of space by state authorities, including police
actions of various forms; and the occupation of space by forces of resistance to authority,
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including social movements of varying kinds. Recent examples of geographical work in
these traditions include Steve Herbert (1997) on policing; Steve Pile on spaces of
resistance (1997); David Sibley (1995) on spaces of exclusion; and Laura Pulido (2006)
on the geography of social movements.
In this dissertation, I seek to develop a method of inquiry in to the production of space
within the U.S.Mexico borderlands. At one level this is an extremely difficult task, given
the multiplicity of agents involved and the enormous geographical distance covered by the
borderlands; at another level, the analytical and interpretive tasks posed by the
borderlands is enormously intriguing and potentially insightful regarding a sociospatial
phenomenon of pressing public concern (i.e. contemporary efforts to fortify the border).
I will need to develop an approach that takes account of multiple agents operating at
different scales (from the national to the local) frequently within the same spaces
simultaneously. This is one reason why the borderland process is intrinsically so
conflictual, since the same space can serve many different functions, as it is manipulated
by the different agents (e.g. police and activists). In addition, it is frequently the case that
the same spatial knowledge can be used for different ends by various agents; that agent’s
responses and counterresponses to one another’s actions often combine in a spiraling
dialectic of intensification; and that the motives and actions of various agents become
blurred and conflated – sometimes deliberately engineered this way, other times
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serendipitous. It is this complexity that I want both to encompass and to deconstruct in
this analysis.
Diagram A:
In order to explain the contemporary production of space/place in the U.S.Mexico
borderlands, I need to bring into the same discursive/analytical space two nominally
oppositional groups from state and civil society, in the manifestations of the Department
of Homeland Security (DHS) and its various departments, and a diverse collection of
grassroots humanitarian aid and migrant rights groups (figure 3.1). These two elements,
as they are manifest in various elements of the state apparatus or social movement
universe, appear in the same geographical setting and by their interactions, create new
spaces within the borderlands. In the most obvious example, DHS and its constituent
agencies create and maintain fortifications that increase the likelihood of injury or death
for undocumented migrants; grassroots aid groups take steps to mitigate the harm created
by these measures.
Although motivations in borderland interventions of state and civil society differ, they are
engaged with the same spaces. Moreover, to a large extent, they employ similar spatial
knowledges regarding the status of the borderlands, its security, migrations,
demographics, and so forth. Their cognitive understandings of the material conditions of
the border may be expected to differ, even as the space is the same. A vital part of my
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concern is the ways in which these cognitive and material perceptions differ and overlap
among the various border agencies, and with what consequences.
Figure 3.1: Diagram A
Diagram B:
My general conceptual frame (figure 3.1) identifies a range of social movements in
opposition to certain actions of the state; the representations of the movements and the
state operate within the same geographical spaces with approximately equivalent spatial
(and other) knowledges, but with vastly differing resources and capacities for action. How
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then can this general dialectic of diagram A be translated into an operational form that
facilitates empirical analysis?
I begin with the notion that the spatial knowledges and practices of all agents pertain to a
common object of concern, i.e. the borderlands (figure 3.2). In simplified terms the
principal agents of concern in this investigation are the DHS/USBP and directaid
humanitarian groups. During the time frame considered, the actions of the DHS/USBP
have predominantly been directed at the fortification and militarization of the boundary
line, and the criminalization of the presence of groups and individuals in proximity to the
line (including, most prominently, undocumented migrants involved in crossing).
Such actions by the DHS have engendered a varied set of responses by diverse
humanitarianoriented social movements. In the Tucson area, where there is a relatively
long history of volunteerprovided sanctuary for migrants, DHS actions have provoked a
flurry of counterresponses by these groups, often representing entirely novel ways of
addressing the humanitarian aid issue in the light of newlyaggressive DHS strategies.
As a consequence, the aid groups have themselves become a target of DHSinspired
actions designed to coopt and curtail their activities and geographical provenance. My
analysis will be concerned to trace this sequence of response and counterresponse
through the evolution of practices by three representative groups: Humane Borders,
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Samaritans, and No More Deaths (figure 3.2). One important question in this analysis is
to demonstrate how the intersections of these diverse agents of state and civil society
operate over various scales and become manifest in local conflicts and outcomes (e.g.
how federal authority becomes concretized – sometimes literally – in local practices).
This localization itself becomes the source of further intensification and evolution in
spatial knowledges and practices at the border.
One of the most revealing and intriguing aspects of the localization processes is the re
framing of the rhetoric and discourse of borderland disputes. As interagency conflicts
have escalated, representatives on both sides have (over time) adopted a common
discourse of humanitarianism. This is manifestly a deliberate strategy on the part of state
agents intent on changing the nature of the spatial knowledges of the rapidly evolving
borderlands landscape. These altered rhetorics are surfacing concurrently with a
continuation of conventional practices of fortification and criminalization by DHS/USBP
agents, alongside the involvement of other law enforcement agencies now involved with
interdicting undocumented migration.
A large part of my analysis is directed toward uncovering the precise nature of the
evolving responses and counterresponses by agents involved in the borderlands conflict.
Through this investigation, I hope to demonstrate how the spatial knowledges and spatial
practices of all engaged agencies are causing deep changes in the material and cognitive
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processes of the production of space in the U.S.Mexico borderlands. In what follows, my
analysis is designed to engage five dimensions, as represented in figure 3.2:
- evolution of movements (Chapter 4)
- fortification/militarization (Chapter 5)
- criminalization (Chapter 6)
- rhetoric (Chapter 7)
- production of space and spatial knowledge/practices (Chapter 8)
Figure 3.2: Diagram B
3.2 Periodization
Although a spatial framework was presented within Chapter 1, and will continue to be
developed as this research progresses, there is a need to frame this work temporally as
well. It is necessary then to consider some of the key events that have led to the
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development and operation of contemporary humanitarian aid groups within the space of
the U.S.Mexico borderlands, explaining also the rationale for my temporal framing.
The inception of Operation Gatekeeper on October 1, 1994 best designates the point of
departure in the contemporary era of militarization and fortification within the U.S.
Mexico borderlands. This effort to fence the urban portion of the border separating San
Diego and Tijuana, along with similar fencing projects in other urban areas of the
borderlands during the midlate 1990s, was coupled with the ‘forward deployment’
mantra, in which undocumented migration was to be stopped “at the line,” supported by a
rapidly expanding U.S. Border Patrol force (Andreas, 2000; Nevins, 2002). With
relatively few deaths occurring from undocumented migration across the border pre
Gatekeeper, deaths began to rise significantly after the inception of such militarization
programs. Deaths across the entire border region rose from approximately 87 in 1996, to
an average of 360 between the fiscal years of 2000 and 2005 (Nevins, 2005a, p.2). The
findings by scholars at the Center for Immigration Research at the University of Houston
several years after the inception of these militarization efforts (Eschbach, et al., 1999)
were the first to show with little doubt that the now significantly fortified urban areas of
the U.S.Mexico border, and the official policy of ‘prevention through deterrence’, had
led to a rapidly rising death toll of undocumented crossers. Future research helped to
confirm the initial findings by Eschbach et al., noting that the trends were continuing (see
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for example Cornelius, 2001; Eschbach et al., 2003; and the research conducted by the
Binational Migration Institute, see RubioGoldsmith et al., 2006).
Around the time that the drastically increasing death tolls were coming to awareness,
communities within several localities of the borderlands were coming together to discuss
what could be done to mitigate the significant loss of life that they were witnessing.
Grassroots groups, recognizing the clear connection between border militarization and
deaths, began to develop unique methods to provide aid to those crossing in the perilous
desert corridors that paths of migration had been funneled to, since the inception of
Gatekeeper and similar operations. These grassroots programs, often referred to as ‘water
projects’ first appeared in California, and followed soon after in Arizona and Texas, to
varying degrees of intensity, applying unique spatiallyinformed methods (for a timeline
of these groups, see appendix A). Of particular interest to this research, has been the
development of such water projects within the Tucson sector of southern Arizona, a
region known for its lengthy history of immigrantrights activism (see appendix B). As
Chapter 4 discusses in greater detail, the formation of Humane Borders in 2000, and the
subsequent development of Samaritans in 2001, followed by No More Deaths in 2004, has
resulted in a unique confluence of ‘directaid humanitarianism’ situated within the most
deadly region of the U.S.Mexico borderlands.
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The events of September 11, 2001 resulted in a strengthening of militarization and
securitization efforts within the borderlands soon after, led largely through a significant
bolstering of the USBP with several thousand new agents, alongside the growing
presence of other law enforcement agencies operating in a supportive role (Coleman,
2007a). In 2003 the Department of Homeland Security was formulated under the Bush
administration, reconfiguring previous federal immigrationrelated agencies, and
conflating very clearly a perceived connection between homeland security and ‘illegal’
immigration. Meanwhile, the deaths of undocumented migrants continued to grow, as
migration paths shifted into increasingly remote regions in response to the growing USBP
presence and border militarization.
This research takes then as its temporal frame the period of 1994 until the end of 2008
when the Bush administration came to a close. This was a period of both unprecedented
border militarization and securitization efforts by the U.S. government, and of deaths of
undocumented migrants crossing through the increasingly dangerous borderlands. In
particular, since the formation of the DHS in 2003, the Bush administration has overseen
the implementation of a number of policies that have ensured the rapid militarization of
the U.S.Mexico border, including the Secure Border Initiative, and the Secure Fence Act
of 2006, that has resulted in the construction of almost 700 miles of pedestrian fencing
and traffic barriers (see appendix C for a timeline of border militarization since the mid
1990s).
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3.3 Border militarization as structural violence
Humanitarian aid groups involved with providing aid and solidarity, take as their central
purpose the ending of deaths and abuses of undocumented migrants. While it is often
argued within the media that those who perish in the borderlands did so due to their own
actions, humanitarian aid groups (and others) argue that it is through structural forms of
violence that such deaths occur. In this research, then, violence is not perceived as only
physical acts of aggression committed by one person against another. Though this is
certainly one aspect of violence that takes place in the borderlands, I am concerned
primarily with structural forms of violence, developed largely through the policing and
fortification of the borderlands. In discussing undocumented migration within the
borderlands, Cecilia Menjívar (2007) outlines violence as:
…a multifaceted concept that does not refer solely to the willful infliction of
physical pain or injury or even mental anguish, but also to the deprivation of
services to maintain mental and physical health and to the warlike atmosphere
created by militarized border policies (p.105).
In Joseph Nevins (2005a, see also Nevins, 2005b) exploration of violence perpetrated
against undocumented migrants, he provides several useful insights. In developing an
understanding of violence, Nevins notes that the multifaceted forms of violence are
constructed through institutionalized forms that typically mask violence from the wider
public, presenting it as a mundane, legitimate, and naturalized response to those that have
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transgressed U.S. sovereign territory. This, Nevins argues, has resulted in the significant
levels of deaths in the borderlands that have gone largely uncontested:
To a significant degree, the fact that such violence happens under the rubric of the
law helps to mask its very nature as the dominant view of the law sees it as
rational, benign, and necessary, as well as independent of any specific social and/or
geographical context as it supposedly rests on immutable principles (2005a, p.23).
As I come to demonstrate within this research, working with directaid humanitarian
organizations within the U.S.Mexico borderlands allows a unique insight into the
multifaceted forms of violence conducted against undocumented migrants on an everyday
basis, created through a complex array of relationships across and within heavily
contested spaces. This predominantly unmediated understanding of structural violence, in
which it is encountered directly through innumerable interactions and through practices
of witnessing, as Nevins (2005a, p.17) notes, is “empowering in that it facilitates a wider
array of interventions by individuals, groups, and institutions to fight against the myriad
factors that give rise to violence.” While this research takes as its focus the specific space
of the U.S.Mexico borderlands, it is recognized that violence upon undocumented
populations often takes place well before and long after their transit through this region.
In considering these ‘interventions’ by humanitarian aid groups, this research considers
also the wider impacts of the differing forms of structural violence directed at
undocumented migrant populations upon local communities, and specifically, upon the
aid groups. This indirect, and at times, direct violence upon humanitarian aid workers in
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the borderlands has remained a relatively unexplored aspect of conducting such work that
this research intends to address. Although much of the violence experienced within the
borderlands is institutionalized, predominantly through agents of the State, there are many
forms of informal and nonstate actors who are involved in perpetuating similar forms of
violence, often with the implicit support of the State. The diverse array of actors situated
within this region, and involved directly or indirectly with undocumented migration,
requires a consideration of the various ways in which violence is created, maintained, and
replicated.
3.4 Militarization and criminalization: creating spaces of exclusion,
denial, and containment
In attempting to understand the spaces of migration within the U.S.Mexico borderlands,
and more specifically the Tucson sector, as well as the debates that rage between various
groups and actors in efforts to lay claim to these spaces, the work of David Sibley (1995)
and his notion of ‘exclusionary geographies’ is particularly useful. When thinking about
exclusionary spaces, we must also ask “to where are people excluded?” if indeed certain
undesirable groups cannot be removed entirely. In that sense, while there are exclusionary
spaces, there are likely also spaces of containment. This is not to suggest however that
such spaces can be so clearly and neatly defined. Yet I argue it is important to recognize
the attempts in which these forms of space are created and maintained. Therefore, I adopt
what I term practices of ‘spatial denial’ and ‘spatial containment’ when considering
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undocumented migration within the Tucson sector and its numerous migration corridors.
Sibley, too, makes this distinction between exclusionary spaces and spaces of
confinement, stating that “power is expressed in the monopolization of space and the
relegation of weaker groups in society to less desirable environments” (p.ix), and that
“values associated with conformity or authoritarianism are expressed in maps which
relegate others to places distinct from the locales of the dominant majority” (p.49). This
is a useful distinction when thinking about corridors of migration in the Sonoran desert of
southern Arizona. While certain groups or populations are excluded from particular
spaces and environments (typically urban areas), through practices of militarization and
criminalization, they are often simultaneously contained within less desirable spaces and
environments, in this case, the treacherous Sonoran desert landscape, what Gilberto
Rosas, in his work on state violence in the borderlands, refers to as the “killing deserts”
(2006).
These spaces of inclusion, exclusion, and containment/confinement, as mentioned, are not
neatly defined. Although it has been well noted that practices of the federal government
and the USBP, through militarizing the border, have pushed migrants into the deserts of
southern Arizona, excluding them from more hospitable urban environments, and
containing them within desert landscapes largely out of sight of the U.S. public
(Cornelius, 2001), these areas remain contested spaces, inhabited by U.S. citizens, albeit
very few in relation to urbanized areas. Ranchers, local residents, and land managers in
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these areas have therefore witnessed a significant rise in migration through their land in
the past decade or so. These spaces within southern Arizona and elsewhere along the
border are therefore highly contested, where certain populations are deemed as being
legitimately within these spaces (U.S. citizens, ranchers, land owners/managers, tourists,
USBP, citizen/vigilante border patrols), while others are seen as illegitimate
(undocumented migrants, humanitarian aid workers, drug smugglers). As Sibley states
later in his work “The cultural heterogeneity of the countryside or the city has to be
denied in these fictional characterizations if they are to symbolize an imagined national
community” (p.108).
Replacing the countryside, which Sibley, a scholar in the UK focused upon, with the
deserts of southern Arizona, it can be argued that this space and its heterogeneity is
typically washed over by dominant narratives and geographies of who ‘belongs’ here, and
those who are seen as transgressing the space of the desert, in an attempt to deny the long
history of migration in this region, both from indigenous communities and from those
migrating to the north. While many denounce the presence of migrants in this region,
they typically neglect to recognize the role of the USBP and militarization practices
which explicitly pushed migration paths here, in an effort to exclude this group from safer
and more hospitable urban areas. Sibley notes that “In such environments, difference will
register as deviance, a source of threat to be kept out through the erection of strong
boundaries, or expelled” (p.78).
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This research is therefore interested in the criminalization of both undocumented
migrants and those that seek to provide aid to them, through the notion of presence within
space. While particular groups are excluded from certain spaces, in turn they are
criminalized for their presence within these spaces should they be able to gain entry to
them. As Bibler Coutin (2005) argues:
…illegality is less an action than ‘a facet of “illegal aliens” very being.’ The so
called problem presented by illegal immigration is migrants’ mere presence;
therefore the alleged solution is to exclude unauthorized migrants, whether through
deportation, detention, or denying [services] (p.7).
The borderlands then, can be seen as what Sibley and others have referred to as ‘liminal
zones,’ which create anxiety, and where dominant communities often try to eliminate the
unwanted other. This results then, in the case of undocumented immigration in southern
Arizona, in pushing migrants into even more inhospitable terrain, leading to further
deaths and hardship for those crossing. This has been particularly witnessed in the
significant growth of migration paths through the Tohono O’odham reservation, now an
intensely concentrated space of deaths. In this research, the concept of Sibley’s
geographies of exclusion is considered as a way to critically understand how the space of
the Sonoran desert within the Tucson sector has become so contested, and the ways in
which both undocumented migrants and humanitarian aid workers, albeit with
significantly different consequences, are criminalized and interdicted, excluded and
contained.
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When discussing the role of law enforcement agencies and private institutions that have
been tasked with policing undocumented migration and movement within the space of the
borderlands, largely maintaining these geographies of exclusion and containment, I use
specifically the term ‘interdiction’ which I have drawn from the work of Josiah Heyman
(1999). His definition states that:
Interdiction seeks to stop flows of goods or people by intercepting them in
movement, often at or near international boundaries. At certain borders, for certain
flows, interdiction is growing today in terms of the size and sophistication of police
powers (p.619; my emphasis).
He continues that:
Interdiction involves both the practical and symbolic dimensions of borders:
practical because border crossing brings illegality into being; and symbolic,
because when borders are seen as perilous, their reinforcement is vital (p.620).
Heyman makes the specific distinction of interdiction as being concerned with bodies “in
movement” particularly within proximity to international boundaries. This research, then,
takes as its focus the interdiction of persons in movement/transit within the borderlands,
and the efforts of divergent groups to aid in curtailing or promoting this movement. The
USBP’s strategy of territorial denial through their policy of ‘prevention through
deterrence,’ and applying practices of militarization, can be seen then as a clear example
of the use of interdiction and enforcement to create such spaces of exclusion.
3.5 New faces of immigration enforcement in support of the DHS and
USBP
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In Mathew Coleman’s work surrounding the geopolitics of immigration enforcement
(2007a, 2007b), he puts forward the argument that “the spatiality of state governance is
now much more complicated than the straightforward enforcement of an either/or
territoriality at the edges of the state” (2007a, p.57). Coleman considers the proliferation
of various law enforcement agencies now engaged in immigration policing not only at the
border but also within the interior of the United States, concentrating at the level of the
local and municipal, arguing that:
…there has been a concerted effort on the part of lawmakers and the Bush
administration, particularly since 9/11, to use local proxy forces – or nonfederal
delegates – to enforce immigration law…[This] enrollment of proxy immigration
officers at substate scales, constitutes a new localized or rescaled geopolitics of
immigration policing (Coleman, 2007a, p.56).
While I agree with this analysis, and recognize the exceptional importance of coming to
understand how immigration policing is taking place far removed from the space of the
borderlands, I assert that this devolution to local enforcement agencies, and other federal
agencies typically not tasked with immigration enforcement, is also happening within the
borderlands, particularly in southern Arizona. One method in which this is occurring is
through the inception of programs such as Operation Stonegarden, implemented by the
DHS. Beginning in 2005, the program, which provided $12 million to the four border
states of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas:
…gave states the flexibility to use DHS grant funding to enhance coordination
among state and federal law enforcement agencies at our borders. The pilot
program resulted in an estimated 214 state, local and tribal agencies working
36,755 mandays on various public safety and border security operations
(Department of Homeland Security, 2006).
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In early June of 2009, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano confirmed that a
further $12.8 million would be allocated specifically to Arizona’s four border counties
under Operation Stonegarden, continuing to affirm the program’s role in supporting
borderpolicing strategies at the local level (see also Department of Homeland Security,
2009). The borderland region of southern Arizona has therefore seen increasing
collaboration between USBP and local police, indigenous police forces, land management
officers, and other enforcement agencies. This need for collaboration on Arizona’s federal
lands between enforcement agencies and the USBP and DHS, was highlighted through a
Government Accountability Office (GAO) report to Congress in 2004, recognizing that
previous border enforcement methods had shifted immigration predominantly in to these
areas, providing additional strain on land management and enforcement officers there. I
seek to explore then the ramifications of this collaboration with other law enforcement
agencies in the space of the Tucson sector upon undocumented immigration and the
provision of humanitarian aid.
The devolution of immigration law to the state and local level has resulted in unique
conditions within varying spaces along the border, and internally throughout the United
States (Ridgeley, 2008). This is clearly demonstrated by the adoption of programs such as
Operation Streamline (Chapter 6) and similar zerotolerance policies, in which certain
USBP sectors decide whether or not to apply such policies. In her recent article regarding
this practice of devolution, Monica Varsanyi (2008) discusses the legal (re)production of
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scale used to discern who belongs within the U.S. and who does not. Importantly, she
notes that by allowing this devolution, the federal government may continue to appear
tough on border enforcement, while leaving the work of policing undocumented
migration to the state and local levels. This devolution of immigration powers is not
complete though, as Varsanyi reminds us, but rather “a partial, incomplete, and
contingent devolution,” where the federal government still maintains overall say. Such an
approach results in the differential criminalization of migrants for the same act of
crossing undocumented, as it is dependent upon the place in which they decide to cross.
This in turn creates a unique set of constraints for humanitarian aid workers depending
also on their location, as this research will explore.
This proliferation of law enforcement agencies/agents, and increasing collaboration with
USBP and DHS to militarize the borderlands and police migration, has led to further
contestations of space in this region, and an enhanced difficulty in crossing
undocumented. This engagement and involvement with other enforcement agencies, who
are typically not trained regarding immigration policing, has led not only to increased
criminalization of undocumented migrants, and abuses committed against them, but also,
I argue, to a heightened criminalization of humanitarian aid provision. Further, the use of
private corporations through outsourcing by the U.S. government in detention and
removals operations, has contributed to a growing presence of actors with differing
mandates operating within the borderlands (Lahav, 1998; Lahav and Guiradon, 2000). I
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inquire then, as to how these humanitarian groups have been affected by this expansion of
immigration enforcement, and the spatial strategies they have employed to resist this
criminalization and interdiction of aid. As Cunningham (2004) asserts, we must come to
understand “the manifold ways in which the state (as a complex of different agencies and
actors) continues to powerfully monitor movement across nations and mount different
models for doing so” (p.345).
I deploy Heyman’s (1999) notion of the “local state” when discussing the proliferation of
law enforcement agencies – including those who are federal agencies, such as the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service, but are uniquely situated at the local scale – in the borderlands,
not previously tasked with interdicting migration, but who in recent years have become
involved either implicitly or explicitly in doing so. These groups contribute to the
militarization of the borderlands and the control of space, along with the criminalization
of undocumented migrants and humanitarian aid workers. This research does not argue
that a focus upon internal immigration policing is unwarranted, nor does it argue for an
explicit return to focusing on the ‘line’ only, but instead to understand the expanding face
of the state, such as land management agencies and local police, within the borderlands,
working alongside the USBP and DHS, which typically have not received significant
focus by academics concerned with immigration policing. As Heyman states:
…I refer to the INS and other border agencies as the ‘local state’. They are
literally that, for as field units of the federal US agencies, they operate in the
specific social, economic and cultural setting of the border. However my aim is not
to advocate pure localism in border studies, for observing the US state in action
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reveals that some interdiction is localitydenying, a nationallymandated technique
oblivious to its regional setting, while other interdiction is woven densely into local
society (my emphasis; 1999, p.622).
It is imperative to understand the role of these groups who have recently become involved
in immigration policing and spatial control, particularly since the development of the
DHS in 2003, when immigration policing was drastically reshaped. As Heyman asks, we
should attempt to understand “under what circumstances is boundary interdiction
reproduced and expanded,” through considering “[i]mportant clues as to how, and why, it
[interdiction] is chosen [and] lie buried in the matrix of daily law enforcement practices,
waiting to be uncovered by careful fieldwork” (p.620). It is through ethnographic research
with humanitarian aid groups, located within the southern Arizona borderlands, at an
everyday level, that this research attempts to understand how the contemporary
proliferation of law enforcement agencies active in this region have reproduced and
expanded these practices of interdiction, which have led to a criminalization of
undocumented migrants and of humanitarian aid workers, albeit with vastly different
impacts upon these two communities.
Previous analyses of state presence in the borderlands, and agents of law enforcement, are
typically limited to USBP and DHS, alongside the role of vigilantes, not recognizing the
many other faces of the state that are now tasked with interdicting migrant aid. For
example, Schmidt Camacho (2008) notes that “the conflict over undocumented migrants
has also introduced new actors into the field of border policing” in relation to the
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presence of vigilante groups, a common recognition. Yet other than USBP and vigilantes,
other agents of border policing are not typically discussed in a detailed exploration. Erfani
(2007) touches on the proliferation of diverse actors in the borderlands, noting that:
Paradoxically, federal immigration enforcement policies aimed at increasing
governmental control over people crossing the southern border of the United States
have actually inspired a complex array of informal networks, both legal and
criminal, that exercise increasing control over everyday life and movement through
USMexico border regions (p.41).
This research then, through an exploration of humanitarian directaid groups, seeks to
demonstrate the impacts of the involvement of differing actors involved in interdicting
and aiding migration.
3.6 Spatial outcomes: producing practices and spaces of resistance
To understand the practices of humanitarian aid groups in contesting USBP and DHS
policies of spatial containment and denial, I draw upon two integral pieces in which Paul
Routledge defines his notion of a ‘spatiality of resistance’: Critical geopolitics and
terrains of resistance in Political Geography (1997b), and Spatialites of resistances:
theory and practice in Nepal’s revolution of 1990, in Geographies of Resistance (1997a).
In Routledge’s conception of ‘spatialities of resistance’, he states that this is concerned
with:
(1) how spatial processes and relations across a variety of scales, as well as the
particularities of specific places, influence the character and emergence of various
forms of resistance; (2) how practices of resistance are constitutive of different
relationships to space, via strategic mobilities, or uses of space; (3) how these
relationships enable or constrain such articulations of resistance; and (4) how the
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character and meaning of place may change when it becomes a site of resistance
(Routledge, 1997a, p.72).
Using the concept of spatialites of resistance then, I am interested in the strategies of
direct action activists within the unique space of the Sonoran desert, how this space
enables and constrains such strategies, and the relationship between this space and the
activists. How has the space of the Tucson sector in the Sonoran desert been redefined by
the presence of these groups, and what does this geography of direct action humanitarian
aid look like? How are these spaces/spatialities of resistance constructed, refined, and
practiced? Likewise, how are they contested, interdicted, and criminalized? In discussing
these contestations and productions of space, and the ways in which social movements
operate within them, Routledge notes that:
Different social groups endow space with amalgams of different meanings, uses,
and values. Such differences can give rise to various tensions and conflicts within
society over the uses of space for individual and social purposes and the
domination of space by the state and other forms of class and social power…
Within such contradictions of space, particular places frequently become sites of
conflict where the social structures and relations of power, knowledge, domination
and resistance intersect (1997a, p.70).
This research is interested, then, in the intersections of different actors within the space of
the Tucson sector, and across the various forms of land ownership, management, and
control that comprise this region (national parks, reservation land, private property,
freeways and other paths of movement, etc). In particular, what meanings do
humanitarian aid groups attempt to ascribe to these spaces in contesting dominant
narratives put forward by the USBP, DHS, and antiimmigrant groups? What forms of
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everyday spatial resistance are practiced by humanitarian groups to challenge these
dominant narratives, and to create a different situation within this region, what was
sometimes referred to by volunteers as creating “death free zones”? Further, in response
to Routledge’s statement, how is spatial knowledge developed and deployed within these
spaces of migration, to provide aid effectively and at times circumvent law enforcement
and vigilante efforts to stop its provision?
David Featherstone (2003, 2008), along with Routledge (1997a, b), reminds us also that
this resistance takes place within multiple spaces and at differing scales. While resistance
typically occurs at the local scale, these practices of resistance are often dynamic, multi
sited, and frequently connected to issues at the national and global scale. This research is
interested in the various spaces in which the humanitarian aid groups enact their
resistance – such as through their desert basecamps, media campaigns, and courtroom
battles – and how, if at all, they make connections to wider processes and struggles.
Featherstone also asks how these spatial practices of resistance can be seen as constitutive
of political identities. How then does operating as a humanitarian aid giver within the
space of the desert inform and politicize volunteers and other actors, through a much
more embodied engagement with the spaces of migration, typically not experienced by
most residing at a considerable distance from the borderlands?
Using Routledge’s framework of spatialities of resistance, this research is better able to
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comprehend and critically analyze the spatial practices of humanitarian aid groups
operating within the Tucson sector, how the unique circumstances of this region in turn
impact the ways in which these groups operate, and the (in)ability to provide effective
solidarity through aid to those crossing. More broadly, taking this perspective of
spatialities of resistance, a more detailed understanding is developed of how such
resistance has shaped the character and meaning of the space of the Tucson sector, and its
role in the production of new and contested spaces.
3.7 Geographies of solidarity
Though the directaid humanitarian groups that are the focus of this research do not
explicitly label themselves as a solidarity movement, a central aspect to their practice is
the notion of solidarity. In efforts to evolve their strategies from previous movements that
were critiqued for their asymmetrical power relations, in which refugees were positioned
in certain ways that solidified these power relations, contemporary directaid groups have
framed their work as a practice of solidarity. Their aim then is to operate in a supportive
mode with undocumented migrants in transit through the U.S.Mexico borderlands, rather
than reinforcing uneven geographies and relationships of power. As Sundberg (2007)
describes:
Solidarity movements are distinguished from other social movements in that
solidarity activists are said to seek social change for the transformation of power
relations for the benefits of others, while participants in labor, feminist, queer, and
environmental movements are said to mobilize on their own behalf (p.147; original
emphasis).
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While perhaps an overly neat delineation of social movements (though Sundberg
continues to problematize this in detail later in her work), the notable distinction made
here is the focus upon solidarity movements as those that seek social change and
transformation of power relations “for the benefits of others.” Within this research, an
exploration of the methods in which these directaid groups seek to operate in solidarity
with undocumented migrants is provided, considering some of the developments in their
practices to provide solidarity effectively within the space of the borderlands and beyond.
A small body of work within the field of Geography concerned with geographies of
solidarity has provided useful insights into understanding its spatial operation, though a
predominant focus has remained upon forms of transnational solidarity and global justice
movements working around issues of contesting neoliberalism (see for example Herod,
1996; Glassman, 2001; Featherstone, 2003, 2008; Routledge, 2003a; Sundberg, 2007;
Koopman, 2008; Pratt, 2008; Routledge and Cumbers, 2009). Yet while a transnational
focus is central in this body of work, concerned with social movements connecting across
space and acting in solidarity with communities and movements located within differing
nationstates, a recognition of the continuing importance of the local and national scale
for solidarity work remains; as Routledge and Cumbers argue “solidarity entails joint
articulations between different placebased struggles” (2009, p.217; see also Pickerill and
Chatterton, 2006).
How does directaid humanitarianism within the U.S.Mexico borderlands operate as a
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form of solidarity at the level of the local and national? What ties, if at all, do they have to
transnational social justice and solidarity, surrounding issues of migrant rights and
freedom of movement? In relation to preceding movements such as Sanctuary, which has
been critiqued as a movement about migrants, rather than for migrants (Coutin, 1993;
Martínez, 2002), how do current movements, to borrow from Koopman (2008),
“decolonize solidarity” by operating in a manner that does not work to shore up existing
colonial practices? Is it possible to undo asymmetrical power relations across space when
concerned with providing solidarity with a highly transient and unorganized population,
whose goal is to migrate to the U.S. predominantly to seek work and reunite with family?
Yet as Featherstone (2003), Routledge (2003b), and Sundberg (2007) assert, building
mutual solidarity “from embodied experiences makes alliances between differently
situated actors struggling against unequally constituted geometries of power more
possible” (Sundberg, 2007, p.162). How do the largely embodied local and personal
scaled practices of directaid humanitarian groups build these mutual solidarities,
particularly in the face of significant adversity from various faces of power concerned
with interdicting undocumented migrants and, at times, humanitarian aid?
3.8 Direct action as spatial practice
As mentioned in the introduction to this research, I frame the humanitarian aid groups
and their practices upon which I focus as ‘direct action,’ or more specifically, ‘direct aid’;
I see this aspect of their work as what sets them apart from other progressive immigrant
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rights movements. Though it may be possible to view the work of many immigrant rights
groups as direct action in their nature, I argue that the groups focused upon here are
defined specifically due to their explicit use of direct action practices. Part of the
difficulty of using this distinction is that direct action is typically not clearly defined,
particularly in academic use. Though this might be due to a resistance to rigidly define
such a dynamic practice, it is necessary to set out here how I frame direct action in
relation to my research interests and context, in particular considering the spatial nature
of direct action.

3.8.1 A working definition of direct action
Though recognizing the dynamic and unstable nature of the term, for the purposes of this
research I define direct action as a prefigurative political practice that forgoes methods
such as petitioning governments, in favor of physical intervention to construct alternative
social realities (Gordon, 2008). The decision to apply direct action commonly occurs
when groups and individuals demands are not satisfied or are unable to be met by
authorities, or the State, and so focuses upon immediate objectives.
It is a dynamic and contextually based political practice that commonly operates outside
of established formal political structures. Direct action is also uniquely spatial in its
operation and application, as it seeks to reclaim and politicize space, demonstrating the
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differentiated power relations experienced within such spaces (see Anderson, 2004a,
2004b). It may take on various forms and practices, often unique to the situation at hand,
and commonly implies the use of physical bodies and emotion, constituted through
collective action and noninstitutionalized practices of intervention.
3.8.2 Direct action as spatial and contextual
There has been little writing regarding the spatial nature of direct action protest to date.
The most significant work surrounding the spatial nature of direct action is Jon
Anderson’s (2004a, 2004b) research on UK environmental direct action (EDA) groups.
Anderson argues that the use of direct action is a form of practice that allows groups to be
uniquely represented within space, at times creating new spaces of protest. An analysis of
direct action can therefore help to develop a better understanding of how power relations
occur within and across space, and how such spaces become sites of contestation. Further,
Anderson notes that direct action protest often does not conform to accepted spaces of
political action that are commonly used by protestors. It therefore brings forms of protest
to spaces often not thought of as sites for demonstrating resistance.
Heynen’s (2009) recent study of the radical antihunger politics of the Black Panther
Party (BPP) provides some useful insight in to the spatial nature of direct action. In
particular, he notes that the BPP’s recognition that the U.S. government was unwilling to
provide “viable welfare services to unemployed African Americans and other minorities
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living in inner cities” (p.410), had led to their development of mutual aid and direct action
programs. Heynen argues that the use of specifically placebased direct action located
within the community was in response to prior social movements’ “abstractness and
distance from the material experience of ordinary people” (p.418). Direct action is
therefore necessarily grounded in specific spatial contexts and material realities, focusing
upon the necessity for proximity, and “in the need to focus on the immediacy of human
life when that immediacy is called in to question through extreme inequality” (p.419).
Heynen also notes then, that direct action is often coupled with a sense of immediacy,
where action is required to alter often deadly inequalities.
Direct action is therefore context dependent; it is temporally and geographically located,
and dependent upon the surrounding climate. As Flint (2004) discusses in his study of
rightwing groups, context is necessary in understanding the reasoning and practice of
social movements; it is a “product of economic, social, and political processes operating
at a variety of scales that become embedded in particular places” (p.6). It is important to
note Flint’s assertion that action becomes embedded within particular places, as
microgeographies. Direct action typically responds to the impacts of political or
economic processes, often implemented at a greater scale, within and upon particular
places. What have been the responses of humanitarian groups towards the
implementation, or lack thereof, of immigration policies by state and federal
governments, often with deadly outcomes for undocumented migrants, at the local scale
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within southern Arizona? In what ways is direct action applied by U.S. activists, within
the borderlands, unique to this space?
3.9 Critical engagement and positionality
This research derives from several years of involvement (at varying levels) with a number
of groups, some of which are discussed in this research, whether proimmigrant
(organizing within the No Border Network and with groups such as Delete the Border;
marching during national migrant rights parades; conducting humanitarian aid in
southern Arizona and northern Mexico; initiating response networks to immigration raids
in downtown Los Angeles), or antiimmigrant (counteractions against antiimmigrant
vigilante groups such as the Minutemen and Save Our State). My positionality within this
research, and reasoning behind certain methodological approaches, is therefore important
to address. I draw upon the work of feminist scholars within geography, who have stated a
need for a critical awareness of a researcher’s positionality, power roles, and privilege
when writing and conducting ethnographic research, and when speaking about, on behalf
of, or with research subjects (see for example Nast et al., 1994; Routledge, 1996; Rose,
1997; Mountz, 2002).
Specifically, I adopt a critical reflexivity, considering my position within this research in
an effort to “highlight and destabilize power imbalances within the research process”
(Maxey, 1999; see also special issue of Area, Kitchin and Hubbard, 1999). Such a critical
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awareness of positionality does not resolve the complexities however of attempting to
“speak across worlds, play multiple roles, and communicate in more than one language”
while working within social movements, as Mountz (2002, p.187) has reflected upon. It is
however, an effort to situate my work, recognizing that I do not inhabit a position of
neutrality (Rose, 1997).
I apply a unique methodological approach to conducting my ethnographic research,
contributing to the developing literature and practices surrounding militant ethnography
and investigation (ScheperHughes, 1995; Juris, 2005; Colectivo Situaciones, 2005;
Shukaitis and Graeber, 2007; de Molina, 2007). This is a useful method that provides
access and a way of intimately knowing how certain groups within direct action
movements organize (see Juris, 2005 for an example of researching such groups). As Juris
(2007) notes, militant ethnography is “a politically engaged and collaborative form of
participant observation” that is carried out from within rather than outside of grassroots
movements, and that aims to break down the distinctions between intellectual and activist.
Geographer Paul Routledge (1996) has applied similar techniques in his efforts to cross
“between the locations of academia and activism” (p.399), applying the use of critical
engagement to inhabit this ‘third space’ in which sites of resistance can be explored and
researched. I therefore apply methods of critical engagement and militant ethnography,
allowing myself to be involved with my case study groups and to help in attempting to
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move beyond the observer/intellectual and activist/practitioner divide, in turn gaining
further understanding into group dynamics and organizing, working in solidarity with
these groups during their actions and interventions. Further, within this research, and
through the use of ethnographic methods, I attempt to privilege the voice of social
movements that are considered here, critically analyzing their actions as “understood
from the perspectives of the participants” (Routledge, 1997b, p.509).
Although some would argue that there is a potential risk from collaborating so closely
with movements, resulting in noncritical analyses being produced by academics working
from an activist positionality, others have stated that such a positioning results in the
ability for unique critiques and reflections upon the movements they are involved in (see
Routledge, 2003b; Gordon, 2007). As Pickerill and Chatterton (2006) argue in their
research of autonomous social movements:
Our encounters are as academicactivists, undertaking embedded or participatory
forms of action research which are empathic and interactive rather than extractive
and objective. This contact, however, does not blind us to activism’s limitations; in
fact some of the strongest critiques have emerged from within such movements
(p.732).
While I argue that this is an important and worthwhile position to take, and one that I
adopt within this research, such a positionality presents a series of ethical concerns also.
Much has been written regarding the power relations that exist between researchers and
those they collaborate with (see for example Elwood and Martin, 2000; Routledge, 1996;
and the series of short pieces by several authors in the journal Ethics, Place and
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Environment, Lynn, 2003). As the work of anthropologist Nancy ScheperHughes (1995)
aims to achieve, I too intend to conduct my research in a politically committed and
morally engaged manner. As ScheperHughes states, those conducting ethnography
within spaces of contestation and resistance must avoid, where possible, the ethical
position of noninvolvement, to avoid collaborating “with the relations of power and
silence that allow the destruction to continue” (p.419).
Within Laura Pulido’s (2003) work distinguishing between the exterior (major social,
economic, and political structures) and interior (dimensions of political activism rooted
inside individuals) politics that influence the ethicality of our work, she notes the
importance of considering the role of emotions and consciousness within social
movements and political activism. While it is essential to better understand the role of
emotion in motivating people to act, it is also necessary to consider the impact of emotion
upon critically engaged researchers; as Juris (2005) notes, emotion can provide vital
insights in to critical analyses of social movements (see also Behar, 1996). The basis of
this research is, inarguably, a particularly emotional topic. While my time volunteering
was limited in relation to longterm volunteers, and ultimately only exposed myself to one
part of undocumented migrants’ journey, I was witness to, and directly engaged with,
oftentimes very serious, dangerous and highly emotional situations. These experiences
have carried on long after my time volunteering with humanitarian groups, and while not
unique only to me, have informed my research in specific ways. While I do my best to
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write about and represent such situations within this research, it is often difficult if not
impossible to explain them adequately. I do, however, aim to present my critical
understandings of these events respectfully, in an effort to avoid an “aestheticization of
the terrors” experienced (Pratt, 2008).
Directaid humanitarian groups have been the subject of academic research for the past
several years, as noted previously. Due to concerns over academic integrity and
representation, a series of research protocols were developed and adopted by groups such
as No More Deaths. During my time volunteering I was involved in discussions on several
occasions in which longterm volunteers provided their critical reflection upon visiting
scholars. Many, they noted, operated in a notably ‘extractive’ manner, visiting for a few
days at most, and doing little to support other volunteers while at the group’s desert base
camp. Though generally not as problematic as many media reporters that would appear
for one day, desperate to get a story and footage/photography of migrants, academics
were, unsurprisingly, treated with some mistrust and disdain; another uncommitted
person to be “shown around” and never to be heard from again. Having said this, there
have been many academics that did not fall in to this category, working collaboratively
with the groups while conducting their research.
Before conducting fieldwork with No More Deaths, I was asked to submit my research
proposal and methods, and a letter of intent, identifying how my work would benefit or
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inhibit the operation of the group, and how this research might be applied in a non
academic context to support human rights organizing in the borderlands. Further, while
attending meetings, trainings, or volunteering in the field, it was required to identify
myself as a researcher, so that any new volunteers would be aware of the work being
conducted. Though I saw myself as working in a collaborative manner with No More
Deaths, as well as with the other humanitarian and immigrant rights groups I was
researching, and generally felt welcomed by them, having made many lasting friendships,
I remained critical of my position as both a researcher and participant, struggling at times
to bridge these roles. Most difficult was departing from southern Arizona after a period
of extended fieldwork, to return to writing in Los Angeles, unable to continue working
directly with the humanitarian groups. Further, understanding how my research could
contribute to the movement, while also remaining critical of it, and ultimately fulfilling
my requirements at the university, remained an unresolved problematic that I continue to
work through (for a discussion of such difficulties, see Routledge, 1996; Pulido, 2008).
As this research comes to explore in the following chapters, participants of social
movements that are the basis of this research – while operating under a policy of
‘transparency’ and claiming that their work is not breaking the law but rather enacting
laws not fulfilled by the State – remain at risk of arrest due to the contested nature of their
work. Researching and engaging directly with these groups therefore presented certain
responsibilities in how I conducted my research. I draw from the work and critical
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reflexivity of Susan Bibler Coutin (1993; 1995) who researched and was involved with
the Sanctuary movement, which preceded the groups I study here. In describing her
research methods, Bibler Coutin reflects:
I did not interview the prosecutor, the judge, Immigration and Naturalization
Service (INS) agents, or other government officials. Since I was working with
undocumented Salvadorans and Guatemalans, as well as with U.S. citizens who
were involved in activities for which they could be arrested, I did not want to bring
myself (and my field notes) to the attention of the government, lead authorities to
movement participants, or be mistaken by sanctuary workers for an infiltrator. As a
result, my accounts of the government’s and the prosecutor’s positions derive from
published statements rather than from fieldwork and confidential interviews. In
contrast, for the Sanctuary movement, I had greater access to private as well as
public remarks and actions by individuals (1995, p.551).
Many within the Sanctuary movement, as I come to discuss further in Chapter 4, believed
they were absolved from infiltration from the State and subsequent prosecution due to
their policy of transparency and the humanitarian nature of their work. This was later
found to be resolutely not the case, with several movement members being indicted by the
U.S. government for their work. Similarly, current directaid humanitarian groups have
not avoided criminalization for their work, as this research comes to discuss. Bibler
Coutin’s work, which proceeded the court trials of movement members, reflected a
critical awareness of the contested nature of such activism. In a similar sense, I adopt
such a stance within my research, remaining aware of the position that my research may
place movement members in.
Finally, I draw upon the insights of Nevins (2002) in applying the term ‘undocumented’
rather than ‘illegal’ when discussing migration practices that do not follow U.S.
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immigration law. As Nevins notes, the frequently used term of ‘illegal’ “implies that
unsanctioned migrants are criminals” (p.9; see also Sundberg and Kaserman, 2007;
Nevins, 2008). Therefore, unless quoting or paraphrasing from government policies,
media reports, or other sources of writing, I refrain from using the term ‘illegal’ in this
research, instead using the term ‘undocumented’, though recognizing that terms such as
this may still be problematic in their application.
3.10 Data sources and method
Several data sources and methods are drawn upon in this work to research the
development of border militarization within the U.S.Mexico borderlands, migrant deaths
and abuses, and the operation and impact of humanitarian aid groups in this region. It is
necessary to draw upon diverse methods given the different sources of information,
actors, and spaces I have encountered whilst conducting my research, combined with the
various political situations involved in doing such work.
3.10.1 Field work and photography
This firsthand experience has allowed a better understanding of the development and
processes of militarization and privatization within the borderlands. Over the past four
years I have traveled within the borderlands extensively, including most major border
cities and ports of entry from San Diego/Tijuana in California/Baja California, to El
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Paso/Ciudad Juarez in Texas/Chihuahua. Most of my time however has been spent in the
Tucson sector of southern Arizona, allowing a more informed understanding of the region
to develop. Through my time in the borderlands I have been engaged with various actors
located within this region. This engagement with USBP and other CBP and law
enforcement agents, undocumented migrants, vigilante groups, media, ranch owners,
humanitarians, drug smugglers, coyotes, and others has allowed myself a rich experience,
both formally and informally while conducting my research. Further, my time in Tucson,
approximately 100 miles north of the border, but located within the Tucson sector, has
also allowed extensive engagement with immigrant rights activists and others involved
around immigration in this region.
Although four years in the borderlands can be seen as a relatively short time given the
long history of the border’s buildup, the exceptionally dynamic nature of this region has
demonstrated significant change during my time here, particularly due to the recent and
sustained push to ‘close the border’ to undocumented migration. My travels and time
spent in the borderlands has allowed the ability to document firsthand the rapid changes
in this region. The implementation of new fencing, surveillance towers, deployment of
National Guard troops, growth in USBP agents, and policies that more stringently
criminalize undocumented migrants, amongst other changes, have all significantly altered
the space of the borderlands during this time. I have relied on field notes and the use of
photography to document such changes, alongside formal interviews and informal
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conversations, participant observation, and participant action with various actors engaged
in this space.
3.10.2 Document analysis
My research comprises a critical textual analysis of reports produced by Customs and
Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security (previously the Immigration
and Naturalization Service or INS), as well as by university, humanitarian, and non
government organizations. These documents allow a richer understanding of practices of
border securitization and militarization, and the reasoning behind social movements who
oppose such measures in efforts to support migrant rights.
Though at times I rely on documents produced by the DHS and the CBP, information put
forth by such groups is typically limited and presented in a noncritical manner, intended
to appease public demand for stringent regulation of the border. This is also common
when dealing with USBP representatives in person, almost always public relations
officers, though not unsurprising (see Nevins, 2005a). I draw upon reports produced by
the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which provides ‘watchdog’ reports on DHS
border protection policies and programs. I rely also on a critical analysis of such
documents, due to the increasingly restricted levels of access to interviews with CBP and
USBP agents, as well as access to spaces such as detention centers and other sites of
migration policing and detention. Further, reports conducted by academic sources have
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proven to be some of the most useful in comprehending the situation of contemporary
undocumented immigration across the U.S.Mexico border, such as the work of the
Binational Migration Institute at the University of Arizona.
Perhaps most importantly, I draw upon the work of immigrant rights groups, nonprofits
and some nongovernment organizations surrounding undocumented immigration issues.
Reports produced by these groups often document most accurately what is experienced in
the borderlands on an everyday basis. They are also the most likely to incorporate the
voices of those most directly affected by changing immigration and enforcement policies,
including undocumented migrants, those living in the U.S. without status, and local
border communities. Taken together, reports produced by government bodies, academics
and research groups, and nonprofit organizations, allow a diverse and informative base of
knowledge to guide my research. Though I am specifically interested in an everyday, on
the ground knowledge of the border informed through ethnographic fieldwork and
participation within social movements, such work allows the ability to contrast the
information produced in these reports with what is physically witnessed and experienced
in the space of the borderlands.
3.10.3 Mapping
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The use and production of maps/mapping has been an exceptionally useful tool for
conducting this research. Though the deserts of southern Arizona and much of the U.S.
Mexico borderlands are commonly perceived as desolate and largely unpopulated,
different sources of mapping demonstrate the complex sociopolitical makeup of this
region. To inform this research, over the past several years I have analyzed maps produced
by various government, media, immigrant rights, nonprofit, and academic bodies,
showing existing and projected areas of militarization and fencing, locations of deaths of
individuals and groups crossing the border, political and social boundaries, land
ownership, and so forth. I also have relied upon personal mapping done whilst taking
field notes, in an effort to better understand the many spaces of contestation within this
region. The Arizona Daily Star over the past several years has also produced various maps
that highlight militarization practices by the USBP, border deaths, and other information
that is often difficult to obtain from other sources.
As discussed in Chapter 4, the production of maps and use of mapping by humanitarian
aid groups operating in the Tucson sector has been particularly important in conducting
my research. Such maps show most accurately the relation to the spaces of the
borderlands that these groups operate within, and how such spaces constrain or enable
their work. Further, while volunteering I was involved in the mapping of migrant trails
within the Altar Valley in which directaid humanitarian groups are most active. These
resulted in a much more detailed comprehension of the various spaces in which such
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groups operated. Finally, during interviews and less formal discussions with volunteers, I
conducted participant mapping exercises, using detailed topographical maps on which
volunteers would demarcate particular spaces or sites of importance.
3.10.4 Media analysis
Newspaper articles from major publications such as the Los Angeles Times and Arizona
Daily Star, along with several other publications, are drawn upon to provide the most up
todate information on current border militarization processes, growth in immigration
detention practices, and the development of government policies regarding immigration.
These two publications have provided significant coverage of border and immigration
issues, with the Arizona Daily Star creating a notable archive of their related ‘border’
articles online (see http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/border). An analysis of these articles has
allowed a clearer comprehension of the gamut of issues surrounding immigration and the
border, and the growing coverage within mainstream media over the past few years. The
Daily Star also reports with relative frequency on the operation of humanitarian aid
groups and the response from law enforcement and local communities to their presence.
Articles produced by such publications are often the most uptodate and comprehensive
form of information available regarding the contemporary and highly dynamic situation
within the U.S.Mexico borderlands. Reporters with such publications maintain some of
the best access to USBP, CBP, ICE and DHS representatives and information. As
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discussed in Chapter 7 I am also interested in the use of local media by the USBP in
presenting a humanitarian angle to their work. Overall, the use of mainstream media
within the highly dynamic political climate of U.S. immigration and border securitization
is a particularly useful research tool, providing relatively comprehensive information,
addressing the contemporary nature of my research.
3.10.5 Ethnography
Within the following chapters of this research, concerned specifically with several case
studies and the space of southern Arizona, my methodology is based predominantly
around ethnographic methods, particularly through my involvement with the groups
considered in this research. This has allowed a critical analysis of such groups and their
actions to be developed through firsthand experience and involvement, and in turn a
greater understanding of how direct action groups operate in response to border
militarization, and the impacts their presence has had upon undocumented migrants
crossing in this region.
Interviews, where possible, have been conducted with university researchers,
humanitarian groups, media, nongovernment organizations, and nonprofit organizations
to provide contrasting views on conditions at the U.S.Mexico border and to allow voices
of those most directly involved to be heard and inform my research. Such individuals and
groups have included researchers at the University of Arizona in Tucson and the Center
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for Applied Spatial Analysis, nonprofit groups such as Border Action Network (BAN),
Derechos Humanos, Borderlinks, and other organizations. From my time in the field,
traveling the border, volunteering at migrant resource centers, attending immigration
related protests (both pro and antiimmigration), and working with humanitarian aid
groups, I have been able to draw upon participant observation, informal interviews and
discussions, and everyday grounded experiences of migration in the space of the
borderlands. I have also been involved in organizing and participating on several panels
(academic and public) with members of many of these groups throughout my time of
research.
Although these interviews and interactions with diverse actors have informed my research
in many ways, the case study chapters engage most directly with interviews from
humanitarian aid groups. When conducting formal interviews, I have used semi
structured questions, and focused questions towards the interviewees’ specific areas of
knowledge and expertise. Access to interviews with humanitarian volunteers was largely
gained through my involvement with such groups over time, though in some instances I
was referred to volunteers by others, or encouraged to speak with certain individuals.
Given the inherently political and contested nature of such work, gaining trust of
interviewees was particularly important. To protect the work and livelihoods of all
interviewees I refer to them anonymously within this research, unless discussing persons
previously identified by name within the media where they had agreed to such
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identification. Though questions asked within interviews were aimed towards gaining an
understanding of a particular group’s operation, rather than individual’s actions, and that
most groups operate transparently, it is still necessary to refer to individuals anonymously
due to the contentious and contemporary nature of their work.
For my case studies, I have conducted interviews with participants within No More
Deaths, Samaritans, and Humane Borders, primarily concerned with longterm volunteers
who have played a central role in organizing. Through my interactions with these groups I
have conducted participant observation, informal conversations, and documented actions
through photography and field notes. Over 2007 and 2008, I spent approximately three
months each summer working predominantly with No More Deaths, and peripherally
with Humane Borders and Samaritans while based in Tucson. After having met several
members of No More Deaths in 2006, I conducted preliminary informal interviews with
members of the three humanitarian aid groups during the summer of 2007, followed by
more detailed formal interviews with a smaller group of longterm participants in 2008,
as reflected in the extensive quotes drawn upon in the following chapters of this research.
During my fieldwork with the groups, I spent the majority of the time camping with other
volunteers and patrolling trails used by migrants and their smugglers with No More
Deaths, as well participating in day trips with Samaritans and Humane Borders, who
operate out of Tucson. This involved conducting medical evacuations of sick and
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distressed migrants, conducting minor firstaid (after completing 80 hours of training to
become a Wilderness First Responder), volunteering at migrant resource centers in
northern Mexico, servicing permanent water stations, engaging with USBP and other law
enforcement agencies, as well as private contractors, and with local residents. While in
Tucson, I attended weekly group meetings, as well as trainings, workshops, rallies, and
campaigns to gain greater understanding of aspirations, views, and points of contention
within each group. This also involved attending weekly gatherings to witness trials of
undocumented migrants at the Tucson federal courthouse, and at times, trials of
humanitarian aid volunteers.
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Chapter 4: Contemporary Practices and Spaces of Aid in
Southern Arizona
I think the work here is really important, first of all, to make people see. And I
think that, as a community of all the local people who have done this for years and
years and years, whether it is with Humane Borders, or Samaritans, or No More
Deaths, or on their own, it’s important that the rest of the country know that there
is a community here that is in resistance to what is happening.
Volunteer A, Tucson, 2008
For the past decade, humanitarian groups, who define themselves as ‘directaid,’ have
been in operation within southern Arizona. Largely in response to the mounting death toll
of undocumented migrants within the Sonoran desert, and with a specific focus upon the
Altar Valley, a major migration corridor, these groups have sought to provide water and
medical aid to those crossing through this region of the U.S.Mexico borderlands. These
groups however, are not entirely new, but stem from a longer history of immigrant rights
advocacy and directaid work in this region that has been based predominantly out of the
city of Tucson, approximately 60 miles north of the international boundary. This chapter
therefore intends to provide an orientation to the ideology, operation, and practices of
these contemporary directaid humanitarian groups, and the space in which they conduct
their work, providing the setting for the case studies presented in the following chapters of
this research.
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First, a brief discussion of the space of Tucson and its history of migrant rights advocacy
and activism is provided. In particular, it explores the role of the Sanctuary movement,
and its importance and influence upon contemporary directaid groups active in this
region. Next, an overview and history of the three primary groups under consideration in
this research is provided – Humane Borders, Samaritans, and No More Deaths –
considering their makeup, diversity between the groups, and location of their operations.
Following this, I consider the space of Arivaca, located several miles north of the border
within the Altar Valley, the closest town to which humanitarian aid groups conduct their
work, and the site of intense presence by the USPB and other agents involved in the
apprehension and detainment of undocumented migrants.
The second half of the chapter concerns itself with two specific aspects to the work and
operation of this contemporary social movement. First, a consideration of efforts to
criminalize the work of these groups is provided, in particular regarding the 2005 arrest
of two humanitarian aid volunteers, as well as some of the responses to countering this
criminalization. Second, I provide a case study of mapping conducted by No More Deaths
and Humane Borders, to allow insight in to the operation and development of spatial
knowledge by these groups, in their efforts to gain greater understanding of how best to
provide directaid within the space of the borderlands. An understanding of the operation
of these groups, and of existing efforts to criminalize their work, provides an opening for
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an exploration of the current situation faced in the borderlands for humanitarian aid, to be
discussed in the proceeding chapters of this research.
4.1 Immigrant rights organizing and the Sanctuary movement in
Tucson, Arizona
Tucson and southern Arizona possess a long history of migrant rights and advocacy work
by various movements and communities. Though this research does not consider in depth
the longer history of organizing, including by Mexican and MexicanAmerican, and
indigenous communities situated in Tucson and southern Arizona – as well as groups
such as the Manzo Area Council, which in the midtolate 1970s began providing services
to migrants, including Central American clients seeking political asylum – it is
recognized that these communities and groups have played an integral role in advocating
for and protecting migrant rights in this region (see Van Ham, 2006). Contemporary work
by groups such as Coalición de Derechos Humanos, Borderlinks, Border Action Network,
Alianza Indígena, and the Tohono O’odham Voice Against the Wall, continue to provide
essential advocacy and services to those migrating through southern Arizona, as well as
those who have chosen to locate permanently here.
I am particularly concerned here however with the work of the Sanctuary movement,
which has frequently been referred to as the primary influence upon current day direct
aid humanitarian work in the southern Arizona and northern Sonora borderland region.
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Sanctuary, which preceded the movement considered in this research by almost two
decades, has provided many lessons for these contemporary migrant rights and
humanitarian aid groups, as well as several continuities that are of importance to consider.
4.1.1 The Sanctuary movement
The Sanctuary movement officially began in the United States in 1982, when several
churches declared themselves as spaces of sanctuary for migrants fleeing from El
Salvador and Guatemala who were seeking asylum. Although various spaces of
sanctuary, and the movement itself, were found throughout Central America, the U.S.,
and in to Canada, southern Arizona, and more specifically the city of Tucson, were seen
as an “underground terminus” for the Sanctuary movement, becoming the most active site
within the U.S. for the movement (Cunningham, 2002). The movement, which operated
until the early 1990s, came to the awareness of the wider public when in 1986, 11
Sanctuary activists were placed on trial by the U.S. government (Bibler Coutin, 1993;
Cunningham, 1998, 2002). The movement and its participants had assisted in bringing
Salvadoran and Guatemalan refugees in to the U.S., and advocated for their right to
asylum, which was typically denied by the U.S. government, due to their involvement in
the civil war that was taking place in El Salvador. As Coleman (2007a) states:
Refugees at the time were unlikely to be recognized as legitimate claimants due to
the Regan administration's tacit support for the governments they were fleeing, and
so a vast underground network of human rights activists and church members
evolved to provide illegal shelter for them (p.66).
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Although there were several deaths of refugees crossing through the Sonoran desert
seeking entry into the U.S. during this time, these were few when seen in light of the
staggering death toll since the implementation of border militarization programs in the
1990s. The deaths of thirteen Salvadoran migrants in the Sonoran desert on a single day
in July 1980 however, coupled also with the assassination of Archbishop Romero in El
Salvador, in March 1980, brought to light for many residing in the U.S. the severity of the
situation in Central America, and the need to act (Cunningham, 1995). Alongside the
declaration of churches as places of sanctuary in 1982 in Tucson, Reverend John Fife, a
central figure within the movement, sent a letter to the U.S. attorney general stating their
intention to publicly violate the Immigration and Nationality Act, Section 274(A),
declaring the church as a sanctuary for undocumented refugees from Central America
(Cunningham, 1995; Van Ham, 2006; HondagneuSotelo, 2008). Fife was the minister of
Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson, which would become a central point within the
movement’s operation; those involved in the churchled Sanctuary movement in Tucson
were therefore seen as part of a wider ‘new underground railroad’ (HondagneuSotelo,
2008). With the pressconference declaration of sanctuary, and the letter presented to the
U.S. attorney general, the intention was made clear by the movement that they intended to
operate transparently, believing they were not breaking any laws, and were instead
holding the U.S. government accountable for the deaths and abuses of refugees deported
back to Central America rather than affording them asylum. This effort to maintain
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transparency was also seen as necessary in allowing awareness of the situation to be
developed by the general public.
Though transparency was seen as central to the movement’s operation, activists were not
always able to maintain this approach. In Cunningham’s (2002) description of some of
the methods employed by the movement, she discusses one practice in particular:
Sanctuary activists called their underground operations “border runs” – a set of
carefully thoughtout strategies for contacting and pickingup refugees in Mexico,
taking them to a location along the U.S.Mexico border, assisting them across the
international fence, and then driving them to a safehouse in the United States.
Usually refugees travelled in small groups, but on occasion there were families of
five to six who had to be safely conducted in to sanctuary. Because refugee groups
involved different kinds of people – sometimes very young children, or high risk
individuals such as guerilla leaders – the underground developed two kinds of runs,
citycrossings and canyoncrossings (p.188).
As I will come to explore further in the case studies of contemporary directaid
humanitarian groups operating in southern Arizona, the practices as discussed above by
Cunningham represent a significantly different time in the U.S.Mexico borderlands.
Although the mid1980s saw a significant increase of U.S. Border Patrol agents, through
the inception of the Immigration and Reform and Control Act (IRCA) in 1986 which
brought a significant budget increase to the INS (Purcell and Nevins, 2005), as
Cunningham states there has been a significant “intensification of a state presence [in the
borderlands] compared to that of the Sanctuary days” (2002, p.185).
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Within its first few years of existence, the movement had been subject to the surveillance
of the INS and USBP, however this was significantly intensified when in 1984 the U.S.
government initiated Operation Sojourner. The operation involved placing informants
within churches, most notably Jesus Cruz, who infiltrated sanctuary meetings and
volunteered with the movement. As Bibler Coutin (1993) discusses, throughout
Sojourner:
Government informants wore hidden microphones, noted participants’ license plate
numbers, had their pictures taken with movement members, and gave regular
reports to their superiors. By constructing a body of knowledge about the
movement, government officials took the first step toward reconstituting sanctuary
workers’ words and actions as “evidence” to be introduced in a criminal trial
(p.133).
On January 5 1985, 14 sanctuary activists were indicted on charges of conspiracy and
alien smuggling. Many involved with the Sanctuary movement had believed that the
church was a safe space from state intervention, and that their policy of transparency had
meant there was nothing to be hidden from the government, however the infiltration and
indictment of key sanctuary members proved otherwise (Bibler Coutin, 1993). The
lengthy trial that followed led to the conviction of eight members of the Sanctuary
movement, successfully portraying them as ‘alien smugglers,’ but also led to a significant
reinvigoration of the movement as awareness spread. The movement continued after the
trial, and had expanded in size, providing sanctuary for Central American refugees, while
also advocating for their refugee status. As Bibler Coutin notes, the trial had
“inadvertently enabled them to promote their own understanding of the events in
question” (p.141), while drawing national and international attention from the public and
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media. Mathew Coleman (2007a, p.66) portrays also the wider influence of the Sanctuary
movement, and how it “in essence created a multiplicity of spaces of protest where federal
immigration law was de facto exempted,” giving the example of states such as New
Mexico and Oregon that declared themselves as sites of sanctuary. The significance of the
movement and its actions, then, also carried well beyond Tucson and southern Arizona
during its time of operation, creating spaces of sanctuary throughout the U.S. and
Canada.
4.1.2 Civil Initiative
A central aspect to the work of the Sanctuary movement was their invocation of the use of
‘civil initiative.’ Developed by Jim Corbett, a central actor within the movement, there are
several components that constitute civil initiative, which is explained as being non
violent, truthful, universal, dialogical, germane, volunteerbased, and community centered
(see appendix D). This ideology distinguished their actions from explicitly conducting
civil disobedience, and allowed the movement to operate transparently, as it was of the
belief that they were not breaking any laws, given that “civil initiative, in which
individuals carry out just laws that their government is ignoring and misinterpreting,
differs from civil disobedience, in which citizens disobey unjust laws on moral grounds”
(Bibler Coutin, 1995, p.553). Through their interpretation of the Nuremberg Trials, and of
international treaties that the U.S. had previously signed, participants argued that:
Since on the basis of these treaties, the Central Americans had “rights” to be in the
United States, Sanctuary workers were not breaking the law when they helped
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refugees enter the country and avoid INS interception. Rather, they were upholding
laws that the U.S. government was violating; Sanctuary actions therefore
constituted a “civil initiative” (Cunningham, 1995, p.40).
This application of civil initiative by the Sanctuary movement, Bibler Coutin (1993)
argues, allowed activists to reshape immigration discourse by producing a “different legal
reality” (p.109) regarding undocumented migrants. By asserting that those fleeing Central
America were refugees according to international law, and going against U.S. government
rulings, the movement aimed to “make the U.S. government interpret refugee law in a
manner consistent with community legal norms” (p.110). As I will come to discuss
through case studies of contemporary directaid groups, civil initiative remains central to
the current movement, though with a slightly different reasoning and application.
4.1.3 The continuing influence of Sanctuary
Although the movement dissipated in the early 1990s, in part due to the stabilizing
situation in El Salvador and Guatemala (though many were still seeking asylum in the
U.S.), many of those from Sanctuary remained involved in migrant rights work within
southern Arizona and elsewhere. As Van Ham (2006) noted, “the movement’s demise
brought not a stop, but a segue to related points of concern” (p.74). Yet for those who
continued to organize, and for the many who would become involved, a significantly
different social, economic, and political environment was found in the latter half of the
1990s. In Hagan (2007), Reverend John Fife who is now involved with contemporary
humanitarian aid work, was quoted as saying:
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The context of migration changed in the 1990s and so has the migrant needs. The
context today is not political, as it was in the 1980s, but economic and related to
NAFTA, globalization, that is, issues of economic inequalities for migrants today
are paramount, e.g. right to cross, work, receive medical treatment (p.1012).
Contemporary directaid movements in southern Arizona that formed in the late 1990s
and early 2000s, including No More Deaths, Humane Borders, and Samaritans, turned
their focus then to typically ‘economic’ migrants rather than asylum seekers, and to the
deaths that were occurring within their own country, predominantly of migrants from
Mexico, though also from Central America and elsewhere; critiques of Sanctuary had
noted that the movement typically avoided assistance to economic migrants and more
generally migration from Mexico during its time of operation. The 1990s had also
brought significantly heightened practices of border militarization and surveillance by the
U.S. government, which had funneled migration corridors in to the deserts of southern
Arizona. This meant that many of the practices of the Sanctuary movement, such as the
‘border runs’ described previously, are no longer feasible, due to the significant
militarization and surveillance of the borderlands. Further, a different approach to
critiquing the U.S. government’s criminalization of undocumented migration was
required, as these new movements were no longer advocating specifically for refugees and
asylum seekers. However, as discussed in the following case studies, some similar
practices of criminalization of directaid workers can be seen, particularly around claims
of ‘alien smuggling,’ though now typically framed as ‘aiding and abetting’ in furtherance
of a person’s entry in to the United States. Although Sanctuary workers were at the mercy
of the U.S. legal system, it has been noted that due to the U.S. government’s designation
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of economic migrants as not having the right to seek refuge, neither this migrant group
nor activists working to provide solidarity to those crossing are “on as juridically solid
ground as Sanctuary movement workers would seem to have been” (Failinger, 2006,
p.404).
Although contemporary movements find themselves in a significantly different context,
there is, as Joseph Nevins (2005b) reminds us, much that can be learned from the
Sanctuary movement. Several prominent Sanctuary activists were also involved with the
formation of these current movements, and continue to play a central role. As one
volunteer with No More Deaths stated in an interview I conducted with them:
They [Sanctuary activists] have that longerterm vision, so when other people get
focused on the crisis just of today, they certainly want to respond, and know that
we need to respond immediately to the needs of people today, but they also have an
understanding of how this is directly an extension of what they were working on 20
years ago. So in that sense, that sort of dual ability to respond with the urgency that
the situation requires, and also the patience to know that this is a long term area of
work for us, and that there is patience required if we are going to see the good
things happen that we want to see (my emphasis) [Volunteer A].
As demonstrated by the above quote from a volunteer with the current directaid
movement, who was not yet born when Sanctuary had begun, there is recognition of the
importance of the previous movement and the lessons that can be learnt from it, alongside
the commonality of much of the situation being faced presently for undocumented
migrants in this region.
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As Hilary Cunningham notes in her contrast between the Sanctuary movement, and
current directaid movements – which were in their early days at the time of her writing –
the contemporary context of the U.S.Mexico border in southern Arizona is subject to
“new interfaces of power (and consequently protest) between state and social movement
actors” (2002, p.186). This research therefore sets out to critically examine these ‘new
interfaces of power’ in the context of contemporary directaid provision to undocumented
migrants in the U.S.Mexico borderlands, developing an understanding of the new and
unique spatial strategies adopted by these groups in providing aid and solidarity.
4.2 ‘Communities in resistance’: Humane Borders, Samaritans, and No
More Deaths
Following the end of the Sanctuary movement, a new crisis had begun to take place
within the Sonoran desert of southern Arizona: the significant and rapid rise in deaths of
undocumented migrants crossing largely from Mexico and Central America. As
mentioned previously, this had resulted in part from the shift of migration paths from
urban areas to more remote rural and desert regions of the borderlands, due largely to
border militarization efforts implemented by the U.S. government.
4.2.1 Humane Borders/Fronteras Compasivas
In the spring of 2000, migrant rights advocates began to gather in Tucson to discuss what
could be done to mitigate the deaths and draw attention to the situation. Out of these
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meetings, on June 11 2000, Humane Borders was founded. A faithbased organization led
by the Reverend Robin Hoover, and conducted out of the First Christian Church in
Tucson, Humane Borders’ primary effort is to place permanent water stations along well
traveled migration paths in the Sonoran desert. Through agreements with Pima County
and several other government agencies, as well as with private landowners, Humane
Borders now operates close to 100 water stations throughout southern Arizona and in
Sonora, Mexico (see figure 4.1).
Figure 4.1: One of the many permanent water stations erected and maintained by
Humane Borders; Ironwood Forest National Monument, southern Arizona, July
2008 (photo by author).
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Although Humane Borders has a significant amount of shortterm volunteers who come
to work with the group, the majority of the organization consists of longerterm Tucson
based members. These members are primarily involved in maintaining the water stations
placed throughout the desert landscape on an almost daily basis, year round, along with
weekly meetings that take place in Tucson. Most mornings several of the large Humane
Borders’ trucks, equipped with water tanks and pumps, and equipment for repairing water
stations as well as maintaining water quality, will leave from Tucson and drive out to a
series of water stations. These are designated according to their location, such as the
Ironwood Forest National Monument water stations, the Buenos Aires National Wildlife
Refuge water stations, and so on. One member of the Tohono O’odham Nation, Mike
Wilson, through support of Humane Borders, has also operated water stations on the
reservation where other volunteers are not allowed to travel, however the tribal
government of the Nation has recently disallowed these. The water stations are marked by
a large blue flag allowing migrants and volunteers alike to find them, and often consist of
two 40 gallon barrels, typically recycled CocaCola syrup containers, cleaned and painted
blue to protect them from the sun’s heat.
Humane Borders situates itself “in a unique nexus between the secular and the religious
along the border and between the activists and representatives of the government,” openly
conversing with “interested parties such as the Border Patrol, federal land managers,
health care providers, elected officials, and others…in a nonadversarial way” (Hoover,
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2005, p.14). The group then – though providing a critical discourse surrounding
undocumented migration, and often raising the ire of USBP officials and others through
their placement of water stations in the desert – maintains a lawful and transparent
operation through the application of civil initiative, welcoming discussion with various
law enforcement and government agencies. As Hoover (2005, p.10) continues to note:
Some view the [undocumented] migration as the result of the federal government’s
abrogation of responsibility. We agree that as a sovereign nation, the US has the
right to control the border, who crosses it, when, where, and under what
circumstances. What we disagree on is how border control is achieved and at what
human toll.
Through their nonadversarial approach, in which permission to place water stations on
public land is granted by landuse management officials and the Pima County
government, the group can be seen as maintaining a relatively stable legal position. In
2000, for example, the Pima County Health Department declared a public health
emergency within the county in response to the rising death toll, donating US$25 000 to
Humane Borders to conduct its work (Fife et al., 2005). The group has expressly stated on
several occasions, including in the quote above from the founder of the organization that
they do not seek to challenge the sovereignty of the nationstate’s boundaries, or of the
existence of immigration controls (see also Doty, 2006). This nonadversarial approach
then is concerned primarily in mitigating migrant deaths, while also placing pressure on
the government to operate in a more humane manner. Humane Borders, while defining its
work as direct aid, also cites its work as being a form of ‘passive assistance.’ Although
volunteers do encounter individuals and groups of migrants while on maintenance runs to
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their many water stations, their work involves much less frequent interaction or medical
evacuations from the desert in comparison to other directaid groups present in the
Sonoran desert.
4.2.2 Samaritans/Los Samaritanos
On June 27, 2002, a letter was sent to Border Patrol Tucson Sector Chief David Aguilar,
signed by John Fife and Rick UffordChase on behalf of the newly formed Samaritan
Patrol (later Samaritans). The letter stated the purpose of the organization in no uncertain
terms to the head of the Tucson sector:
[Samaritans] will be patrolling the desert where Humane Borders has been denied
its request to place water stations and too many deaths have already occurred. They
will have food and water and firstaid supplies to assist migrants in distress. Those
found in lifethreatening circumstances will be taken to the nearest medical facility
or to a place where they can receive appropriate assistance… We believe that
respect for human rights, the right to render humanitarian aid under U.S.
immigration law, and our ethical responsibility to save human lives demand this of
us all (Samaritans, 2002).
Samaritans had formed in response to the continuing rise in deaths even after Humane
Borders had begun to place water stations within the desert, recognizing also the limited
capability of these stations, which required permission from government officials to be
implemented. As one exSanctuary member stated in an interview I conducted with him,
“We shared ideas of what needed to be done. It became clear we had to get water out in to
the desert, and out of that grew Humane Borders.” Their formation was also in response
to the recent event of 14 migrants perishing within a single day in the west desert corridor
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of southern Arizona in May 2001 (for a detailed account see Urrea, 2005). Further, 2001
had become a record year for migrant deaths, even after the inception of the water stations
(Fife et al., 2005). In contrast to the ‘passive aid’ work of Humane Borders, Samaritans
sought to provide aid to undocumented migrants through direct contact with individuals
and groups who were en route. In an interview in Van Ham (2006, p.8990), Samaritans
founder, and exSanctuary worker, John Fife was quoted as saying:
Our assertion was [that] civilian institutions needed to be out there in terms of the
size of this crisis and human tragedy. We couldn’t just leave it to the Border Patrol.
The Border Patrol by this time had created a real climate of fear in the borderlands,
saying, “Leave it to us, call us, we’ll take care of migrants in the desert.” And what
we kept saying was, “No, there is a right to provide humanitarian aid, and the only
way to save a significant number of lives is if everyone in the borderlands gets
involved in that.
Not unlike Humane Borders, and the Sanctuary movement that preceded it, Samaritans
also adhere to civil initiative in its practices. However, as the quote above from John Fife
noted, the intention of the group was to challenge the belief that the Border Patrol should
be the only active agents involved in providing aid to undocumented migrants in the space
of the U.S.Mexico borderlands.
Samaritans, in contrast to Humane Borders, is a nonhierarchical based organization, and
though primarily consisting of longerterm Tucsonbased volunteers, also relies on a large
shortterm volunteer base, particularly in the summer months; in their first year it was
claimed that 150 volunteers were trained to patrol the desert with the organization
(UffordChase, 2005). Based out of the Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson
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(previously the central organizing site of the Sanctuary movement), as well as a second
group in located in Green Valley, an hour south of Tucson, Samaritans patrol desert roads
by fourwheel drive vehicles which are marked with identifying signs of the organization;
food, water and medical supplies being carried in the group’s vehicles. Some volunteers
also hike trails traveled by migrants, offering assistance to anyone they encounter.
Further, Samaritans also conducted medical evacuations from the desert back to their
church or to hospitals in Tucson for those they encountered who required medical
assistance. In an account of the formation and operation of Samaritans, these evacuations
were described:
We have the capacity to put people into vehicles and take them to a hospital. If they
need immediate IV or medical treatment, we can use the satellite phones and call
in a helicopter. If hospitalization is not required, we take them to one of the
churches and provide whatever care may be of help (Fife et al., 2005, p.31).
However, Samaritans and other groups were later prevented from continuing such
practices by the U.S. government as well as the Border Patrol. By the beginning of 2004,
those involved with Humane Borders, Samaritans, and several other migrant rights
organizations, including shelters operated in Mexico, had recognized that their efforts still
had not led to a decrease in deaths or hardships for migrants crossing through southern
Arizona.
4.2.3 No More Deaths/No Más Muertes
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During the spring of 2004, a new coalition named No More Deaths/No Más Muertes
formed, also based out of Tucson and involving persons previously involved with
Sanctuary. As the history of No More Deaths states:
In October 2003, frustrated that despite the efforts of some wellestablished and
wellorganized humanitarian groups, lives were still being lost regularly in the
Sonoran Desert, two groups of religious leaders in Tucson began meeting to search
for a solution… In March 2004, the MultiFaith Border Conference was held. At
that March conference, the group, No More Deaths, presented principles for
immigration reform and the opportunity for involvement in the campaign for
summer, 2004 (No More Deaths, 2009a).
Initially begun as a coalition to bring together the work of individual groups operating in
the borderlands that were providing aid – including Humane Borders and Samaritans, as
well as several churches and Tucsonbased migrant rights groups such as Coalición de
Derechos Humanos – No More Deaths became an independent entity in 2006. In the
quote from the history of No More Deaths above, it is noted that a set of principles for
immigration reform were put forward during their initial formation. These ‘Faith Based
Principles for Immigration Reform’ (see appendix E), alongside the application of civil
initiative, inform the basis of No More Deaths’ work, which is described as a form of
direct action aid provision. Within their ‘Volunteer Outreach Toolkit’ the operation of No
More Deaths is described:
The goals of No More Deaths in 2004 were to provide water, food, and medical
assistance to migrants walking through the Arizona desert. Even more, No More
Deaths is committed to monitoring US operations in the border, working for
change of US policy to resolve the “war zone” crisis on the border, and to bringing
the plight of migrants to public attention… Central to No More Deaths are camps,
called Arks of the Covenant (No More Deaths, 2007b).
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The multisited operation of No More Deaths therefore includes both directaid work as
well as advocacy and policy related activism. However their primary focus has remained
the provision of aid through the operation of camps and a constant presence within the
desert. During the summer of 2004, the first ‘Arc of the Covenant’ camp was situated on a
private property located within the Altar Valley, while a second camp was also operated
in Cochise County, however this was later disbanded to concentrate resources on the
primary campsite. Each summer the campsite is reconstructed, typically lasting from June
until September, during the hottest months of the year, operating seven days a week (see
figure 4.2). The campsite, with no electricity or running water, provides space to camp for
the volunteers, a kitchen and food preparation area, and the most rudimentary of
bathroom facilities.
Figure 4.2: Entrance to the No More Deaths’ Arc of the Covenant camp located
outside of the town of Arivaca (photo by author).
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During the summer months patrols leave twice daily from the camp by fourwheel drive
vehicle, once in the early morning, and again in the late afternoon in efforts to avoid the
high temperatures which often exceed 110°F. Volunteers drive out to trails deep within the
desert that are used by migrants and their coyotes to travel across the border towards pre
arranged pickup sites. Groups of volunteers, typically three to six per group, will carry
gallon jugs of water, food packs, and medical supplies, hiking the trails for around three
hours. Groups consist of at least one Spanish speaker and one medic where possible.
Intermittently volunteers will call out in Spanish to migrants who may be nearby:
“Somos voluntarios” – We are volunteers
“No somos migra” – We are not the Border Patrol
“Tienes agua, comida, y ayuda medica” – We have water, food, and medical
assistance
Although comprised of longterm Tucsonbased residents, No More Deaths draws the
largest pool of shortterm volunteers as well, particularly within the summer months.
Every Sunday during summer, No More Deaths provides a fourhour training to new
volunteers, orienting them to the history and geography of the southern Arizona
borderlands, medical and legal protocols, safety measures, and so forth. On any given
week the group may receive upwards of 30 new volunteers, some staying for a week or
two, others for the entire summer period. Longterm volunteers also meet each Monday
evening at St. Marks Church in Tucson. A consensusbased group, the Monday night
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meetings, along with several smaller meetings throughout the week, allow for report
backs of the previous week at camp, strategizing, and other issues central to the group’s
organization and operation.
4.2.4 Sites of operation and varying roles of directaid groups
The primary location of directaid work conducted by Humane Borders, Samaritans, and
No More Deaths is the Sonoran desert within southern Arizona, as well as in northern
Sonora on the Mexico side of the border. Humane Borders covers territory from as far
west as Organ Pipe National Monument, deploying water stations throughout the desert
landscape. Samaritans list their patrol areas as being throughout the Sonoran desert: along
state highway 86 between Tucson and Sells and further onwards to the town of Ajo;
within the Ironwood Forest National Monument and Silverbell Mine area southwest of
Tucson; along state route 286 from Three Points to Sasabe; in the Buenos Aires National
Wildlife Refuge; around the Arivaca and Amado areas; and near Green Valley, Rio Rico,
Nogales, Patagonia and Sonoita. Meanwhile No More Deaths focuses specifically within
the Altar Valley, south of Tucson, where Humane Borders and Samaritans are also
present.
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Figure 4.3: The Sonoran desert, showing also the Altar Valley, in relation to the
U.S.Mexico boundary (source: Julienne Gard).
While the Sonoran desert, and more specifically the Altar Valley, is the space most
commonly associated with the operation of humanitarian aid provision, directaid and
migrant advocacy work by these groups is also conducted across various other sites
throughout southern Arizona. As the following case studies will come to explore, in
response to changing USBP and law enforcement practices, this contemporary directaid
movement has worked also at various scales to develop aid stations in Mexico for
deported migrants, become increasingly present in the media (and in creating their own
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media), conducted advocacy work in the cities of Tucson and Phoenix, lobbied in
Washington D.C., witnessed in courtrooms, and collaborated binationally with
organizations in Mexico, amongst other practices. Further, as volunteers relayed during
interviews, a central purpose of the movement was education, particularly of shortterm
volunteers:
The hope for a lot of our volunteers is that they go back to their home communities
and feel so affected by what they have experienced here that they are organizing in
their home communities with the people that live there [Volunteer E].
These directaid humanitarian organizations also provide a unique perspective for
studying the dynamic socio and geopolitical nature of the U.S.Mexico borderlands,
particularly surrounding the issue of undocumented migration. Volunteers are engaged
with many other actors within the borderlands, including the USBP, DHS and other law
enforcement agents, landmanagement agencies, migrants, local residents and ranchers,
vigilante groups, migrant rights and advocacy groups, private contractors involved in
detention of migrants and removals operations, coyotes and smugglers, the media, and
others. Longterm volunteers therefore have a rich and thorough understanding of this
region and of those either directly or nondirectly engaged with migration in the space of
the Sonoran desert.
4.2.5 Volunteer makeup and diversity within directaid humanitarianism
Within this research I make the distinction between ‘longterm’ and ‘shortterm’
volunteers. I define longterm volunteers as those who generally reside within southern
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Arizona, and have been actively engaged with these directaid groups for several years.
Though all three groups rely heavily on, and are shaped by, shortterm volunteers – many
of whom return to volunteer or relocate to Tucson to be involved full time – my interest
here is upon longterm volunteers. Within this research volunteers may be referred to
more broadly, relating to the general operation of the groups, however quotes from
interviews are solely from longterm volunteers.
Most mediacoverage, as well as previous academic writing on these three groups,
typically discusses the membership makeup of the groups in broad, generalized terms.
Though all three are ‘faithbased’ organizations, and meet weekly in churches, in general
there is only an underlying religious theme to the groups’ daily operations. Volunteers,
both long and short term, inhabit the fullspectrum of political and religious standpoints.
Further, there is diversity in opinion regarding how the situation of undocumented
migration and border militarization should be dealt with. While some respect the right of
a nationstate to maintain its sovereign borders, others openly contest the existence of
nationstate imposed boundaries. Some volunteer largely due to their religious beliefs and
concern for the wellbeing of migrants, while others enter with long histories of political
organization and solidarity work. Quite unique to most social movements, ages typically
range between 18 and 80, alongside the spectrum of political stances. This diversity can
be both beneficial and prohibitive to the operation of the groups, as the following research
will come to discuss.
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The overall makeup of these groups however remains largely white. Though there is
ethnic and racial diversity within the groups, this is typically minimal within the wider
volunteer base. There are several reasons why this is the case, and has a number of
important outcomes also. The geographical location of this directaid humanitarian work
excludes many from volunteering, particularly those who are undocumented, due to the
constant interaction with USBP agents, and several internal USBP and CBP checkpoints
that are crossed through daily. Further, the exceptional time, as well as cost, involved in
volunteering for a week or more excludes many from being able to volunteer with the
groups, which is reflected in the notably retireebased volunteer makeup of some groups.
Importantly, racial profiling by USBP and other law enforcement agents may deter certain
people from volunteering, and has led to previous volunteers deciding not to return.
Volunteers of color have been asked by USBP agents to provide documentation while on
patrol, at times being detained and questioned, while other typically white volunteers have
generally avoided such monitoring. What David Featherstone (2003, p.412) refers to as
‘visaprivilege’ for those who may move through certain spaces relatively freely, the
sociopolitical environment of the U.S.Mexico borderlands excludes many from
volunteering or moving through this region who do not posses the correct documentation.
Meanwhile, other shortterm volunteers are able to simply travel to southern Arizona and
proceed to volunteer within the borderlands with little concern over their mobility, other
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than to slow down when passing through USBP checkpoints, typically being waved
through.
The largely whitebase of volunteers within these humanitarian aid groups may be seen as
a barrier to participation for others as well. Critique is often leveled at these groups for
their monolingualism, and frequent lack of cultural understanding with both the Latino
community in southern Arizona as well as with migrant groups that they encounter. This
can also hinder provision of aid within the desert, as migrants are often suspicious of
anyone within this space, particularly white persons who may be USBP agents (though
agents represent a diverse background) or vigilantes, the language barrier for nonSpanish
speaking volunteers also often creating problems and lack of trust. Some groups have
made efforts to confront this situation, however the many realities of the work they
conduct and the space in which they do so, prohibits the participation of many. In the
summer of 2008, No More Deaths initiated white privilege trainings and discussions
within their wider volunteer training and orientation efforts. Although a step forward in
addressing the normative whiteness of the group, it is evident there is much work still to
be done.

4.3 The township of Arivaca
Approximately 56 miles south of Tucson, and 11 miles north of the U.S.Mexico border,
lies the unincorporated township of Arivaca, first known as “la Aribac.” Founded in 1878,
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and presently located within Pima County, the town is now predominantly a ranching and
tourist destination. The region, which is believed to have been a Pima Indian village, was
first mapped by Father Eusebio Kino in 1695, and later became known for mining (for a
more detailed history see Kasulaitis, 2002). The center of town now consists of a few
paved streets, a scattering of local businesses, and can be passed through in a matter of
minutes on Arivaca road, which connects to the I19 and highway 286, both of which run
north from the border towards Tucson. Given its proximity to the border and major routes
of travel, Arivaca has long had a connection with paths of migration. However, in the late
1990s, alongside the development of border militarization programs including Operation
Safeguard, which brought fencing and increased USBP presence to Nogales, 35 miles east
of the township, the situation began to change rapidly for the residents of Arivaca.
Figure 4.4: The township of Arivaca in relation to Tucson, Sasabe, Nogales, and
the U.S.Mexico boundary line, with the Interstate 19 and Highway 286 running
northsouth (Source: Hunter Jackson).
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The border town of Sasabe, a few miles southeast of Arivaca, became a major staging
ground for undocumented crossings in the 1990s as migration paths shifted deeper in to
the Sonoran desert, away from urban areas. Coyotes would lead their group northeast
along desert trails that passed closeby, and often through, Arivaca, leading towards pick
up points along Arivaca road, highway 286, and the I19, which connect to Tucson and
then onwards to Phoenix. The region surrounding Arivaca, where the temperature
averages 98°F in the month of June, but often exceeds 110°F, soon became known not
only for the increasing level of migrants trekking northwards, but also for the significant
amount of deaths due to the exceptional remoteness of this area of southern Arizona. In
the late 1990s, Arivaca and its surrounds became a major point of operation for the USBP
and other law enforcement agencies concerned with interdicting not only undocumented
migrants, but also drug smugglers who had also shifted their paths through this region.
Within a matter of years, the relatively quiet township of Arivaca had become what some
residents now refer to as an “occupied police state.” Highspeed chases by the USBP and
Pima County Sheriff officers take place along Arivaca road, attempting to stop human
and drug traffickers. Lowflying DHS, USBP, and National Guard helicopters pass over
the town searching for groups of migrants. Meanwhile Border Patrol agents enter on to
private property, patrolling in fourwheel drives, on motor bikes, or by horseback. Further,
local residents are regularly stopped to have their vehicles inspected. The previously quiet
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township that many had moved to in order to avoid the pervasive nature of the U.S.
government now involves passing through internal USBP checkpoints on a daily basis.
In 2007, under the Secure Border Initiative’s new program, SBInet, which sought to use
differing forms of technology to ‘seal the border,’ Project 28 was brought to southern
Arizona and the town of Arivaca. Project 28 referred to a 28mile section of the border in
which surveillance towers controlled from a remote location in Tucson were to be tested.
The program was later expanded to 57 permanent towers dotted throughout the southern
Arizona landscape, though has been delayed in its implementation due to ongoing
technological snafus, and controversy over the cost of the contract provided to private
corporation Boeing to construct and maintain the surveillance towers (McCombs, 2008d).
A central test site for several of Project 28’s towers, Arivaca residents complained of
being under the watchful eye of the State, and were highly critical of the purpose of the
towers and their ability to detect migrants and drug smugglers in the rugged terrain that
surrounded the town (McCombs, 2008b; see figure 4.5).
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Figure 4.5: One of several test surveillance towers under SBInet’s Project 28,
located a few miles south of Arivaca, July 2007 (photo by author).
4.3.1 Humanitarian aid in the town of Arivaca
In 2001, Humane Borders, under agreement from Pima County officials, began to place
permanent water stations for migrants crossing nearby to Arivaca. Soon after, Samaritans
started their humanitarian aid patrols along Arivaca road and the myriad roughlywarn
dirt roads that connected to ranches and wildlife reserves. In 2004, No More Deaths
opened its ‘Arc of the Covenant’ camp on the property of local resident, and wellknown
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children’s book author, Byrd Baylor. Baylor had kindly accepted the humanitarian aid
group’s presence, knowing that many persons had lost their lives close by to her land who
had been following the Papalote wash, a dry streambed that led northeast to Arivaca road
(Henry, 2009). Although just outside the town of Arivaca, traveling to the campsite takes
around half an hour by car on the winding dirt roads that are frequently impassable due to
monsoon rains.
Other campsites on private property have been operated by No More Deaths, along with
more temporary sites on federal land where camping is permitted, reflecting a response to
the dynamic nature of migration paths, and the lengthy trips by car to reach many of the
trails. Residents who are willing to accommodate humanitarian groups, and who are
generally sympathetic to undocumented migrants traveling across their land, are however
placed in a compromising position. In one instance, a family who had let No More Deaths
set up on their land had come under increasing pressure from the USBP and DHS to stop
accommodating such groups, as well as the migrant groups who would rest under trees on
their property. The owners were told that they were under surveillance by the USBP, and
that they were at risk of being charged with harboring undocumented migrants, which
could result in the loss of their property. Meanwhile, coyotes who had come to learn that
the owners were accommodating to migrants, and often organized cars to pickup
migrants on their land, were becoming increasingly threatening, demanding food and to
use the phone inside their house. Eventually the owners had to ask No More Deaths to
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leave, and sold their property, moving to another state. As this research develops upon,
the relationship between Arivaca and humanitarian aid is an important one, though
remains tenuous in its nature.
4.4 “Humanitarian Aid is Never a Crime”: criminalizing directaid
provision
In the first few years of the Samaritan Patrol, followed by the inception of No More
Deaths, medical evacuations were conducted of individuals and groups of migrants who
required more significant aid and respite than could be provided in the desert. Typically,
volunteers would transport migrants to a hospital in Tucson, or to Southside Church
located in south Tucson, a central place of organizing during the time of the Sanctuary
movement, and currently the meeting place of Samaritans. Awaiting those who were
evacuated were more qualified nurses to provide necessary medical assistance. Volunteers
relayed to me during our conversations that many hundreds of these medical evacuations
took place until 2005, a common strategy for those in need of medical aid. According to a
feature article on the group in the L.A. Weekly in 2006:
Last year [2005], among the 3,500 migrants the Samaritans encountered, they took
68 of them to a doctor, or back to their base at Tucson’s Southside Presbyterian
Church, where they were treated by medical volunteers (Cooper, 2006, p.32).
Protocol for the humanitarian aid groups, after having encountered an individual or group
in need of evacuation, was to call a nurse in Tucson to determine if evacuation was
necessary, and to then call the groups’ lawyer, before transporting someone to Tucson.
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Volunteers argued that when they would call 911 or Border Patrol, response times would
frequently take too long, putting a person’s life at risk if they were in need of immediate
attention. Given the exceptionally large demands on emergency services to provide
assistance, and the significant distances to be traveled to those in need, wait times could
reach several hours. Throughout this time of conducting evacuations, there was a belief by
the humanitarian groups that an unwritten agreement had been reached between them and
the USBP that medical evacuations were accepted. Aid workers argued that the USBP
was well aware of their actions, and that they were able to do so with little concern of
repercussions for transporting migrants to Tucson.
On the morning of July 9

2005, things changed dramatically for the humanitarian aid
groups operating in the Altar Valley of southern Arizona. Two volunteers with No More
Deaths came across a group of nine migrants close to the base camp. Three of the group
were suffering from dehydration, some vomiting and complaining of having bloody
diarrhea, after having drank contaminated water from a cattle tank. This situation is a
common occurrence for aid groups, as this is typically the only water to be found in this
region for migrants, but is much less beneficial to drink than it is helpful, as most will
vomit the water back up, becoming further dehydrated. After assessing the three ill
persons at camp, and contacting a nurse in Tucson as well as the group’s lawyer, the two
volunteers, Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss, then proceeded to drive them towards
Tucson. Only a few miles from the base camp, soon after crossing on to the paved surface
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of Arivaca road that leads toward the I19 freeway, several miles from the center of
Arivaca, their car was pulled over by Border Patrol agents. The two volunteers and three
migrants were placed under arrest, and were then all detained at the same detention
center, with the three men being denied medical aid while in detention (interview with
Shanti Sellz, July 2008).
The two volunteers were later charged with transporting undocumented migrants, “in
violation of federal immigration law and with conspiracy” (Failinger, 2006, p.402),
beginning a long and high profile case, which drew the attention of many media sources
and the wider public. During the time between the arrests and the trial, a campaign began
in Tucson to draw attention to the perceived injustice of criminalizing humanitarian aid
workers. To this day, signs can be seen prominently displayed on front lawns of houses
across Tucson, proclaiming “Humanitarian Aid is Never a Crime.” The campaign has
continued as a rallying cry for the movement, and was seen as a successful step in gaining
support, as it brought awareness of humanitarian directaid work out of the desert to
nearby urban areas such as Tucson and Phoenix, which a number of volunteers made
reference to during interviews:
The ‘Humanitarian Aid is Never a Crime’ campaign was incredibly successful in
raising our visibility, as a group in southern Arizona, and I think that we are a
group that in general that has a lot of popular support even if people don’t exactly
understand who we are or what we do [Volunteer C].
I think that that campaign, even though it was really costly in terms of our financial
and human resources, I think it really made some headway too, if not changed
minds, it at least sort of helped weld together a community of folks who did believe
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in humane border policies, and I think a lot of that is still around, that was a pretty
effective campaign [Volunteer B].
In September 2006, U.S. District Judge Raner Collins dropped the charges against the two
volunteers, who were facing 15 years and US$500 000 in charges. It was ruled that the
volunteers were following a previously established protocol, and had not been told
explicitly by the USBP that such evacuations could not take place. In interviews with
USBP spokespersons that followed the case, it was stated that they did not agree with this
finding. Sellz and Strauss escaped punishment, however the wider influence of the
outcome was recognized by humanitarian aid volunteers. Although no official precedent
was set, the government had succeeded in making it clear that they would no longer
tolerate medical evacuations without the express consent of the U.S. Border Patrol or the
DHS.
Though some medical evacuations took place after the arrests, the practices of No More
Deaths and Samaritans received significant reflection and underwent change, with the
evacuations eventually stopping. 2006 was viewed as a “watershed year” by many,
particularly within No More Deaths who had been most actively patrolling trails and
conducting medical evacuations at the time. As Volunteer B stated:
…there was so many problems in 2006, and you know, No More Deaths almost
died after 2006, it took the hiatus…[ ] basically the organization died for six
months.
Having resumed after the selfimposed hiatus in 2006, the practices of No More Deaths,
as well as Samaritans, began to change as new strategies were developed in response to
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the inability to conduct medical evacuations without the risk of arrest. As Volunteer D,
one of several registered nurses working with Samaritans and No More Deaths related:
We felt somewhat freer in those earlier days of the group’s work, to get someone to
a hospital, to go ahead and do that. After the arrests we felt more constrained, I
think people were more cautious.
After the arrests, they [USBP] started to stop our vehicles more often too, and
shine the lights in the back if it was nighttime, or say you know, “Oh, we just
stopped to warn you about the washes, the washes are running” and that sort of
thing, and so we had to be more cautious.
Throughout my interviews and time spent volunteering with these directaid groups,
caution and uncertainty appeared as central issues. As Volunteer G, an exSanctuary
member and current No More Deaths volunteer reflected, the adhoc nature of the arrests
“makes our work more unpredictable.” With longerterm volunteers – in particular those
who had been involved around the time of the trial – a notable and lasting influence of the
proceedings and outcomes was apparent. The transparent nature of their work, informed
by civil initiative, had not protected them from being prosecuted by the State. There was
also concern that the precedent set by the trial would scare off potential ‘good
Samaritans’ who might have previously stopped to give aid to an individual or group of
migrants they had seen while driving throughout southern Arizona. Not only were
volunteers more reluctant to drive someone to hospital, the general public now feared
repercussions for providing any form of assistance. The climate for those crossing the
desert had therefore become even more dangerous, particularly for those who found
themselves in need of assistance. In proceeding chapters, this research considers some of
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the nuances of such effects upon migrants’ health, as availability of assistance dissolves
and the time to care grows.
However, while the groups came under further scrutiny from the USBP, and evacuations
became almost impossible, other strategies developed. Recognizing that improved forms
of aid provision within the desert were now necessary, new practices were implemented:
One of the things that we started doing in 2006, which I think has made a big
difference, was to, when we would go out on trails we would leave water out there
for people…[ ] we had really never done that, [before 2006] we would go out there
with full backpacks and if we encountered people, great, and if not we would just
come back with all the stuff we had been carrying all day [Volunteer C].
Although water is not always sufficient in replacing medical aid, it was recognized by the
groups that for those who could receive or find water at various stages throughout their
travels, they stood a much better chance of remaining healthy, particularly in the summer
months, avoiding dehydration and other heatrelated illness. While Humane Borders had
been maintaining permanent water stations for several years, these stations required
official permits, and were not able to be quickly moved or newly implemented as trails
changed. It is well known that trails traversed by migrants, and more specifically their
coyotes, are incredibly dynamic, shifting rapidly in response to USBP presence, or after
realizing that ground sensors had been placed along the trails, resulting in constant
apprehension by Border Patrol each time they were set off. Recognizing also that the
majority of migrant groups traveled by night – resting in the heat of the day due to the
increased chances of being spotted by enforcement agents – leaving gallon jugs of water
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on heavily traversed trails meant that migrants could collect water that had been
previously left by volunteers, regardless of the time of day.
In typical circumstances, volunteers will hike trails for several hours, carrying a gallon of
water in each hand. At certain points, such as where two trails converge, water is placed
in a shaded but visible area. Dates are written on the bottles, as well as GPS coordinates
of where they were placed, along with a note to the intended recipient such as “¡Buena
suerte!” (Good luck!). By marking the bottles, volunteers can then return to the same
location and determine how much, if any, water has been taken. This became an effective
way not only to get much needed water to people, but also to gauge the level of foot traffic
on any given trail. Though an effective practice, it was at times relayed by migrants that
they had avoided the water, unsure if the water was safe to drink, or thinking it was a trap
set by the USBP or others unsympathetic to their migration into the United States. At
other times volunteers would find used jugs with ‘thank you’ notes attached, sometimes a
few pesos placed inside.
During 2006, another quite different approach was also taken by No More Deaths and
Samaritans in their provision of direct aid. Knowing that migrants were being deported
daily at ports of entry along the border, often without the necessary medical aid they were
in need of, some members of No More Deaths began to explore the possibility of setting
up migrant aid stations just inside Mexico. In collaboration with grassroots groups in
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Mexico, and sometimes with the assistance of the Mexican government, aid stations were
set up initially in Agua Prieta and at the Mariposa port of entry in Nogales in 2006. The
aid station at Nogales, which receives the highest amount of deportations in the Tucson
sector – up to two thousand people in a day – is a makeshift affair, consisting of a handful
of shade structures and often the tailgate of a car, within only a few feet of the
international boundary (see figure 4.6). Water, food, coffee, basic medical aid, and the
ability to make a phone call home are provided there. Volunteer F, one of the initial
volunteers from the U.S. who worked to establish the aid station, explained the
importance of maintaining a presence within the space of the Nogales port of entry, and
the effectiveness of providing aid to those who had been deported within Mexico:
…the space we are in is so valuable because you can see the [deportation] buses
pullup, and they [migrants] literally have to walk right by you to get in to town, to
get anywhere, and you are the first people when they are out of U.S. custody that
they are going to see.
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Figure 4.6: The welcoming sign to the Nogales aid station, located on the Mexican
side of the border (photo by author).
By the close of 2006, the humanitarian directaid groups had renewed their patrols, and
expanded upon their operations, bringing new practices of aid provision to the desert and
across the international boundary in to Mexico (as this research will return to examine).
While the arrests and lengthy trial had largely put an end to evacuations northwards
towards Tucson as an effective strategy of aid, the new responses that were developed and
the increasing resolve to ensure those crossing the Sonoran desert would receive the aid
they needed, meant that this initial criminalization of aid provision did not lead to the
movement’s demise. Over the next two years however, efforts to criminalize migrant aid
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continued, alongside the involvement of new law enforcement agencies, to which I shall
return in the following chapters of this research.
4.5 Practices of mapping as spatial knowledge
Over the past several years, humanitarian directaid groups have developed a number of
practices of mapping migrant trails and corridors, deaths, and locations of aid. These
maps have various applications: in the field for providing aid; outside of the desert for
migrant rights advocacy within the United States; and internationally within Mexico and
Central America for promoting migrant safety. Here I want to provide a description and
analysis of mapping practices conducted by No More Deaths and Humane Borders, the
two groups most prominently involved with mapping, to allow an understanding of their
operation in providing directaid in the Sonoran desert, and to explore some of the
controversies created through their practices of mapping. Through my fieldwork with
these groups I sought to understand how mapping migrant trails and deaths informed the
directaid movement in its work. What knowledge did this mapping provide about the
space in which they operate? In what ways was mapping used as an advocacy tool for
migrant rights and in promoting access and mobility into certain spaces? What counter
geographies did these create in relation to ‘official’ forms of mapping by the USBP and
other agencies? And importantly, how did such knowledge allow these groups to
circumvent efforts by law enforcement to prevent the distribution of aid?
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4.5.1 Humane Borders – mapping migrant deaths in the borderlands
Earlier this chapter discussed the practices of Humane Borders, predominantly through
their implementation of permanent water stations within the Sonoran desert. Another
integral component of Humane Borders’ operation, and in allowing them to place water
stations in effective places within the desert, has been its mapping of migration corridors
and migrant deaths in southern Arizona. Through a gathering of information from the
USBP and local medical examiners, Humane Borders has mapped out the location of
reported deaths in southern Arizona since 2000 using geographic information system
(GIS) technology. Through compiling and analyzing this data, Humane Borders has
produced a number of ‘death maps’ spanning from 20002007, serving several purposes.
By mapping deaths over a number of years, a picture is developed of where the majority
of people have perished in the desert, which also highlights specific migration corridors.
In turn, this allows Humane Borders to better understand where their water stations are
most needed, and will be most effective, given that the majority of deaths by border
crossers are related to exposure and dehydration. As Chamblee et al. (2006) have stated:
When deciding where to concentrate resources [for Humane Borders], it is
important to know where deaths are more likely to occur. This raises questions
about the relationship between migrant deaths and the US/Mexico border, and
between migrant deaths and travel routes (p.18).
On their later maps, Humane Borders has also mapped the location of water stations, as
well as cell phone reception within southern Arizona. In 2007, a map was then produced
showing the location of 1,138 migrant deaths from exposure recorded between October 1,
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1999 and September 30, 2007, including the location of water stations and USBP rescue
beacons (see appendix F). As stated on the Humane Borders website, this mapping has
created the ability to:
…make strategic decisions about where to collaborate with land owners and
managers about water station placement, and also allows us to show, in a graphic
way, how the water stations help mitigate the loss of life (Humane Borders,
undated).
In 2006, members of Humane Borders and those employed by the group to conduct
mapping from the Center for Applied Spatial Analysis (CASA) at the University of
Arizona, Tucson, produced a document Mapping Migrant Deaths in Southern Arizona:
the Humane Borders GIS (Chamblee, et al., 2006). Within this document, which includes
a detailed description of how and why their mapping is carried out, a distinct recognition
is made of the importance of land management in regards to migrant deaths and the
ability to provide humanitarian aid. In a specific study of the Sasabe/El Tortugo migrant
corridor, Humane Borders acknowledges the dramatic differences in deaths and ability to
provide aid between the west side of the Baboquivari mountain range which marks the
beginning of the largely inaccessible Tohono O’odham Nation, and the east side of the
Altar Valley where humanitarian directaid groups under consideration within this
research primarily operate. Although there are five rescue beacons on the Nation within
this corridor, there are no water stations or cell phone towers, due to permission not being
granted to place them on the reservation. Meanwhile it is noted that, “In the Altar Valley,
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management policies change from owner to owner, which has allowed for the placement
of water tanks, beacons, and cell towers” (Chamblee et al., 2006, p.24).
4.5.2 Distributing warning maps in Mexico and creating controversy in the United States
On January 24 2006, Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission announced that it
would distribute 70 000 maps to undocumented migrants, posting them in migrantaid
centers and other places where migrants would see them throughout Mexico. The
topographic maps, which were developed by Humane Borders in the U.S., show where
migrant deaths have occurred using red dots; where water stations are located using blue
flags; stars to demonstrate where USBPinstalled rescue beacons are; as well as major
roads (see appendix F). Overlaid on the maps are a series of arcs, identifying how far it is
possible to walk per day. At the bottom of the maps several warnings are also stated:
“¡No vaya ud!” – “Don’t go!”
“¡No hay suficiente agua!” – “There is not sufficient water!”
“¡No vale la pena!” – “It’s not worth it!”
The intention then, was to direct migrants away from the most dangerous crossings,
suggesting that in fact it was better to not cross at all, in the belief that informed consent
for migrants, and those considering the journey, was of central importance. In a press
release posted on their website, Humane Borders explained the necessity of the maps:
The most basic level of ethics is informed consent. By equipping migrants with
real information: where migrants die, where roads are, where water stations are and
are not, distances to cities and towns, which months are the deadliest, the hope is
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that migrants will choose not to come in the deadliest months and to take safer
routes if they choose to cross the desert anyway. This approach to migrant
education is believed to be better than scaring migrants with Public Service
Announcements or simply wishing the migrants well on their journey. Specific
information will equip migrants to make better decisions (Humane Borders,
2006a).
A day after announcing their release, the maps were withdrawn due to various pressures.
Largely misunderstanding the maps’ purpose due to inaccuracies in media reports, it was
argued by U.S. officials, including Michael Chertoff – then head of the DHS – that the
maps would entice migrants to cross. Chertoff was quoted as saying, “We oppose in the
strongest terms the publication of maps to aid those who wish to enter the United States
illegally” (quoted in Smith, 2006). Although the maps were at a scale that did not allow
specific details of terrain to be determined (Chamblee et al., 2006), those against the
distribution of the maps within the U.S. believed they would provide information to
migrants that would allow them to cross more easily, disregarding the statements at the
bottom of the map explicitly stating that persons should not attempt to cross. There was
also concern by Mexican human rights organizations that vigilante groups who patrol the
border (see Chapter 7) would use the maps to stake out places and apprehend
undocumented migrants, though again, given the scale that the maps were produced at,
this seemed unlikely.
The planned distribution of the maps led to widescale media coverage of the project
throughout the U.S., and across the globe, bringing significant attention to Humane
Borders. Comparisons by those against the distribution of the maps were drawn with a
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comicstyle guide produced and distributed by the Mexican government in December
2004, which provided information regarding the dangers of crossing and ways to maintain
safety if persons did chose to cross the border into the U.S. (see Secretaria de Relaciones
Exteriores, 2004; McKinley Jr., 2005; Schmidt Camacho, 2008). The guide had drawn the
ire of antiillegal immigration groups and government officials in the U.S., believing it
was intended to aid migrants in avoiding U.S. law enforcement, even though the guide
stated a need to respect law enforcement agencies if apprehended. In regard to the
critiques of the maps, particularly by the head of the DHS, Humane Borders presented a
press release condemning the response; “Secretary Chertoff has confirmed once again
that the U.S. does not care about its neighbors to the south… Our collaboration with the
National Human Rights Commission in Mexico should have been applauded. Instead,
commissions and NGO’s on both sides of the border are being bullied” (Humane Borders,
2006b).
Maps produced by Humane Borders then have been applied in several ways surrounding
the risks of crossing through the Sonoran desert. While allowing the provision of aid to
be conducted more efficiently, they have also been constructed to allow informed consent
for potential migrants who are considering crossing the U.S.Mexico border. The
legitimacy of these maps, and their intentions, however, has been challenged by
government institutions and antiillegal immigration groups. While Humane Borders
continue to produce maps, often used as talking points for media interviews to create
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awareness of the situation in southern Arizona, much like their work to provide water, the
maps remain contested in their application.
4.5.3 No More Deaths – mapping migrant trails and corridors
Mapping became an integral part of No More Deaths’ operation in 2006, two years after
they began patrolling the Sonoran desert, when Ed McCullough, a retired University of
Arizona geosciences professor and former dean of science, started working with the
group, using global positioning systems (GPS) units to map trails used by undocumented
migrants and their coyotes through the Altar Valley (Regan, 2007). Although mapping
plays a central role in the provision of aid by No More Deaths, its initial application was
for the benefit of volunteers to stop them from getting lost. In an interview with
McCullough he mentioned that, “We would just go out on a trail and walk on it, and come
back, and there was no way to tell anybody where we had been.” Mapping practices
developed over time and began to present a picture to those involved with No More
Deaths of the space they were working in, as well as the methods in which migrant
groups moved throughout the Altar Valley:
When we started, we didn’t know any of the trails out there. And really, we didn’t
have any of the technology that we have now, the GPS equipment and the maps and
things like that, I mean really it was just kind of going in blind, and we would
come across a group of people and we would keep going back to that spot, or we
would find a trail that seemed like there was activity on it and we would keep
going there. And we had no real geographical understanding of the area, how
things connected with each other. [Now] you know if people were walking on a
trail in one spot, you know where they came from, how long necessarily they had
been in the desert by the time they had reached a given area; that is something we
really learned over time through interactions with [migrant] groups [Volunteer C].
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With the inception of GPS units, volunteers would walk trails placing waypoints into the
units. McCullough would then take the units and download the information. Dirt roads
that traversed the Altar Valley were also driven, mapping points where trails would cross,
allowing a further understanding of where trails were headed towards. Over time,
‘corridors’ began to form: clusters of trails could be seen typically heading in a northeast
direction, towards highway 86, Arivaca road, and the I19, where groups were often
pickedup by car. Corridor maps were then produced, allowing an understanding of where
resources could be best provided in the desert landscape (see appendix G). More detailed
trail maps were also created, with waypoints provided, allowing volunteers to easily
access and hike specific trails, even if they had little previous experience or knowledge of
the area (see appendix G).
Over time trails are reassessed, and a trail rating scale is applied to them. If volunteers
had returned to a trail over several months, and recorded no footprints, no sightings or
engagements with migrant groups, and there was little to no refuse found along the trail, it
would therefore receive a ‘1,’ the lowest rating. Alternatively, if a trail was in heavy use,
and migrant groups were frequently encountered, or water that had been previously left
on the trail was taken consistently, a trail was assigned a ‘4’ or ‘5’ rating, designating
heavy use and a need to return there to distribute aid. However, if a strong presence of
Border Patrol appeared on the trail, it would often become disused as word spread
between coyotes (this also impacted the use of Humane Borders water stations). Trail
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ratings were therefore temporary, with volunteers often relying more heavily on
knowledge passed throughout the base camp, and experience developed over time, as an
accurate method to assess a trails' use.
Volunteers rely also on other methods to demarcate trails and significant sites for aid
provision alongside mapping with GPS units. One practice that has developed has been
the application of toponyms – naming sites along migrant trails. As Volunteer G
reflected, these were often integrated within maps to replace some of the many waypoint
numbers that are often meaningless when recited to someone. “Dead Cow,” “Dead
Suburban,” “Oak Tree,” “Bermuda Triangle,” and “Josseline’s Shrine” amongst others,
are names that have been applied by volunteers to particular sites. Some names refer to
landscape features, others to events that took place, and some to items found along a trail.
Humanitarian aid groups such as No More Deaths however, are not alone in this practice.
The USBP, and Mexican officials who map trails on the southern side of the border, are
also known to name particular sites along paths of migration (this practice has not been
written about extensively, but was briefly explored in an article by Richard Marosi in the
Los Angeles Times, 2005a). Undoubtedly this practice is also applied by coyotes and drug
smugglers, aiding in their movement and navigation through the desert landscape.
As USBP presence and border militarization push migration paths in to new and more
remote regions, humanitarian workers and law enforcement agents alike begin the process
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of naming to help in navigating these spaces. Brenda Yeoh (1996), in her study of the
power of toponyms in postcolonial Singapore, states that, “The naming of a place,
whether as a conscious, deliberate event or a more informal process of evolution, is in
varying degrees a socialized activity” (p.299). Particular landscapes can be read through
this practice of naming, revealing the “ideas and ideologies, interest groups and power
blocs” (p.298) involved in such efforts to name places. This practice of naming trails and
specific sites along routes of migration in the U.S.Mexico borderlands by law
enforcement agents and humanitarian aid workers is conducted in a similar fashion, but
with vastly different meaning and purpose. While one group uses place names to help in
interdicting undocumented migrants, the other applies them to allow more effective
solidarity practices within the space of the Sonoran desert.
Some sites named by directaid groups were also referred to as ‘teachable moments’ in
assisting new volunteers and curious media to understand the realities of the desert
landscape for undocumented migration. One example is the ‘Stretcher Trail’, only a few
miles north of the border, and close by to the ghost town of Ruby. Although it is now a
little used trail, several years ago it was a major conduit. On one occasion, volunteers
patrolling the trail in the summer of 2005 discovered a group of men carrying a makeshift
stretcher made of tree branches strapped together with their belts; their female companion
had fallen ill and died while they were hiking northwards through the Sonoran desert.
Deciding that she should be returned to Mexico, they had proceeded to carry her south
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towards the border. The stretcher still remains just off the trail, and is visited occasionally
by humanitarian groups to show the media or new volunteers (see figure 4.7).
Figure 4.7: A makeshift stretcher constructed of tree branches and belts, some
bearing images of the United States flag on them, used to carry a woman back to
Mexico. The trail is now referred to as the ‘Stretcher Trail’ by humanitarian aid
volunteers (photo by author).
Volunteers patrolling trails that weave their way through the desert landscape towards
Tucson and beyond have also come across several ‘shrines’ constructed by migrants, often
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deep within the desert, many miles from roads, which are now frequently used to identify
particular trails. Michael Hyatt, a photographer who has documented and also volunteers
with directaid humanitarian groups, has begun also to document the shrines with the
assistance of Juanita Sundberg, a cultural geographer from the University of British
Columbia, who has also spent considerable time with these groups (see Sundberg, 2006;
Hyatt, 2007; Portillo Jr., 2007). Hyatt’s website states:
These shrines are located along migrant trails. As migrants pass through the
southern Arizona desert, they interact with and transform the landscape in small,
yet significant ways through the shrines they create and the things they leave
behind. At these shrines we find Virgin of Guadalupe bandanas, photographs,
books, rosaries and prayer cards, coins, candles and more. The presence of
Guadalupe here, a central figure in Latin American folk Catholicism, is a testament
to the importance of faith for individuals willing to risk their lives to help support
loved ones back home (Hyatt, undated).
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Figure 4.8: One of several shrines discovered by directaid volunteers along
migration trails in the Altar Valley. These shrines are used as spatial referents for
humanitarian aid groups, as well as sites for education to newcomers (photo by
author).
There are other shrines that also dot the desert landscape in this region. Typically located
separate to those discussed previously, these shrines are to Jesús Malverde, often referred
to as the ‘patron saint of drug smugglers’ (see figure 4.9; Quinones, 2001). It is well
known that many trails used by migrants and their coyotes are also shared with drug
smugglers, or ‘mules,’ typically hiking bails of marijuana across the border. On several
occasions volunteers had encountered the drug smugglers, though only briefly. Many
reports have noted the growing involvement, and often times associated violence, of drug
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smugglers with human smuggling, often taking over coyotes’ operations, due in part to
increased USBP and law enforcement presence that has pushed the two groups into close
proximity. Not unlike the religious shrines and other sites of interest, these shrines
constructed by drug smugglers and coyotes are also used to signify particular trails, and to
educate new volunteers of the various actors that take part in crossing through and
shaping the landscape that humanitarian directaid groups work in.

Figure 4.9: A shrine to Jesús Malverde in a rock face within the Altar Valley, often
referred to as the ‘patron saint of drug smugglers’ (photo by author).
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4.5.4 Labor and the production of spatial knowledge
During the summer of 2007, longterm volunteers with No More Deaths began a small
mobile camp, the primary goal of which was to map new trails, as well as completing the
mapping of existing trails, to present a more detailed picture of the trail system. A
significant amount of labor is therefore involved in the various stages of mapping – from
walking the trails with a GPS unit in hand, recording field notes, transferring data to a
computer, producing the maps and distributing hard copies to volunteers, and maintaining
a constantly updated database as new trails are added. Many thousands of hours are
therefore dedicated by volunteers, such as McCullough, in creating these maps. In
volunteering on various mapping expeditions and talking with the small group of aid
workers most centrally involved with the mapping, I was able to take part in and discuss
the labor involved in such a process. As Volunteer B related:
Even though we started mapping three summers ago now, in 2006…[ ] there’s
hundreds of miles of trails out there, and you gotta walk each mile to really map
it…[ ] and it’s really time consuming, and once you walk it, often you lose it [the
trail]…[ ] it’s a really time consuming process to map all that [Volunteer B].
There is also a significant timedelay in the production of this knowledge; it may take a
year before a series of trails are accurately mapped and distributed back to the base camp
for volunteers to then use in conducting patrols. By this stage a trail may have become out
of use, or in turn have developed in to a major conduit for migrants moving through the
region. As mapping practices progressed however, an indisputable benefit was created for
No More Deaths and other directaid groups such as Samaritans who would also use and
help in the production of the maps, allowing a much more efficient method of providing
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aid and patrolling trails in contrast to the earlier years of the groups’ operation. Through
understanding where trails intersected, which trails were in high use, where major roads
crossed trails, and where ‘pickup’ points were located, amongst other pieces of
information, volunteers could make informed decisions about where to patrol and leave
water, as well as likely places they might encounter migrants in distress. Water and food
could also be left at strategic points, recognizing the route migrants would be traveling
north from the border over several days.
This was demonstrated during a sweltering July afternoon in 2008, when several
volunteers I was patrolling with came across a group of 10 migrants, including one young
male with a suspected broken ankle. Medics patrolling with No More Deaths were unable
to convince the gentleman and his group to rest or be evacuated, and so did the best they
could to bandage his ankle to support it, knowing that he faced at least another 23 days
of walking. Through the use of the maps that had been developed by No More Deaths,
volunteers were able to return to the trail 24 hours later, estimating how far the group
would have traveled. The knowledge of the maps and terrain, along with some luck,
resulted in the volunteers reencountering the group and the male with the broken ankle,
allowing medics to reassess his condition and provide additional food, water, and basic
medical assistance. Sprained and broken ankles, as well as seemingly harmless blisters
can often result in persons being left behind, and can ultimately result in death if that
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person is unable to find assistance. As Volunteer D who had been involved with several of
the direct aid groups for many years noted:
The most common medical issues that we’ve encountered out there are blisters, bad
blisters usually, severe, from having walked rapidly for a long period of time in wet
socks, over rough terrain, friction from their shoes, maybe their shoes haven’t been
all that well fitting. So people get left behind because of severe blisters because of
the pain they cause [Volunteer D].
In this one small example, No More Deaths volunteers were able to determine that the
young man had not been left behind, and so did not require an evacuation or the need to
initiate a search and rescue effort by the Border Patrol. In a similar manner that Humane
Borders argued their maps were necessary in providing ‘informed consent’ to potential
migrants, the knowledge produced through mapping also allowed volunteers to provide
information to migrant groups they encountered on trails. Though unable to give maps or
written information to migrants, volunteers could give estimates of time to walk to the
nearest road or town, amongst other information, should a group or individual find
themselves in distress. Through the use of GPS coordinates, volunteers were also able to
relay much more accurate information to Border Patrol search and rescue teams in
situations where an evacuation or search was necessary. Previous to their mapping efforts,
none of this had been possible.
4.5.5 Contested knowledges
With mapping of trails and increasing knowledge of migration paths and practices, comes
the risk of possible appropriation of such information for uses other than aid provision. In
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conversations with longterm volunteers involved with map production this was discussed
at length, providing differing opinions of the ramifications should a map fall in to the
wrong hands. Debate over the possible misuse of the maps also included speculation
regarding whether the humanitarian groups knew any more or less than the USBP and
others involved with interdicting migrant flows in this region. Volunteer B, a central
figure with mapping for No More Deaths argued that:
[The] Border Patrol has way more information than we do, in fact I think they have
an information glut, and they don’t know what to do with it…[ ] I think they know
way more about migrant trails and corridors than we do, and I’m not concerned
about them getting our maps, if they wanted them they probably would have had
them already…[ ] I don’t think there’s much information that we have that would
be all that valuable to them.
In contrast, Volunteer C provided a much different response:
We have been really protective of the mapping we have done…[ ] And if that
information fell in to the wrong hands it could really be exploited…[ ] We have a
much better sense of the terrain and the trails in a lot of areas than the Border
Patrol does. If they [USBP] had access to our maps, I’m sure that information
would be used to help apprehend people who are crossing.
He continued that:
Anyone can go the map store and get a topo[graphic] map of Santa Cruz county or
whatever, but to actually be able to plot the migrant trails and understand drop off
points and intersections with roads and stuff like that, that’s simply knowledge that
I don’t think anyone else has.
Speculation therefore remains regarding the power of the maps and knowledge created by
No More Deaths and others. Concerns also arose regarding vigilante groups (see Chapter
7) obtaining the maps, such as the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps who had made
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previous mention that they would use the maps produced by Humane Borders to interdict
migrant groups. The speculation regarding knowledge possessed by the USBP also
demonstrated the lack of transparency from this law enforcement agency and insights of
aid groups in to their practices. There was general agreement however that most USBP
agents did not need to know the intricacies of the trail systems, only where trails crossed
paved roads; for most USBP agents it is merely a matter of sitting and waiting until
migrant groups appear at these road crossings, as was evidenced by the extremely
infrequent interactions with agents on trails in contrast to when driving on established
roads.
4.6 Summary
This chapter has provided an introduction to the operation of contemporary humanitarian
aid within southern Arizona, concerned specifically with the provision of aid through the
use of direct action and engagement. It has also highlighted the evolution of these groups,
noting a strong influence from the Sanctuary movement that proceeded them, in
developing effective means of providing aid to those in transit within the Sonoran desert.
While the overall movement has as its central purpose the provision of water within the
desert to mitigate deaths, the individual groups and their participants reflect a diversity of
positions and practices to meet such ends.
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Since their inception, these groups have gained increasing scrutiny from law enforcement
agencies, most notably the USBP. Though they have at times been criminalized for their
actions, this has resulted in new practices being adopted by the groups to ensure aid
continues to be provided effectively. The development of mapping practices, to create a
critical spatial knowledge and awareness of the spaces in which they operate, has allowed
these practices to be refined and remain responsive to the dynamic nature of migration
and enforcement. Such knowledge has been applied through various practices by the
groups, operating as a means to further legitimate the need for humanitarian aid, for
educational purposes, and to allow informed consent for migrants attempting to cross the
Sonoran desert. Overall, it was found that the diverse range of actors present in the
borderlands all play a role in transforming the landscape, applying different meanings to
the spaces in which they interact.
The following chapters consider the applications and development of these spatial
knowledges through specific case studies, allowing a critical understanding of how aid
groups continue to evolve in their practices, and in the responses of various law
enforcement agencies concerned with interdicting undocumented migration. As this
research comes to demonstrate, the inception of new faces of power within the
borderlands has presented additional challenges to the operation of aid groups, along with
a subsequent criminalization of their work.
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Chapter 5: The Strategic Space of Buenos Aires National
Wildlife Refuge in Providing Humanitarian Aid
You might call Buenos Aires a tragic juncture of geography and politics.
Vanderpool, 2006
Our agents end up dealing with people more than with animals now.
Elizabeth Slown, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesperson, in Vanderpool,
2008a
In the early afternoon of December 4 2008, volunteers with No More Deaths were
conducting a water run on the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge (BANWR). The
group of four, which involved longterm volunteers, were placing gallon jugs of water on
the Refuge, an act that has been carried out for several years by the humanitarian aid
group within this space. A few months earlier, another longterm volunteer with the
group, Dan Millis, had been found guilty of the act of littering, for the same practice of
leaving water for migrants within Refuge boundaries. Since this event, volunteers with No
More Deaths and other aid groups have been cautious regarding their operation within
this space. Yet the growing presence of law enforcement on and around the 118 000 acre
wildlife refuge has been expanding, and so providing humanitarian aid here has become
more difficult.
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Border Patrol Agent Collins was also out on patrol on the afternoon of December 4,
driving along West Arivaca road, which crosses through Refuge boundaries, and had
noticed a No More Deaths vehicle entering on to the Refuge. According to Agent Collins’
report, in previous weeks he had “located numerous full water bottles consistent with
humanitarian organizations that work in this area” which had been placed on BANWR
land. Recognizing that No More Deaths was patrolling on the Refuge, he then contacted
Officer Casey of the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), responsible for the management
and law enforcement of BANWR. Meanwhile, a Border Protection helicopter appeared
overhead, a common site in this region, given its location only a few miles north of the
border. However this time it was not operating in its typical function of tracking migrant
groups. Air Interdiction Agent Sutton assisted Officer Casey in locating the cache of
water that the No More Deaths volunteers had left out only a few minutes earlier for
migrants crossing through the wildlife refuge. Collaborating with another Border Patrol
agent, Agent Baron, Officer Casey was able to track down the volunteers, who had by this
time moved on to another location where water is commonly placed. Officer Casey
approached the group, which included Walter Staton, a longterm volunteer and
spokesperson for No More Deaths, and informed them that they were being cited for
littering.
Within this chapter I want to explore how this series of events came to take place. What
conditions had resulted in several law enforcement officers, from both FWS and USBP,
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spending considerable time and resources tracking down a small group of humanitarian
aid volunteers, and citing them for illegal activity at this particular location, after several
years of accepting their presence? And how has a wider proliferation of various law
enforcement agencies in this region impacted the provision of humanitarian aid by such
groups? In the first half of this chapter, I provide a history of BANWR and how it came to
be a major migration corridor for undocumented persons crossing in to Arizona. What
issues has this created for land managers tasked with maintaining the wildlife refuge, and
what have been the resulting practices that have attempted to mitigate these effects?
Following this, I consider the recent practices of collaboration between FWS, local law
enforcement, and USBP agents, along with the DHS, in creating a militarized landscape
within and around the wildlife refuge, through various practices of spatial exclusion and
containment.
In the second half of the chapter, I consider the provision of humanitarian aid on
BANWR land by Humane Borders, No More Deaths, and Samaritans, looking at
practices of water provision, aid, and mapping within this space, in an effort to alleviate
deaths and abuses of migrants moving north through the Refuge, reflecting on my time
volunteering with these groups. I then turn to an examination of efforts to interdict this
provision of aid, considering the recent practice of giving citations for littering. What
have been the responses of these humanitarian groups to overcome this criminalization of
aid? I argue that this example of aid provision and its interdiction in the relatively remote
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location of BANWR, is exemplary of the direction in which the state’s response to
undocumented migration and aid is headed, in which various law enforcement agencies
not previously tasked with immigration policing are now becoming explicitly entwined in
closing this space, and others, to users who are seen as illegitimate.
5.1 Buenos Aires as a space of flows
The Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, a 118 000 acre wildlife refuge, is situated
within the Tucson sector, just north of the U.S.Mexico border (refer figure 5.1). The
Refuge shares approximately seven miles of international boundary with Mexico,
including a port of entry (POE) in the towns of Sasabe, located on either side of the
border, and lies approximately 45 miles southwest of Tucson in the Altar Valley of the
Sonoran desert. It is bounded by the Baboquivari Mountains and the Tohono O’odham
reservation to the west, with Highway 286 running through its center, leading north from
the border to Highway 86, a major transit path for both humans and drugs being
smuggled north to Tucson and Phoenix. Arivaca road runs east from the Refuge, to the
nearby unincorporated town of Arivaca.
The Refuge is a seasonally wet marshland and meadow, with mesquite groves throughout,
and is home to a wide diversity of flora and fauna, attracting bird watchers, hunters,
hikers, and campers throughout the year. The Refuge was first owned by Pedro Aguirre,
from Sonora, Mexico, who used the land as a cattle and sheep ranch, and named it
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“Buenos Ayres.” Between 1905 and 1985, five other families owned the land, before the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service purchased it in 1985. The land was purchased in large part
to protect the only ungrazed grasslands remaining in Arizona, as well as the endangered
masked bobwhite quail, which makes its home there (Segee and Neeley, 2006). It is also
home to deer, pronghorns, coyotes, javelina, ringtails, skunks, rattlesnakes, desert
tortoises, and the rarely sighted Gila monster. In 2008, the Refuge was listed as one of the
10 most imperiled national wildlife refuges in the United States, due largely to hunting,
the use of offroad vehicles, border militarization, and immigration activity (Public
Employees for Environmental Responsibility, 2008). BANWR can therefore be viewed as
a particularly important landscape that attracts differing populations with varying use
claims.
Figure 5.1: Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge situated along the U.S.Mexico
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border, sits approximately 45 miles southwest of Tucson (source: U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service).
Over recent years the Refuge has been subjected to significant levels of foot traffic from
migrants crossing through, including car traffic from smugglers, as well as USBP agents
patrolling the area. Not unlike undocumented migration within southern Arizona more
generally, it is typically argued that migration paths have shifted to the Refuge more
recently due to enforcement efforts elsewhere along the border. The migration paths
through the Refuge are sometimes referred to as being part of the wider ‘Amnesty Trail’
which continues on from the Refuge in the “10mile wide stretch of land between the San
Luis and Baboquivari mountains,” leading up to Highway 86 and the Ironwood Forest
National Monument, 75 miles north of the border, known as a popular pickup area for
migrants (Banks, 2007).
On any given day, it is estimated that between 2000 and 3000 migrants can cross the
Refuge, with anywhere up to 100 000 – 300 000 migrants passing within its boundaries
annually (McCombs, 2008a; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2008). Mitch Ellis, a
previous manager of BANWR, in a testimony before the Department of the Interior (DOI)
in 2006, noted that in the previous year 16 000 arrests were made of undocumented
crossers by USBP and BANWR agents, with an estimated 235 000 succeeding in
traveling through the refuge (Ellis, 2006; see figure 5.2).
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Figure 5.2: USBP agents detain a group of undocumented migrants on BANWR.
The Baboquivari mountain range in the background marks the eastern edge of the
Tohono O’odham reservation, known as the deadliest corridor for migration
(source: Arizona Daily Star).
The significant and highly crossed space of the Refuge has also resulted in a number of
deaths of undocumented migrants within the past few years, not surprisingly given its
remote location within the Sonoran desert. In Ellis’ testimony, he stated that 18 bodies
were recovered from the Refuge in the past two years (20042006), “most succumbing to
dehydration and exposure” (Ellis, 2006). Given that the majority of deaths have been
attributed to the effects of dehydration and exposure, it is evident that lack of access to
safe drinking water and medical aid for migrants funneled in to this region is of particular
importance.
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One of the significant issues for law enforcement officers working on BANWR, as well as
for USBP agents, is the frequent and sustained use of the Refuge for transporting drugs,
either by car or on foot. Ellis (2006) stated in his testimony to the DOI that in 2005,
approximately 47 000 lbs of marijuana was seized either on or immediately adjacent to
the Refuge (though it is not made clear what encapsulates ‘adjacent’ space). Traffic
barriers were installed on the southern boundary of the Refuge in an attempt to stop drug
smuggling across the it by car, however this has been met with limited success, while
narcotics seizures continue to take place.
Along with human and drug smuggling traffic, comes the issue of trash left on the
wildlife refuge. In Ellis’ (2006) testimony he stated that “By conservative estimates more
than 500 tons of trash are left behind by illegal border crossers each year on Buenos
Aires. Refuge volunteers and staff are able to pick up 3040 tons of trash each year.”
Combined with this significant amount of trash that continues to accumulate, are the
many vehicles that are abandoned on the Refuge. Approximately 100 vehicles are towed
each year, at a cost of US$300 each, but many more remain due to inaccessibility of the
areas they are located in (Vanderpool, 2006). The cars are typically abandoned after they
become stuck in soft ground, or can no longer be driven due to being crashed or having
lost tires.
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Foot traffic also creates significant impacts upon the refuge due to the formation of new
trails. It has been estimated by park officials that there are approximately 1300 miles of
illegal trails that have been created by such foot traffic (Ellis, 2006). Several wildfires
have also been started by migrant groups who had either made small camp fires or were
trying to draw attention after finding themselves in trouble (U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, 2008). It has also been noted that gates are often left open, or that fences are cut
by migrant groups, which then allows cattle onto the Refuge. Migrant groups have also
been reported to have created undue pressure on the pronghorn population which is being
rehabilitated on the Refuge.
Given the varying uses of the Refuge, and differing populations that frequent it, including
the more recent arrival of large number of migrants who have been funneled in to remote
desert landscapes such as BANWR, it is evident that the space of the Refuge is highly
contested. Further, alongside the presence of migrant groups in transit through the
Refuge, has been the inception of significant numbers of immigration enforcement agents
and supportive infrastructure.
5.2 Violence and closure of space
Given the notable use of the Refuge – which abuts the U.S.Mexico border in an area that
has historically seen little militarization in terms of fencing and surveillance – by drug
and human smugglers, the Refuge has also witnessed a significant rise in violence. The
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manager of the Refuge in July 2006, stated that “in recent months they [smugglers] have
committed 5 homicides, 2 rapes, and shot at least three other people while on the refuge,
again targeting primarily migrants” (my emphasis; Ellis, 2006). Significant discourse
concerning the Refuge, and other spaces of wilderness along the border, now focuses
upon the associated risks of being within the Refuge, particularly in areas close to the
border, often referring to these spaces as being in ‘warlike’ conditions (see for example
Erfani, 2007; Piekielek, forthcoming).
On October 3 2006, 3500 acres of land in BANWR was closed to the public, due to
associated dangers of drug and human trafficking, as well as impacts upon wildlife in this
section of the Refuge which runs along the U.S.Mexico border (refer figure 5.3). In an
interview with the Tucson Weekly, then Refuge manager Mitch Ellis was quoted as
saying: “I essentially moved the border back a mile… I had to. It was too dangerous to
have my security people and volunteers there repairing the fence everyday” (Banks,
2007).
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Figure 5.3: Space closed to public access within BANWR as represented in red
(source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2006)
This practice of removing public access to space within the Refuge has been seen
elsewhere along the border, and within southern Arizona, most notably in Organ Pipe
National Monument. The 134 000 hectare national park, established in 1939, is seen as a
primary corridor for undocumented migration and drug smuggling (Annerino, 1999;
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Piekielek, forthcoming). A large portion of land was closed to the public when in August
2002, National Park Service (NPS) law enforcement officer Kris Eggle was shot and
killed while reportedly “pursuing members of a drug cartel hit squad who fled into the
United States after committing a string of murders in Mexico” (National Park Service,
2003). Since this time Organ Pipe has gained a reputation as an increasingly dangerous
space within the borderlands, and has often been used as a caseinpoint for growing law
enforcement on the border. As Piekielek (forthcoming) notes:
Citing security concerns, the park administration has closed large sections of the
monument to visitor use. Concurrently, segments of the park have also been closed
to staff use entirely or open only with NPS ranger law enforcement escort. These
closures change with new law enforcement intelligence information, but the trend
over the last several years has been towards more closures (my emphasis; p.8).
Organ Pipe’s NPS law enforcement agents, not unlike FWS agents on BANWR, have also
taken on the role of de facto immigration police. During 2005, Organ Pipe officers
apprehended approximately 1040 migrants, aiding in the work of USBP to detain those
present illegally within the park’s boundaries (Piekielek, forthcoming). This practice of
apprehending and detaining undocumented migrants by NPS and FWS agents
demonstrates a clear conflation of roles with that of the USBP, presenting another face of
interdiction for those attempting to cross in this region. Robin Hoover, founder of
Humane Borders, stated in response to the death of a NPS agent that:
The death of a National Park Service ranger in Organ Pipe Cactus National
Monument points to how inadequately prepared the land managers and law
enforcement are to deal with all the effects of the migration (Hoover, 2005, p.9).
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While Hoover was most likely suggesting such agents should not be involved in the role
of the USBP, others undoubtedly read this as implying such agents should be more
prepared. More recently, closure of park space has also been seen in San Diego, at the
extreme western point of the U.S.Mexico border. At Border Field State Park, which abuts
the border and is bounded to the west by the Pacific Ocean, this space has been closed to
the public since early 2009. Often referred to as ‘Friendship Park’, in particular the plaza
area along the fence, this is a popular area for families and others to meet through the
mesh fencing that allows facetoface contact, often the only place in which people can do
this along the entirety of the 2000mile U.S.Mexico border. Due to claims of security
issues surrounding drug and other contraband smuggling, the DHS decided to remove this
access, amongst significant protest from the public (see for example Tobar, 2009).
Seen more widely, this continued push towards closure of public space along the border
has resulted in the nationstate’s boundaries not only being fortified, but actually shifting
deeper within the U.S., removing public access to many thousands of acres of land.
Though park space, such as in BANWR, has been closed through the justification of
concerns of violence towards U.S. citizens, it should be noted that it is predominantly
migrants and smugglers who have been the target of this violence. Not only has this
removed access to public space, and effectively further internalized the nationstate
boundary, it has also created significant spaces of exceptional isolation for migrants
crossing through these regions of the U.S.Mexico borderlands. Access to water, medical
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aid, or other assistance therefore becomes notably sparse, placing persons who have
already found themselves in unfamiliar desert terrain and climate in an even greater
position of vulnerability. This spatial distancing may also result in a greater amount of
time between migrants raising the alarm for help and in receiving assistance, as well as in
evacuation time – of critical importance in life and death situations that frequently occur
in the desert environment of the borderlands.
5.3 Land management and local law enforcement collaboration with
USBP: militarizing wildlife refuge space in southern Arizona
We have a responsibility to provide homeland security. Being on the border, we
don’t have a choice.
Thane Weigand, chief ranger at Coronado National Monument in southern
Arizona, in Turf, 2004
We cannot achieve our goals alone. We have to work with the local and the state
authorities, and other federal authorities, utilizing defense in depth.
USBP Chief of the Tucson Sector, Robert W. Gilbert, in the Arizona Daily Star,
2007
Over the past several years, there has been a notable growth in collaboration between land
management and local law enforcement officers with USBP and DHS agents within
southern Arizona. In June of 2004, a report was submitted by the Government
Accountability Office (GAO) recommending that the Secretaries of Homeland Security,
the Interior, and Agriculture “coordinate strategic and funding plans with regard to
federal borderlands.” Of the approximate 1900 miles of border between the U.S. and
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Mexico, 43 percent, or 820 miles, is either federal or tribal lands, the remaining 57
percent being private or state owned (Government Accountability Office, 2004). A
patchwork of agencies are therefore responsible for much of the land along the border in
the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, which include the National Park
Service (19%), Bureau of Land Management (9%), Fish and Wildlife Service (8%),
Bureau of Indian Affairs (4%), and the Forest Service (3%). Fish and Wildlife, which is
responsible for BANWR, has five other national wildlife refuges along the border that it
manages also, totaling 158 miles and 1.1 million acres along the border (Viramontes and
Brown, 2008).
The report – recognizing that Border Patrol strategies in the 1990s, which pushed
migration paths away from populated areas, had created increased border crossings, drug
smuggling, and other illegal activity on these federal and tribal lands – argues for much
closer collaboration between law enforcement agencies and USBP agents. Since this time,
and perhaps most notably on federal and tribal lands in southern Arizona, significant
efforts at collaboration between law enforcement agencies and the USBP have occurred,
including with BANWR (Viramontes and Brown, 2008). This highly contested space now
has various law enforcement agencies patrolling within its boundaries, tasked with
interdicting migrants in transit to urban areas such as Tucson and Phoenix.
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One notable method of ensuring such collaboration has been the implementation of
Operation Stonegarden by the DHS, which has been expanding since its inception in
2004. Stonegarden provides funding to typically underfunded agencies who have
struggled due to their resources being redirected to mitigating the impacts of
undocumented migration being funneled through their lands. These various agencies
operating along the U.S.Mexico border are awarded funding in return for an agreement
that they will act in a supportive role to USBP agents active in their region. In 2009,
US$12.8 million in funds under Stonegarden were awarded to law enforcement agencies
in the four counties of southern Arizona, three of which are located within the Tucson
sector of the USBP; Pima, Cochise, and Santa Cruz counties (McCombs, 2009c). In the
Department of Homeland Security fact sheet Southwest Border: The Way Ahead (2009), it
was stated that the “DHS designed these grants to enhance cooperation and coordination
among federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies in a joint mission to
secure the border.”
The Pima County Sheriff’s agency, which encompasses BANWR, is one of the law
enforcement agencies to receive such funding in order to aid in this cooperation and
coordination with Homeland Security and the USBP, resulting in another form of
enforcement involved with interdicting migration in this region. In interviews with
humanitarian aid volunteers, this changing presence of law enforcement within the areas
that they patrol, and their relation with these agencies, visàvis USBP, was discussed:
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It seems like with Border Patrol and stuff, things have been going pretty well; with
Pima County Sheriff and with U.S. Fish and Wildlife, and other law enforcement
agencies, from my personal perspective, things have not been going very well
[Volunteer B].
When asked how these less than favorable relations with nonUSBP law enforcement
agencies have affected the operation of humanitarian aid provision in this region, the
volunteer articulated that:
Yeah, well, you’ve got the Pima County Sheriff, and their Border Crime Unit,
basically doing exactly the Border Patrol’s job, they’re just acting as Border Patrol
agents, and they say they’re not, but they’ll pull you over if you think your car is
loaded down too much, they light you up when you drive by at night, you know…
[ ] they just go looking for migrants, and I would guess that they detain them, and
I’m sure they call Border Patrol, until Border Patrol comes and actually gets them,
but I’m sure they don’t just like, watch the migrants, until Border Patrol comes, I
know they are detaining them, just like the Minutemen do. They are basically
publicly funded Minutemen, and so is DPS [Department of Public Safety] – the
highway patrol – they are doing the same bullshit, you know, they are doing high
speed chases on I10…[ ] And so that’s another example of a nonfederal agency
doing the federal government’s job, as is specifically prohibited by the U.S.
Constitution, which states that only the federal government can enforce federal
immigration policy [Volunteer B].
Within this volunteer’s, and others responses regarding the proliferation of law
enforcement agencies involved with immigration policing, it was evident that these
agencies presence was becoming more prevalent. Further, volunteers articulated that such
presence was not only affecting their work in providing aid, but was at times impacting
them psychologically. The interviewee above discussed the practice of being ‘litup’ by
Pima County Sheriff and DPS agents, something I commonly witnessed, particularly
when approaching the I19 freeway, only a few miles after passing through the newly
installed USBP checkpoint in Amado. Agents would frequently pull the humanitarian’s
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patrol vehicle over, checking the rear cabin for migrants they may be transporting, before
waving them on. The constant surveillance in this region, in which volunteers and
residents living in nearby townships are constantly pulled over, inspected, and questioned,
becomes a tiring presence to deal with on a daily basis.
The engagement of another actor within the space of BANWR was witnessed during the
summer of 2006, when Janet Napolitano, then Governor of Arizona, successfully
campaigned for the deployment of 6000 National Guard troops to the border within
southern Arizona, under Operation Jump Start (Gaouette and Simon, 2006). Troops were
stationed at varying points within the borderlands until 2008, when the federal
government ordered their withdrawal, having reached their goal of increasing the USBP
to 18 000 agents. During the time of their deployment, the National Guard had five
observation posts on BANWR (Banks, 2007). Alongside the presence of the existing
USBP and BANWR law enforcement agents, the Refuge was further fortified by the
presence of heavily armed National Guard troops wearing camouflage, as a deterrent to
human and drug smugglers using this corridor.
Humanitarian aid workers, in conversation with undocumented migrants from Central
America crossing in this region, were told that the presence of armed soldiers in fatigues
was often a concerning sight. Although the National Guard was removed, there have
been renewed calls for their redeployment, particularly since Napolitano was appointed
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as the head of the DHS in early 2009. Volunteers with humanitarian aid groups noted
that the presence of the National Guard did appear to have an impact on crossing levels,
though only shifting migrants to other areas, largely due to rumor and fear regarding the
role of these agents. As Volunteer B stated:
I think people were envisioning Federales [federal police] and shit like that, with
guns, and I think they went elsewhere to cross…[ ] we definitely didn’t see hardly
anybody in our area [in 2006], which is remarkable.
Finally, in one of the clearest examples of collaboration, BANWR and the DHS have
combined their law enforcement offices within one facility, in Sasabe, Arizona, closeby
to the staging town of Sasabe, Sonora, where migrants typically meet up with smugglers
before crossing in to the United States. As Bonnie Swarbrick (2007) from BANWR
stated, the result of this collaboration has:
…increased communication and coordination. Refuge law enforcement officers
work closely with DHS agents providing orientations, exchanging intelligence,
detaining illegal border crossers, providing backup to DHS officers, towing
vehicles, and supporting other actions… Cooperation and communication helps to
make the USBP more efficient (p.2).
The current situation within the southern Arizona borderlands, and on BANWR
particularly, demonstrates the role not only of USBP agents, but other law enforcement
agencies in the policing and militarization of the U.S.Mexico border against
undocumented migrants and smugglers. Law enforcement officers working on the Refuge
have become increasingly involved with policing this space, both intentionally and
unintentionally.
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5.5 Militarization strategies on the Refuge
Although the Refuge is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service, which also
provides law enforcement officers, the USBP has had a significant and growing presence
here over the past decade. Agents can typically be seen traversing the Refuge in SUV’s,
on ATV’s, or by horseback, and with helicopters constantly flying overhead, as well as
the operation of BORSTAR agents during emergency evacuations. USBP agents have full
access to the Refuge, though are required to keep vehicles on designated trails and not
enter on to illegal trails created by drug and human smuggling vehicles.
The seven miles of boundary that BANWR shares with the U.S.Mexico border remained
unfenced until June of 2006. Most of this section of the border now has ‘wildlife friendly’
vehicle barriers, stopping access to cars entering the Refuge, typically used by human and
drug smugglers (Viramontes and Brown, 2008). In August of 2007, DHS began
construction of pedestrian fencing on the southern boundary of BANWR. The seven
miles of fencing stretches 4.5 miles east and 2.5 miles west from the Sasabe POE. The
fencing is constructed of concretefilled steel posts, or bollards, which are placed four
inches apart, and comes at a cost of US$31.5 million (McCombs, 2007; Rotstein, 2007).
The new fencing is the first also to be constructed in the Tucson sector using funding
from the Secure Fence Act of 2006. Previous fencing from projects in the midtolate
1990s exists in Nogales (2.8 miles), Douglas (13.1 miles) and Naco (5.35 miles), however
the fencing near Sasabe was the first to be built west of Nogales in the Tucson sector
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(McCombs, 2007). Given that significant levels of crossings were still taking place on the
Refuge during my time volunteering in the summers of 2007 and 2008, it appears the
fencing has not been effective, at least in stopping foot traffic.
The majority of the seven miles of fencing was constructed on the 60 footwide Roosevelt
Easement that forms the southern border of the Refuge, however, approximately ¾ mile
lies on BANWR land (see figure 5.4). This section of fencing equated to the loss of
approximately 5.8 acres of land from the refuge, which required an agreement from
BANWR. Under the Real I.D. Act of 2005, the DHS is able to acquire any land necessary
to construct the fence, and is able to override all environmental regulations that might
stop it from doing so. This was demonstrated in July of 2007, when an environmental
assessment for the project found “no significant impact” created by the fencing, in which
the draft was not published, nor was public comment allowed (McCombs, 2007).
Recognizing that the government would acquire the land regardless, then manager of
BANWR, Mitch Ellis, agreed to accept the fencing – going against earlier statements
rejecting its construction – in return for a trade of land (Archibold, 2007). A deal was
struck between Fish and Wildlife and the DHS to trade the 5.8 acres of land lost to
fencing in return for land of equivalent environmental value (Rotstein, 2007). The fence
construction began almost immediately, yet to date the 5.8 acres of land promised to the
refuge has yet to be purchased by the government. Alongside this, Ellis stated that the
construction of the fence would allow the previously closed section of the refuge to be
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reopened to the public, however this has not occurred, and so the land remains closed as
well as fenced.

Figure 5.4: Map depicting the construction of pedestrian fencing on the southern
boundary of BANWR (source: Viramontes and Brown, 2008).
Under the Secure Border Initiative, and more specifically SBInet – which was discussed
in Chapter 4 – a series of surveillance towers to be located throughout the southwest
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border region have also been planned for placement on BANWR. These towers were also
tested previously nearby to the Refuge, but have now been accepted for more permanent
use after initial operation issues were resolved. Within the same week that Dan Millis was
facing BANWR agents who were testifying against him in court for littering, the FWS
accepted the implementation of five surveillance towers within Refuge boundaries, to be
situated at 5, 12, and 13 miles north of the border (McCombs, 2008a; U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, 2008). Although it was acknowledged by FWS agents that the towers
would likely divert migrants in to the most highly sensitive areas of the Refuge, an
environmental impact assessment by the DHS found no significant impact would be
created by the towers’ implementation. It has also been implied that the location of the
surveillance towers, in addition to USBP and other law enforcement presence, might
allow the reopening of the previously closed space of the Refuge, though this has yet to
eventuate.
5.4 Provision of humanitarian aid on the Refuge
In recent years the USBP and DHS, alongside FWS officers, have made limited efforts to
provide humanitarian assistance for migrants crossing on the Refuge. These limited
efforts have frequently been cited by various state officials as being sufficient in creating
a safe space within the Refuge’s boundaries. This effort to provide aid was most notably
seen when in 2004, the DOI partnered with the DHS to implement the Arizona Border
Control Initiative (ABC) on federal land including BANWR (Erfani, 2007; see Chapter
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7). This included the installation of six Customs and Border Protection solarpowered
emergency beacons, which can be found elsewhere throughout the Sonoran desert.
Adorned with information in Spanish, English, O’odham, and sometimes Cantonese, the
six towers are dotted throughout the landscape of the Refuge (see figure 5.5). If a migrant
is in distress, they can push a button on the tower, which will trigger a response from
USBP agents. Given the size of the Refuge – over 100 000 acres of undulating desert
terrain – finding these towers is a needle in a haystack situation.
Figure 5.5: Signage placed on a rescue beacon in the southern Arizona
borderlands (photo: Rachel Shellabarger).
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In response to the perceived lack of necessary aid for undocumented migrants on the
Refuge, humanitarian groups operating in the region have applied various spatial tactics
of providing aid, though have in turn recently faced repression for doing so by various law
enforcement and land management agencies. I first consider how groups have responded
to the need for aid provision on BANWR and other federal lands, discussing how they
have also been prohibited from continuing to provide such aid, followed by an analysis of
how they have attempted to counteract these prohibitive practices by law enforcement
agencies.
In April 2001, Humane Borders successfully obtained permits for two of its water stations
within BANWR (later expanding to three stations), though was initially promised a total
of ten water stations, which were later denied (Hoover, 2008). Attempts since this time to
add further water stations have been met with continued denial by Fish and Wildlife
officials. Though the three water stations are essential in providing life saving water to
migrants crossing through the Refuge, not unlike the rescue beacons, finding them is
difficult given the size of BANWR. Humane Borders has also been granted permits to
place water stations on Organ Pipe National Monument, as well as Cabeza Prieta National
Wildlife Monument, both within the southern Arizona borderlands. Initially Humane
Borders’ application for permits on Cabeza Prieta, also managed by FWS, was denied in
2001, only months before the death of 14 undocumented migrants on the wildlife
monument, the highest singleday death toll for migrants in the southern Arizona
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borderlands (Treat, 2001; Van Ham, 2006). Permits were granted on Cabeza Prieta soon
after this event.
As discussed in Chapter 4, Humane Borders has deployed the practice of mapping deaths
in the ArizonaSonora borderlands, in relation also to the location of their water stations.
Often used as a political tool, the maps are frequently cited as demonstrating the need for
more water stations to be placed strategically along wellknown migration corridors and
trails. This practice has also been applied in regards to the space of BANWR (see figure
5.6). The location of deaths on BANWR have been geocoded on to maps, along with the
date that the particular body was recovered from the Refuge (therefore the dates do not
represent the actual date a life was lost in this space). Humane Bordersoperated water
stations, along with existing access to water (typically very limited), is also mapped and
dated according to when they were installed. On occasion, Humane Borders will relocate
water stations when it is recognized that the trail or region it is located within is no longer
a conduit for migrant traffic, often due to increased enforcement by USBP, and so the
dating of water stations is useful in understanding how long each station has been in
operation relative to migrant traffic flows. Maps such as the one shown below help to
demonstrate at least one of the methods in which humanitarian aid is distributed spatially
within the landscape of the borderlands: a literal geography of aid can be observed.
However this is not the only method of deploying aid within this strategic space of
migration flows and interdiction.
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Figure 5.6: Humane Borders water stations and deaths of undocumented migrants
located on and nearby BANWR, 20012008 (source: Humane Borders, 2009).
Alongside the operation of water stations by Humane Borders, both No More Deaths and
Samaritans have patrolled and placed gallons of water on BANWR land for several years,
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at times almost daily during summer periods. Until February 2008, the conducting of
humanitarian aid work within BANWR had occurred with little to no conflict. During my
time volunteering with these groups I patrolled on the Refuge on several occasions,
leaving gallon jugs of water on the trails, and helping to map previously unrecorded trails
using GPS units with No More Deaths. Typically I would hike from a designated road
with three or four other volunteers, carrying a gallon of water in each hand, packets of
food and firstaid equipment in our packs, along with water and food for ourselves, given
that hikes may last up to three hours, with temperatures frequently above 100 degrees
Fahrenheit.
Another strategy for deploying water on the Refuge and elsewhere throughout the patrol
region within the Altar Valley by No More Deaths was developed in 2008. Through
extensive mapping it was recognized that trails used by migrants frequently cross the
many dirt roads accessible by fourwheel drive vehicles. Though many of the roads are
referred to as ‘primitive’ (a term that is often kind in its description of some of the bone
jarring and floodprone roads the groups drive, especially during monsoon season – many
hours are often lost for volunteers waiting for oncedry river beds that swell during
monsoon rains to fall to safe levels to cross), and infrequently traveled, they provide
access to trails that often remain several miles from major roadways. Instead of hiking,
often up to five miles, to certain trail points to leave water, large ‘drop boxes’ were used
alongside these dirt roads where trails intersect, allowing supplies to be deposited without
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the need to hike. Large caches of water, sometimes up to 100 individual gallons, would be
left next to the drop boxes, with food packs for migrants deposited inside the boxes (to
stop destruction by wildlife and the elements). Dates of when the water was left, how
much was placed there, and the GPS coordinates of where the dropbox is located, are
then recorded on forms and kept in the patrol vehicles so that other volunteers can repeat
the process at a later date. Depending on the use levels of the trail by migrants, a dropoff
location may be replenished every few days, or every few weeks. By recording how much
water is left, and its date, it becomes quite easy to tell if a trail is in heavy use or has been
abandoned altogether. The dynamism of both migration trails used by coyotes, and
enforcement practices, however, meant that a trail which appeared to be out of use for
many months or years, could return to use overnight.
Although this practice of deploying aid is done by vehicles, with minimal hiking
involved, the remoteness of the locations and condition of the roads meant that many
hours are still required to maintain only a handful of these strategic drop spots. During
my time volunteering in the summer of 2008, I witnessed some locations in which over
80 gallons of water would be taken every night. The more prominent visibility of these
large caches of water and food, and their repeated replenishment, can however lead to
more frequent vandalism by other actors present in these areas. On one particularly hot
day, after several hours of patrolling a busy trail, myself and several other volunteers
reached a dropbox by foot, and upon checking if the food inside had been taken, were
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greeted by human excrement throughout the box, with the surrounding water bottles
slashed to drain the water out. Most likely hunters prevalent in the area, or USBP agents
with some spare time, had decided to send a message both to humanitarian aid workers
and migrants using the trail. Such vandalism is not uncommon, particularly the slashing
of water bottles and destruction of water stations, creating significant headaches for the
aid groups involved in deploying this water who must then consider different strategies
(see Chapter 7).
Volunteers with humanitarian groups patrolling on the Refuge have also stumbled upon
much more jarring sights – that of bodies of migrant crossers. On August 22 2006, a
group of volunteers with the Green Valley arm of the Samaritans, came across the body
of man who was later identified by the Pima County Medical Examiner as Alfonso Salas
Villagran, 64 years of age, from Chicoloapan in the state of Mexico; a combination of
heart disease and heat exposure had apparently led to his death on the Refuge
(LoMonaco, 2006). With situations such as this, it is difficult to determine whether a
water station, or other aid, may have saved this person from perishing in the desert.
Enforcement agency spokespersons and antiimmigrant groups frequently respond to
humanitarian arguments that access to water would have prevented such deaths, by
asserting that by the time a person is so gravely ill from exposure, water is not sufficient
to save them. Such contentious and debated statements from both sides typically abound
surrounding the discovery of a body.
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As with many debates surrounding the provision of humanitarian aid to migrants crossing
into the U.S. undocumented, concern regards whether such aid attracts migrants to
particular areas, or in making the decision to cross. Statements that the provision of
humanitarian aid entices migrants to make the journey across the desert are tenuous at
best, as few migrants know of the aid, or would risk their lives for the possibility of
receiving a gallon of water for their troubles. However, known sites of water and aid are
likely to attract coyotes, who know the region, to possibly lead their group through these
areas. For spaces such as BANWR and other wildlife refuges on the border, this is an
important consideration when allowing or denying the operation of humanitarian aid.
5.5 Ticketing humanitarian aid workers for littering
I opened this chapter with a description of Walter Staton’s citation for littering on
BANWR by FWS law enforcement agents, which took place in December of 2008, drawn
from interviews I conducted with Staton and the report from FWS agents (see appendix
H). Approximately nine months earlier, longterm No More Deaths volunteer Dan Millis
was cited for the same act of littering on Refuge lands, on the 22 of February 2008 (see
figure 5.7). In a statement released by No More Deaths, it was described that:
Dan Millis, 28, was presented with a $175 littering ticket by U.S. Fish and Wildlife
law enforcement officers after they found several sealed gallon containers of
drinking water that he and three others placed for migrants to find. If he does not
pay, he could face six months of jail time or a $5,000 penalty… Officers
Kirkpatrick and Kozma seized twentytwo gallons of drinking water from the trails,
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along with eight gallons from Millis’ vehicle. They also took photographs of the
volunteers, the exterior and interior of the vehicle, and the contents of Millis’
notebook (No More Deaths, 2008).
Not only had agents determined that Millis was littering, after several years of No More
Deaths placing water on the Refuge relatively unhindered, they also confiscated the water
intended for migrants crossing on nearby trails. Most ironic in this situation, was that the
No More Deaths patrol vehicle that Millis and three other volunteers were traveling in,
was full of trash collected by these volunteers that day as part of their trash collection
practices (for a more detailed description of this practice by Humane Borders and its
politics, see Sundberg, 2008). The irony of being cited for littering while in the act of
collecting litter was not lost on No More Deaths and other aid groups, being frequently
noted in statements to press following the citation. Further, both in the case of Millis and
Staton, agents confiscated maps and other information from the vehicles, including No
More Deaths maps which provide GPS coordinates of trails and water drop locations,
suggesting agents’ concern over the accumulation of spatial knowledge by the
humanitarian groups.

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Figure 5.7: The citation of Dan Millis, a volunteer with No More Deaths, and
confiscation of water jugs by BANWR law enforcement officers; February 22, 2008
(source: No More Deaths).
After citing Millis for littering, an official statement from the FWS was posted on the
Buenos Aires page of the southwest FWS website, foreseeing possible critique from
citizens who sided with humanitarian aid givers. Within the official response from the
FWS (see appendix I) it was stated that:
The individual cited was attempting to place water in the desert for immigrants
who cross refuge lands. His motivations are admirable. Unfortunately, depositing
plastic jugs contributes to the overwhelming amount of trash already being left on
the Refuge. Travelers in need already have a source of water at the Refuge. There
are marked 65gallon mobile water stations and an emergency rescue call button –
anyone can press the call button and receive help from Border Patrol (original
emphasis).
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This was followed by arguments that although the FWS is primarily a wildlife
conservation agency they are “always concerned with human life,” stating that the agency
has taken sufficient measures to “help save the lives of those in need while also remaining
consistent with our conservation mission.” These measures have included the permission
of water stations to be placed on the Refuge by Humane Borders, and the installation by
CBP of emergency rescue beacons, however these are not quantified in the statement –
two water stations and six emergency beacons for the entirety of the Refuge. While
acknowledging that increased migrant traffic on the Refuge over the past decade is a
direct result of border enforcement activities by CBP elsewhere along the border, the
focus remains on the impact of migrants to the environment of BANWR. In closing, FWS
states that, “We will continue to provide assistance to those in need while also remaining
committed to our conservation mission.”
The implied nature of the Fish and Wildlife Service’s official response to the littering
citation is that officials tasked with managing the Refuge, along with other enforcement
agencies such as the USBP, are capable of reducing deaths and abuses within this space,
though noting that “Responding to humanitarian needs of immigrants…is an ongoing
challenge for the Refuge.” No mention is made of the approximately 20 deaths here since
2002 alone, or the refusal to grant the requests of Humane Borders to install more water
stations. Although it is difficult to label the Refuge as a space conducive to mitigating
migrant deaths in this region, the response by FWS officials suggests they are confident
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in their abilities to do so. Responding to a press conference held by No More Deaths and
Humane Borders in June 2009, after the conviction of Walter Staton for littering, current
Refuge manager Michael Hawkes stated in an interview with the Arizona Daily Star that
“the refuge is thoroughly equipped with water stations.” As I come to further discuss in
Chapter 7, in these situations enforcement agencies take on the role of caregiver, denying
the legitimacy of nonstate actors such as humanitarian groups, to provide necessary aid.
No More Deaths, angered by the assertion that there was abundant water on the Refuge,
documented through photography the 64 ‘persistent water sources’ noted by Hawkes, in
efforts to disprove such claims that the water sources provided potable water for migrants
in need (see figure 5.8).
Figure 5.8: One of 64 persistent water sources on the Refuge documented by No
More Deaths volunteers, with dead squirrel and refuse; BANWR, August 2009
(source: No More Deaths).
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After the citation of both Millis and Staton, consensus at the weekly No More Deaths
meetings held in Tucson was reached that the $175 tickets would not be paid, and instead
the volunteers would go to court to fight to the charges. The decision to do so was based
in part on previous incidences of criminalization of humanitarian aid groups in this
region, where it was recognized that such events could be capitalized upon by bringing
their cause of ending migrant deaths, and the contradictory practices of law enforcement
agencies, to the attention of the wider public. By contesting the littering citations within
the courthouse in Tucson, No More Deaths was able to bring their cause out of the remote
desert location where their aid work is primarily conducted, to a wider local, national,
and even international audience (for a detailed discussion of the use of this tactic by the
Sanctuary movement, see Bibler Coutin, 1993).
The hearings of both Millis and Staton were held at the Evo A. de Concini courthouse in
downtown Tucson, one floor below where undocumented migrants are convicted daily
through Operation Streamline hearings (see Chapter 6). In an interview that I had
conducted with Staton, he stated that he had wanted to fight the ticket on humanitarian
grounds, and that this court trail could be used for publicity and fundraising purposes for
No More Deaths (personal communication, 04.18.09). Whether they won or lost the case,
Staton noted, the outcome of the case would be significant for the group, relating to the
events surrounding the case of Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss in 2005 for having
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transported migrants. The same lawyer was also hired to defend Millis and Staton as had
been used for Sellz and Strauss, creating a notable continuity from the previous trial of
No More Deaths volunteers. Media reports of the events before, during, and after the
court cases for Millis and Staton were made in local and national newspapers, and in
some international media outlets, while press conferences were also held outside the
courthouse, where humanitarian volunteers and other supporters were present to talk with
various television stations.
Two days before being cited for littering, Millis and several other volunteers had found the
body of 14yearold Josseline Jamileth Hernandez Quinteros from El Salvador. She was
found only a few miles east of BANWR, in an extremely remote area frequently patrolled
by No More Deaths volunteers, an approximately 1520 mile walk north of the U.S.
Mexico border. A missing person report (see appendix J) had previously been posted for
her, which Derechos Humanos in Tucson had received, and so she was able to be
identified in a relatively short amount of time (for a detailed analysis of the difficulties
and time involved in identifying persons who have perished in the deserts of the U.S.
Mexico borderlands, see Magaña, 2008). Within various interviews with the media, Millis
and other aid volunteers noted the significance of finding Josseline, who had fallen ill
whilst crossing and was left behind by her group, only days before being cited for the first
time in the organization’s history for depositing water jugs on trails used by migrants
crossing through the harsh desert terrain.
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Although I was present for Millis’ court trial on July 25 2008, in which both Millis and
FWS agents gave their version of events to the courtroom full of mostly aid volunteers
and supporters, the ruling was not handed down until 60 days later. Millis was found
guilty of littering, even though it had been argued by his lawyer that the full gallon jugs of
water were not trash, but instead had an intended use value. The ruling, which found
Millis guilty, however, did not stipulate any punishment; no fine or jail time was given. In
an interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! (2009), Millis discussed the
finding:
DAN MILLIS: Now, the interesting thing about this conviction was that they gave
me a guilty sentence but no punishment whatsoever. So I didn’t have to look at—I
didn’t have to serve the six months’ jail time that I was looking at. I didn’t have to
pay the $5,000 maximum fine. I didn’t even have to pay the $175 ticket. So we feel
this is a very passiveaggressive ruling, very absurd, much like the rest of the
situation along the USMexico border.
AMY GOODMAN: But now the littering fine has been upheld.
DAN MILLIS: No, only the conviction. The fine itself was suspended. It’s a
suspended sentence. So, again, the government is saying humanitarian aid is a
crime for which no punishment is warranted. And it’s very hard to navigate the
waters of border policies like that.
Responses such as Millis’ in the interview above demonstrate the continuously fine line
that groups such as No More Deaths walk in the space of the heavily surveilled and
policed borderlands, as well as the ongoing lack of clarity regarding what is acceptable
and what is not when providing aid. The overall message however is that the state does
not recognize their aid as legitimate – instead it must be curtailed where necessary. In the
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opening to the introduction of this dissertation, I presented the quote from the 2005 report
to Congress regarding the operation of humanitarian aid in southern Arizona. It was
noted that if “civilian border groups” were to impact the operation of USBP and other law
enforcement agencies, necessary measures might be required to “curtail those specific
activities” (NuñezNeto, 2005). In light of the recent surveillance, citations, and even
arrests of volunteers, it appears this recommendation has come to fruition. Once the
provision of aid has become too prominent, and has challenged the role of the state as
caretaker, it must be curtailed.
Further, in a sentencing memorandum for Walter Staton’s littering trial, presented by the
United States Attorney Diane J. Humetewa and Lawrence C. Lee on July 31, 2009, a clear
effort was made to portray the work of Staton, and of the wider movement, as intending to
aid hardened criminals in their entrance in to the United States. Alongside their
recommendation of a US$5000 fine, and five years of unsupervised probation, in which
time Staton could not enter on to the Refuge, it was stated that:
The defendant left full, plastic jugs on the Refuge with the intent to aid illegal
immigrant traffic… Many of them are drug smugglers and…approximately 16% of
illegal aliens arrested have significant criminal histories, to include murder, assault,
rape, and sexual offenses with minors. These are the people the defendant intended
to assist when he committed the offense December 4, 2008. Instead of targeting
people with a legitimate medical need, he haphazardly left water for illegal aliens,
drug smugglers and/or dangerous felons, all of whom are in the country without
permission from the United States.
Along with the conflation of undocumented migrants with drug smugglers and
pedophiles, the memorandum argued that groups such as No More Deaths explicitly
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worked to knowingly assist such felons. The memorandum also focused upon the practice
of volunteers writing on the gallon jugs of water “Buena suerte” (Good luck) and similar
messages; such messages were equated with “aid[ing] illegal aliens in their entry
attempt.” Simple messages of solidarity, therefore, were read as undermining nationstate
sovereignty.
In an open letter sent on 16 June 2009 to Secretary Ken Salazar of the DOI, as well as to
the FWS, BANWR, Tucson Sector Chief Robert Gilbert of the USBP, Secretary Janet
Napolitano of DHS, Representatives Raúl Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords, and President
of the United States Barack Obama – recognizing the various political entities involved
with border militarization and immigration policing within the space of the Refuge – No
More Deaths, Samaritans, and Humane Borders requested a meeting to take place with
the DOI and BANWR officials. In the letter, the groups stated that they wanted “to
discuss ways that we can cooperate to prevent additional death and suffering on the U.S.
Mexico border and the federal lands it transects” (see appendix K). Within the letter it is
also stated that “Hundreds of bodies have been recovered on federal lands managed by the
Department of the Interior; this past fiscal year alone, eight of these deaths occurred on
the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge.” In response to these deaths, the
humanitarian aid groups that signed on to the letter, assert that their efforts to mitigate
these deaths have been met with punitive measures, as well as BANWR’s consistent
resistance to work cooperatively with these groups to ensure water can be provided to
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migrants crossing the Refuge in a manner that is “appropriate to the environmental
sensitivity of the area.”
As a further response to the rulings against both Millis and Staton from No More Deaths,
Reverend Hoover from Humane Borders stated that the group had approached the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service to be granted permits for three more water stations on the
Refuge. In an interview with the Arizona Daily Star, Hoover argued that such measures
were needed to “politicize the deaths on the property” (McCombs, 2009e). The response
by Humane Borders, as well as the open letter to the DOI, was an approach intended to
catch the FWS and the U.S. government at a moment of vulnerability; “We believe that
the Refuge personnel can redeem themselves by indicating to the greater public – even the
nation – that they are uncomfortable with the numbers of deaths of migrants on that
property” (Hoover, in McCombs, 2009e). It was believed that if BANWR agents’
intention was to reduce deaths on the Refuge, but continue to fine those for providing aid
in less formal ways such as leaving jugs of water on trails, the FWS might be forced to
respond more favorably to humanitarian aid requests. At the time of writing this
dissertation, it remained unseen how FWS had responded to requests by Humane Borders
as well as by No More Deaths and Samaritans.
In a final effort to maintain a presence – particularly given the uncertainty of the ability to
leave water on the Refuge – at the beginning of No More Deaths’ 2009 summer
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campaign, a temporary camp (referred to as ‘mobile camp’) was set up on the Refuge
where it is legal to camp. No More Deaths volunteers were therefore able to be physically
present on the Refuge, and increase their chances of encountering migrant groups or
individuals in need, while also placing pressure on the FWS to respond to the situation
proactively. A position was also taken by all three humanitarian aid groups that if FWS
denied requests for additional permanent water stations operated by Humane Borders,
volunteers would continue to place water on trails regardless of the illegality of doing so,
a break from the more common practice of civil initiative to that of civil disobedience.
5.6 Altered practices in the spatial operation of humanitarian aid
In this study of BANWR I have considered the impacts of land management and law
enforcement agencies, not previously tasked with interdicting undocumented migration,
upon the provision of humanitarian aid in the southern Arizona borderlands. Although
BANWR comprises only a small part of the wider U.S.Mexico borderlands, I have
attempted to demonstrate the significance of its practices in criminalizing humanitarian
aid, by framing groups such as No More Deaths as illegitimate users of the Refuge, and
taking efforts to deny their access to this space. In response to this, humanitarian groups
have deployed a number of strategies to provide direct aid and solidarity to migrants in
need on the Refuge, in efforts to claim their right to the space. As Cunningham (2004)
has noted in relation to the work of such groups, their “strategy has been to utilize
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humanitarianism as a point of entry into a political landscape tightly sealed, not only to
illegal migrants, but also to civilian groups” (p.342).
Although strategic efforts both within the desert, and at local and national scales, have
been made by such groups to overcome the criminalization of their work, the outcomes of
these punitive measures are affecting the provision of aid currently, as I have witnessed
through my time volunteering and conducting research. While humanitarian groups have
awaited the outcomes of the trials, it was decided that water should not be left on the
Refuge, but instead carried with volunteers and only deployed if a migrant or group of
migrants were encountered. During my time patrolling trails both on the Refuge and
elsewhere in the Altar Valley, and through conversations with other longterm volunteers,
it became evident that the majority of water taken by migrants that had been deployed by
these groups was not through direct engagement. Given that most coyotes will move their
group by the cover of night, and that humanitarian groups do not patrol outside of
daylight hours, due to safety concerns, most water reaches migrants in need by having
been left on trails to be collected later at a later point. Carrying water on to the Refuge by
daylight, and then carrying it back out if no migrants are encountered, ensures that much
needed water will typically not reach those who require it. To counteract this, through the
use of previous mapping to identify trails that transect the Refuge, humanitarian groups
have been targeting these trails further north of the Refuge’s boundaries, so that migrants
crossing through this region will still have the chance of finding water. This however
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results in a greater amount of time before reaching the water caches left behind by
volunteers. As Erfani (2007) notes:
Despite increasing humanitarian social networking, waterstation installations, and
migrant assistance camps, the lives of migrants are increasingly threatened as they
enter ever more remote stretches of desert and wilderness on foot (p.56).
In responding to the loss of relatively unimpeded humanitarian aid assistance on the
Refuge and elsewhere, aid groups have been forced to appeal to differing law enforcement
and land management agencies who were not previously involved in interdicting
migration in this region. This creates a new and unique situation within the borderlands,
and points to future issues in alleviating deaths, particularly in southern Arizona where
much of the land is federally owned, and where collaboration between agencies to
interdict migration is evergrowing. The various agencies involved here demonstrate the
complex and multifaceted site of the state and its responses to undocumented migration,
both in an explicit sense and in a subtle underlying manner such as through FWS agents
ticketing volunteers and hence removing much needed aid to migrants, ensuring that
deaths and violence will continue within such landscapes.
Responses by No More Deaths, Humane Borders, and Samaritans, show a contestation
over such spaces and official policy, and a challenge to USBP and other agencies’
supposed humanitarian goals. In turn, the recent practice of giving citations, arrests, and
other forms of intimidation and interdiction, along with the proceeding court cases, have
actually hardened the resolve of migrant aid groups to continue doing the work they feel
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is so necessary. Such practices of criminalization, however, present many challenges to
these largely grassroots groups with limited funding and resources. In particular, it
presents a significant challenge to these groups to adhere to policies they had set out
previously, such as a commitment to acting transparently when there is a known risk for
being cited or arrested for the simple act of providing aid to someone in need.
Efforts that have been made by directaid groups to convene with the DOI and FWS,
along with other government officials, shows the willingness of these humanitarian aid
groups to talk with those involved in policing the spaces of the borderlands, rather than
outright resistance. Yet by meeting with the government, humanitarian aid groups are
providing a challenge to the enforcement and land management agencies to step up their
efforts around aid, and to discredit their current practices of border enforcement and
migrant policing. Although the space of BANWR represents a small slice of the border
region, its wider ramifications are incredibly important, as are the responses being
developed around the situation of providing humanitarian aid, both by law enforcement
agencies and grassroots solidarity movements. Decisions made here are likely to permeate
throughout the borderlands, and so concessions made to the provision of aid on BANWR
will undoubtedly have impacts upon wider efforts to ensure migrant rights and health.
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Chapter 6: Differential Criminalization Under Operation
Streamline: Constraining Freedom of Movement and
Humanitarian Aid Provision
This chapter focuses upon the recently implemented policy of Operation Streamline,
designed to incarcerate up to 100 persons per day apprehended while crossing the U.S.
Mexico border within the Tucson sector of southern Arizona. I consider Streamline’s
impacts on undocumented migrants through the lens of directaid organizing, particularly
by the humanitarian aid group No More Deaths, asserting that such policies – which
further militarize the border and justify criminalization of migrants in the public eye – put
persons at greater risk, even before they are prosecuted, through spatial containment and
exclusion that add to the rigors of crossing the Sonoran desert. In this chapter I explore
also the methods in which grassroots humanitarian aid groups have applied practices of
direct action to challenge such policies and promote freedom of movement, and the ways
in which aid provision is affected (in)directly by the implementation of policies like
Streamline.
6.1 Applying Operation Streamline within the Tucson sector
On January 14 2008, Operation Streamline – under the multifaceted program of the
Arizona Denial Prosecution Initiative (ADPI) – came into effect within the Tucson sector
of the U.S.Mexico border. Initially implemented in Del Rio, Texas in 2005, followed by
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Yuma, Arizona, and then Laredo, Texas, both in 2007, this program is being most notably
enforced in the 262mile wide Tucson sector of southern Arizona. In a press release
reporting on their successes of fiscal year 2008 within the Tucson sector, Customs and
Border Protection stated that:
Under the Arizona Denial Prosecution Initiative, 9,563 illegal aliens were
successfully prosecuted sending a clear message that there will be consequences
for entering illegally into Arizona. ADPI assures that each defendant prosecuted
faces a sentence of up to 180 days in jail, a formal removal and a ban on legal re
entry to the United States for five years (Customs and Border Protection, 2008).
I argue that policies such as Operation Streamline work, in collaboration with border
militarization efforts, in several ways to further deny freedom of movement to those
attempting entry into the U.S. without documentation. Further, I assert that in seeking to
understand the work that such policies do, it is necessary to consider the spatial
implementation and operation of these policies in their efforts to deny freedom of
movement to particular populations who are criminalized by their presence within certain
spaces (Sharma, 2007). In fiscal year 2007, previous to the implementation of Streamline,
over 378 000 people were arrested by the USBP in the Tucson sector alone, yet fewer than
onehalf of one percent were prosecuted, the remainder being ‘voluntarily returned’
(Anon, 2008). Since 2008, through the implementation and development of special
prosecution initiatives, this situation has changed rapidly.
During the time since the implementation of Operation Hold the Line in Ciudad Juárez/El
Paso in 1993, and Operation Gatekeeper in Tijuana/San Diego in 1994, innumerable
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programs and policies have been put in place to restrict movement in this region and
militarize the U.S.Mexico border against those attempting to cross undocumented
(Heyman, 1999). Operation Streamline in the Tucson sector represents a notably
heightened push to further criminalize undocumented migrants, with specific ties to the
growing migrant detention industrial complex across the United States. Policies such as
Operation Streamline work to further criminalize migrants, not only for their act of
crossing the border outside of an official port of entry, but also for their presence within
certain spaces. Further, I argue that Operation Streamline works to criminalize and
contain certain populations even if they are able to avoid apprehension, therefore serving
a dual purpose for border enforcement agencies. As Susan Bibler Coutin (2005) states in
her work regarding the ‘spatialization of legality’ and interior immigration policing
within the United States:
Unauthorized immigrants who are not apprehended by US immigration authorities
are none the less excluded, to some degree, by policies that bar the undocumented
from exercising certain rights and receiving certain services (p.13).
Through research on, and work alongside, the humanitarian aid groups, this chapter aims
to demonstrate the methods in which such policies, well before someone is apprehended
by the USBP, work to impede freedom of movement, but often necessary, and at times,
lifesaving medical aid, through further abstracting migrants from traditional migration
corridors that were safer for being in transit through. To demonstrate these impacts of
Operation Streamline, and other policies, alongside the proliferation of law enforcement
aimed at criminalizing such groups for their presence and movement in these spaces, I
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reflect upon my fieldwork with humanitarian directaid groups such as No More Deaths
and Samaritans and their response to Streamline, both inside the courthouse, and in the
field where they most commonly provide aid through practices of solidarity. In this
chapter it is asked how these groups challenge such policies, and promote freedom of
movement in this corridor in which Streamline is most stringently applied, and how in
turn they may implicitly support the work of USBP and other interdiction efforts through
their practices of humanitarian aid.
6.2 Operation Streamline in the courthouse
Each weekday at 1.30pm in the Evo A. DeConcini courthouse in downtown Tucson for
approximately two hours, undocumented migrants mostly from Mexico and Central
America are criminally charged for having entered illegally into the United States. Of the
approximately 8001000 migrants detained by U.S. Border Patrol in this sector each day,
up to 70 persons are randomly selected and processed through the criminal court system.
Instead of being immediately deported, they face up to 180 days of incarceration, or
longer if they have a previous record of deportation or aggravated felony charge. The
intention is to create a deterrent to future crossers, reducing recidivism rates particularly
within the area Streamline is applied to, what the USBP refers to as ‘zones of zero
tolerance’. In total, approximately 500 of the 2000 miles that constitute the U.S.Mexico
border are now subject to these spaces of zero tolerance created through Operation
Streamline (see figure 6.1). Three months after Streamline’s inception in the Tucson
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sector, it was reported in the Arizona Daily Star that recidivism had dropped from 79
percent to 46 percent since the program started in January 2008, while “recidivism
usually ranges from 80 percent to 92 percent elsewhere in the Tucson Sector” (McCombs,
2008i).
Figure 6.1: The four sectors in which Operation Streamline operates, and the
decline in recidivism supposedly due to its implementation in 2007, previous to its
operation in the Tucson sector which began Streamline in 2008 (source:
Washington Post, 2008).
Though unclear how these figures were derived, or how directly this decline in recidivism
was related to Streamline, this statistic was touted as a clear success of the program by the
USBP within this specific space of the borderlands. In a meeting I attended with
humanitarian aid groups and lawyers working on Streamline cases in Tucson, during
November 2008, it was noted by lawyers that the USBP would deport people through
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Calexico using lateral repatriations, or through interior repatriation flights to Mexico
City, to help in reducing recidivism in to the Tucson sector (see Chapter 7), thus claiming
Streamline’s effectiveness. From discussions with several lawyers and judges involved in
the Streamline hearings, as well as humanitarian aid workers, however, it became
apparent that very few believe this policy is creating any deterrent at all. Yet as mentioned
by CBP, those who are prosecuted are left with a criminal conviction on their record, and
will face greater difficulties in the future should they be detained again (up to ten years
imprisonment), or attempt to apply for citizenship within the United States. Whether or
not Operation Streamline can be directly attributed to a decrease in current and future
border crossings, it is important however to recognize the wider impacts that it creates.
Operation Streamline can be seen as a spatially applied practice of denying freedom of
movement – geography is central to its application. Migrants found to be crossing within
a specific corridor in the Tucson sector are susceptible to being placed within the
Streamline process, and in turn are criminalized more stringently than others committing
the same act elsewhere along the border. Although it has been unable to effectively do so,
CBP and USBP have set out to create these zones of zero tolerance, resulting in
particularly unforgiving spaces along the border that are continually expanding, leading to
a specific geography of Operation Streamline being developed. It is difficult to determine,
however, the exact scope of Streamline’s spatial reach in the Tucson sector. Early in its
inception, USBP spokespersons stated that the Streamline corridor was 15 miles wide
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(Hsu, 2008), yet in a later interview with another USBP spokesperson it was noted that
“any apprehension made anywhere in the Tucson Sector is subject to prosecution under
the program” (Shacat, 2008a; McCombs, 2008c). At the close of 2008, it was then stated
that Streamline applied to 132 miles of the 262mile sector that spans from Yuma County
to the border of New Mexico (McCombs, 2009a). This fluctuating range also represents
the ability for policies such as Streamline to expand as necessary, particularly in response
to the dynamic nature of migration paths as certain routes effectively become shut down
due to USBP presence and other factors which also affect migration levels. Regardless of
its exact spatial scope, it comes as no coincidence that this policy of heightened
criminalization has been applied in this specific corridor, given it is the most crossed
section of the entire U.S.Mexico border.
During the summer of 2008 whilst conducting fieldwork in southern Arizona, I attended
Streamline hearings in Tucson alongside several other local humanitarian aid workers, as
part of their practice of witnessing. Within No More Deaths’ mission statement, it is
stated that their work operates in regards to five specific themes. The theme of
“Witnessing and responding” is listed second to their primary role of “Direct aid that
extends the right to provide humanitarian assistance” (No More Deaths, 2009a). As one
volunteer reflected:
I think that’s an equal part of the mission, we are out there to save lives and stop
the deaths, but we’re also there to bear witness, and to be the eyes and the ears of
such a deadly policy [Volunteer F].
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Though the practice of witnessing is referred to here more explicitly in terms of doing so
within the space of the desert, witnessing for No More Deaths and other humanitarian aid
groups has expanded to other spaces as they have developed, including within and around
sites of detention, at the international boundary where migrants are deported, and
increasingly within the courthouse, particularly in relation to Operation Streamline.
Within the courthouse, No More Deaths and Samaritans volunteers attend hearings every
Tuesday, though often volunteers will also attend on other days of the week. An effort has
also recently been made to bring new volunteers to Streamline hearings as part of their
orientation to the wider border and immigration enforcement regime within southern
Arizona, before traveling to the humanitarian aid camps in the desert, helping those new
to the area to recognize the integral geographical connections between the desert and the
courtroom. At times, those witnessing would also request for lawyers to notify their
clients that there were people in the courtroom there to support them. This was necessary,
as it is often difficult to distinguish who in the public gallery of the courtroom had
attended in a supportive role for those being charged under Streamline. By witnessing the
proceedings, volunteers hoped to demonstrate their support to the 70plus migrants
processed each day, but also to visibly display their denunciation of the program to
government officials present. At the very least, the humanitarian groups saw it as a way to
record accurately what happened in the courtroom, and then present their stories to a
wider audience. On more than one occasion I was questioned by courthouse security
when entering the building as to why I (and others) were there to provide such support,
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implying that those being detained and processed were simply an anonymous group, of
which no concern or empathy should be shown from U.S. citizens.
Although I had heard a great deal from fellow immigrant rights activists about the way in
which the proceedings occurred, it still was not sufficient in preparing me for what I
would encounter. Court rooms – not unlike other highly regulated spaces – have a
tendency to feel the same as any other court room: sterile, mundane and overly formal.
The courtroom in which Streamline hearings take place is no different, until you look to
your left upon entering and notice the 70 or so people seated in rows, shackled at the feet
and hands. The majority is male, though typically 10 or so of the detainees are female.
Most appear to be in their 20s or 30s, though some are barely a day over 18. Of those
within the courtroom, most are from southern states of Mexico, though migrants from
Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras are also often represented.
The sound of the shackles continually rattling as detainees shift position or try to wipe
tears from their eyes echoes within the courtroom throughout the hearing. As each
detainee is called to plead either guilty or not guilty of entering undocumented/not
through a legal port of entry, they shuffle their feet to the front of the courtroom. Many
limp from sprained or strained ankles and tired muscles caused by walking through the
desert, some for up to a week, and failing to receive proper treatment from the U.S.
government authorities or private contractors that had detained them. All are wearing the
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clothes they had been caught in, many with tears in their shirts from walking through the
unforgiving environment of the Sonoran desert or from being roughly handled by USBP
agents.
Most are called to the front of the courtroom, and through the use of an interpreter plead
guilty (“culpable”) – the sound of defeat in their voices clearly evident. For those that
have been previously caught crossing undocumented, each is handed down a sentence of
between 10 and 180 days prison time. The majority being convicted for their first time are
typically given a sentence of “time served” – their day or two of incarceration being
sufficient in the court’s eyes – but with the stern warning that should they be caught
again, the judge would not be so lenient. For those with previous deportation records, and
repeat offenders within Streamline, punishment ranges from 2 to 10 years. It is doubtful
that most truly understand what they are agreeing to, often being within the U.S. court
system for their first time, dealing with an interpreter, and being rushed through the
system (each defendant is given twenty minutes to an hour at most with a lawyer, shared
with several other defendants, while the hearings typically last less than two hours for the
entire 70 defendants). It is not uncommon for defendants to speak a language other than
Spanish (such as an indigenous dialect), and so without an interpreter are therefore forced
to rely on their limited Spanish skills. Further, most are told to accept prewritten deals
whether they truly believed they were guilty or not. To date no one has pleaded innocent
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to the charges, demonstrating the ability for such programs of criminalization to go
unchallenged.
The ability to replicate Operation Streamline courtroomstyle procedures for prosecuting
migrants apprehended within interior workplace ICE raids was seen in 2008, surrounding
the raid at Agriprocessors Inc. meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, in which
approximately 390 people were processed en masse. Reading a description of the trail by
Erik CamaydFreixas – a professor of Spanish at Florida International University, who
acted as a translator for many of those who were tried – it becomes evident how similar
the process was:
Driven singlefile in groups of 10, shackled at the wrists, waist and ankles, chains
dragging as they shuffled through, the slaughterhouse workers were brought in for
arraignment, sat and listened through headsets to the interpreted initial appearance,
before marching out again to be bused to different county jails, only to make room
for the next row of 10 (2008, p.2).
At the end of the daily Streamline hearing in Tucson, groups of five to ten migrants are
marched out of the courtroom, still shackled. Before exiting through a side door, some
will quickly acknowledge the gallery, as if to apologize for takingup the public’s time.
Within this brief moment, consisting of only a few seconds, volunteers often tried to show
support and distance themselves from others in the courtroom who were not there in such
a role. As a report from one No More Deaths volunteer stated in an email sent to the
group’s mailing list:
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I tried to send a smile toward the ones who looked up as they disappeared through
the side door just a quick glance of humanity in a complex of concrete and buzz
cuts.
In March of 2008, just two months after its inception, a proposal was made to move the
public hearings of Operation Streamline, which take place in the federal courthouse in
downtown Tucson, to the detention center located on the Davis Monthan Air Force Base
on the outskirts of the city, home also to the newly built USBP headquarters. The move
was proposed due to the growing strain upon the downtown courthouse, which faces up to
100 migrants a day who must be detained. This would have resulted in moving the only
public aspect of the Operation Streamline process behind detention center walls. Through
considerable pressure from grassroots groups active in Tucson and elsewhere, the
decision to move the hearings to Davis Monthan was dropped, instead continuing to take
place at the federal courthouse from Monday to Friday every week, therefore remaining
open to the public. In January of 2009 however, it was revealed by a USBP spokesperson
that there is a renewed effort to have the hearings at the headquarters, where they could
increase the numbers of those being prosecuted from 70 to 100 or more (McCombs,
2009a). The significance of keeping the already littleknown trials in public is well
known to those working around migrant justice in southern Arizona, with so many of the
processes of the migrant detention industry becoming increasingly privatized or hidden
behind institutional walls, in which the public, media, and migrant rights groups are
afforded little access.
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Alongside the presence of humanitarian aid groups within the courtroom, other small yet
significant efforts were made to challenge this process, and remove some of the injustice
afforded to those caught in Streamline’s net. This included the setting up of a program to
return migrant’s property who had been detained under Streamline. Typically, migrants
will have 30 days to collect property confiscated by USBP when they are initially
detained. However, many are not told of their right to have their property returned when
they are released, instead being deported to Mexico or Central America empty handed.
Importantly, many from Mexico would be returned without their government issued
identification, therefore making them ineligible for work in their home country. In
response, John Granger, a professor at the University of California San Diego, who I had
volunteered alongside during the summer of 2008, helped to set up a property return
program, in which volunteers from No More Deaths and Samaritans would collect any
property that had not been received by migrants who had been released, and ensure its
return to them in Mexico or Central America. As Granger stated in an interview with the
Tucson Citizen:
So we're doing what the government should be doing returning property to its
owner even if it's just a symbolic gesture (in Stanton, 2008).
While the decision to return property was agreed upon by both groups, during the weekly
meetings in which it was discussed, and in meetings with Streamline lawyers, I witnessed
a number of debates take place over its effectiveness, along with the exceptional cost to
operate for these nonprofit groups. Most significant in the discussions over its
application, were statements that questioned why humanitarian aid groups and the general
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public should be doing a task that they believed should be carried out by the government.
Agreement was reached, however, that it was important to get migrant’s belongings back
to them, and that by doing so, it would place pressure on the USBP and other parties
involved in detaining those caught under Streamline to change their practices. This was
not an uncommon topic of debate within humanitarian aid groups, typically regarding the
provision of aid to migrants when the government failed to do so.
Other small steps were also taken outside the courtroom in an effort to reduce the impact
of Streamline on those detained and their families. In particular, the Public Defender’s
office would provide a copy of the court docket each day – listing the names of all who
were being detained under Streamline – to be posted at the migrantaid shelter operated
by No More Deaths on the Mexican side of the Mariposa port of entry, where up to 2000
people a day are deported, to aid with family reunification efforts. For various reasons,
migrants with family members may be separated when crossing and/or being detained
and deported. As I witnessed while volunteering at a migrant aid shelter in Agua Prieta,
Mexico, people would be frequently deported without their family members. Many came
to the shelter, frantically trying to find out how they could track down their missing
family member.
Migrants crossing with family or friends can be separated in many ways, though at times
this is through explicit Border Patrol practices. Often, USBP helicopters that patrol the
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desert will fly low over a group of migrants at night, a practice that was outlawed but that
I witnessed happen on several occasions while patrolling trails. Groups will scatter in
fear, individuals running in various directions. After the helicopter leaves, or USBP
agents finish detaining those they have caught, whoever has not been apprehended will
reappear on the trail, soon realizing they have lost their group. This was one of the most
common reasons for humanitarian aid groups finding individuals lost in the desert, as was
relayed to us frequently by migrants who requested our assistance. In other instances, the
USBP will stagger its deportation of individuals, returning family members at different
times, or to different ports of entry, and sometimes in different states through their
practice of lateral repatriation (see Chapter 7). With the inception of Operation
Streamline, which randomly selects individuals to be detained rather than ‘voluntarily
returned’, another aspect was added to the existing hardship of crossing the border, which
frequently leads to family separation. By posting names of those detained under
Streamline, family members who may have avoided such a fate, but had not been
informed of the whereabouts of their loved ones, could at least be certain if they were in
detention in Tucson.
6.3 Creating demand for immigrant detention and the growth of the
prison industrial complex
Practices of criminalization and mass incarceration of migrants come at a cost not only to
those who are apprehended. Though a relatively recent development in Arizona, the
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application of Operation Streamline has been shown to take a significant toll on the legal
system. With a goal of up to 100 migrants being prosecuted a day (though presently at 60
70), court rooms must be set aside, attorneys hired, judges paid for, and the costs of
transporting migrants and detaining them throughout the process paid. Derechos
Humanos, a grassroots immigrant rights project in Tucson, Arizona, has estimated that it
costs around US$9$11 million a month to detain those incarcerated under Streamline
(Coalición de Derechos Humanos, 2008). Another US$10 000 a day is spent on defense
attorneys, given that migrants typically cannot afford to pay for one. Meanwhile, it is
estimated that it costs around US$88 a day to house a prisoner in privately run facilities,
and US$120 a day at ICE processing centers (Root, 2008). The Department of Homeland
Security (DHS), under the U.S. government, is also setting aside further funds for this
growing prison population:
Nationwide, the average number of daily prisoners detained by Immigration and
Customs Enforcement…has now increased 44 percent since 2001… Meanwhile,
ICE’s budget for Detention and Removal Operations has more than doubled in the
last four years…to $2.4 billion in 2008 (Root, 2008).
Though migrants are often detained in Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) run
federal prisons and existing detention centers in Arizona (and often outside of this state),
many of these facilities are at, or beyond capacity. There is a growing demand then for
additional detention facilities to be built in order to house the significant number of new
detainees, alongside the many women and men currently being detained from workplace
and domicile raids taking place across the United States at unprecedented levels by ICE
officers.
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Operation Streamline has played a significant role in the growth of incarceration facilities
in Del Rio, Texas, where the program was first implemented in 2005. Initially applied to a
golf course that encompassed a ¼ mile stretch of the border, Streamline in Del Rio was
soon expanded to the entire sector. Apprehension levels by the USBP within the Del Rio
sector are supposedly at their lowest since the early 1970s, a sign that earlier enforcement
efforts have channeled people elsewhere along the border, creating a geographical shift in
migration paths from this region, typically to the Tucson sector. Officials suggest that
enforcement efforts such as Streamline have reduced crossing levels in Del Rio, though
again there is no concrete evidence to support this. Yet as apprehension levels drop to all
time lows across the border, incarceration rates are at their highest. This is demonstrated
by the growth of prisons and detention centers in the Del Rio region, such as Val Verde
Correctional Facility. In 2000, Val Verde had a capacity of 180 beds, but now has the
ability to hold 1425 prisoners only eight years later (Root, 2008). Though Val Verde is a
maximumsecurity jail, the state prisoner population has remained stable, with immigrant
detainees therefore generating the most demand for additional beds. In a 2008 press
release by Derechos Humanos regarding efforts to move Streamline hearings to the local
air force base, the situation in Del Rio was reflected upon:
It seems suspiciously convenient that this policy was first instituted in an area
where a large private prison had been built, which provided the space necessary for
the launching of this test project [in 2005].
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In addition to the growth of Val Verde, new prisons have been erected closeby to the
U.S.Mexico border elsewhere in Texas, including a 654bed jail in Eagle Pass and a
1,500bed prison in Laredo, a sector in which Operation Streamline is also in effect. All
of these prisons – Val Verde included – are privately run by Geo Group Inc. (previously
Wackenhut), a security company known for running detention centers across the globe.
The involvement of the private industry within the immigrant detention system and
border militarization efforts is certainly not new (see Fernandes, 2007), however Geo
Group’s involvement is of particular note for those working with humanitarian aid groups,
as I have discussed in relation to volunteers engaging with Geo Group agents in attempts
to provide aid to those detained on their buses (see Chapter 7).

Meredith Kolodner, reporting for the New York Times in 2006, noted these growing
connections between the prison industrial complex (PIC) and immigrant detention very
clearly. By fall of 2007, Kolodner reported, it was expected that “27,500 immigrants will
be in detention each night.” At that time, CCA and Geo Group were housing less than 20
percent of all detained migrants, but were running 8 of the 16 federal detention centers
and looking to expand further. This estimate has now been surpassed, with 32 000
migrants being detained nightly throughout the United States in 2008, and 300 000
detained annually, now “the fastestgrowing sector of the U.S. prison population” (Barry,
2008).
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Several other shifts within U.S. immigration and detention policies, led largely by the
DHS and CBP (though often at the sector level), have further supported the growth of
incarceration. Of particular significance has been the termination of what was referred to
as a “catch and release” policy, in which nonMexican persons (referred to as ‘OTMs’, or
‘other than Mexicans’, by USBP) detained in the U.S. for entering illegally were typically
released and given a court appearance date, due to a lack of space within detention
facilities (Gilbert, 2009). This new policy to end the practice of catch and release has
taken place under the wider program of Operation Endgame (in collaboration with
Streamline and other policies), in which ICE plans to remove all removable
undocumented migrants residing in the United States by 2012. Though a seemingly
impossible goal, its impact upon migrant communities throughout the U.S. is significant,
and has further generated a demand for new detention facilities. Early in 2009, Border
Patrol chief of the Tucson sector, Robert W. Gilbert, stated in an opinion piece to the
Arizona Daily Star that his goal was to end all voluntary return for migrants apprehended
in the Tucson sector, through the use of special prosecution and removal initiatives such
as Operation Streamline (Gilbert, 2009). The effect of these special initiatives is being
witnessed notably on the ground within the Altar Valley both by migrants in transit in this
region, and by humanitarian aid groups, which I shall reflect upon from my fieldwork
that took place during the first nine months of Streamline’s application.
6.4 The impacts of Operation Streamline outside of the courthouse
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Though there is a significant importance and impact of Operation Streamline proceedings
upon migrants within the courtroom and detention centers, it is necessary to understand
the impacts of such a policy on the ground. Streamline, along with other policies and
practices of spatial confinement, place additional strain on migrant bodies and minds
even if they are not caught up in the Streamline process, as these are policies of
deterrence intended on creating extra hardships for those entering the U.S.
undocumented. Such policies, which attempt to develop ‘zones of zero tolerance’ along
the border, can therefore be seen as effective in further restricting freedom of movement
whether persons are apprehended or not, through the creation of the fear of possible
incarceration. My time working with No More Deaths, alongside several other
humanitarian aid groups within the desert corridor in which Streamline is applied, have
helped to further support these assertions.
As practices of militarization, policing, and heightened criminalization of migrants
continue to develop, the space of the borderlands becomes increasingly threatening.
Meanwhile, as knowledge amongst coyotes and migrants alike (particularly repeat
crossers) spreads regarding Operation Streamline, and the likelihood of spending up to
180 days in a federal prison grows, migration paths and practices begin to shift once
more. One outcome is to push migrants and their guides into lesscharted territories that
are often significantly more perilous (Cornelius, 2001; Hagan and Phillips, 2008). This is
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demonstrated by the use of increasingly mountainous trails by coyotes that offer more
protection from being detected by Border Patrol or other law enforcement agents.
During the summer of 2008, several months after the implementation of Operation
Streamline, humanitarian aid groups began to note that more traditional trails used by
migrants were being abandoned, and instead trails through the nearby Baboquivari and
Tumacacori mountains were beginning to be traversed more heavily. Further, encounters
with migrant groups in this region demonstrated that migrants were walking for greater
times due to efforts to stay in higher elevation and more densely vegetated areas. Many
migrant groups were encountered only several miles from the border, but those within the
group relayed to volunteers that their guides had made them walk for over four days in the
mountains, sometimes coercing them to consume illicit drugs to keep walking; many had
given up, convinced their guides were either lost or attempting to cheat them of their
money for crossing. These efforts to remain out of sight are undoubtedly due to the
general concern of avoiding apprehension by USBP – and from measures used to control
space through practices of militarization, using surveillance towers and checkpoints for
example that funnel people in to certain corridors – but may also be seen as an effort to
avoid the added risk and penalty of being put through the criminal justice system.
An increasingly noted phenomenon for migrant groups crossing the border is to encounter
bandits, typically small groups known for holding up and robbing these groups on their
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way north. These bandits cross within a few miles of the border into the U.S. and hide in
wait for migrant groups. They then proceed to hold the group and demand any money or
possessions of value, sometimes operating in collaboration with coyotes. It is not
uncommon for humanitarian workers in this corridor to find groups or individual
migrants who had been recently robbed, some even having their backpacks taken, leaving
them with nothing. I encountered this situation several times whilst on patrol with other
volunteers, including a meeting with a young male, who had been living in Colorado for
14 years before being deported by ICE, who approached us for assistance, and to warn us
of bandits nearby to the trail we were patrolling. As migrant groups are forced to cross in
more remote and mountainous areas to avoid detection by USBP, they find themselves
more susceptible to bandit groups who are easily able to hide beside trails in wait for such
vulnerable groups before crossing back in to Mexico, often by the cover of night.
Combined with the ongoing risk of abuse while crossing is the created pressure to
continue walking against better judgment in order to avoid the possibility of incarceration
and further criminalization through Streamline and similar policies. The most common
occurrence for humanitarian aid groups when patrolling trails and nearby roads is to
encounter individual migrants separated from their group, often in poor health due to
factors such as dehydration or hyperthermia, having drunk water from a contaminated
cattle tank, or with sprained or broken ankles from hiking through rough terrain.
Typically, volunteers inform migrants of their options: keep walking, rest and receive aid
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from the humanitarian aid group if possible, or hand themselves over to USBP, be
deported back across the border (if they are a Mexican national), and try again with a new
guide. After migrants were told how far they still had to walk, they often chose the latter
option of giving themselves up to the USBP. This was usually their best and safest option,
particularly if alone, injured, or sick. From there they could be deported and reunite with
their coyote to try once again, or return home if the experience had been too traumatic or
if they had run out of money.
On occasion, individuals who had lost their group would quite literally stumble in to the
No More Deaths base camp, located approximately 12 miles north of the border. Most
were not aware of the camp’s purpose, and had simply given up in the hope of finding
assistance. Some recognized the white flag with green cross that flew above the campsite,
designating the space as safe and a place of aid. In one instance, a young gentleman
walked in to the camp, who I had met a week earlier in a migrant aid shelter in Agua
Prieta, over 100 miles away from the camp’s location. After my initial disbelief of this
chance reencounter, the reality of my ability to travel unhindered in this space struck.
Since first meeting in Agua Prieta, I had traveled freely by car to the campsite a few days
later, while the young man from southern Mexico had set out on another arduous five day
hike alone, as he had run out of money for a coyote. Though in good shape for someone
who had been walking for so long, he was entirely lost, not uncommon for those that
would walk in to the camp. Many would often first approach a local ranch, and then be
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directed to our camp. One neighbor of the camp, a middleaged MexicanAmerican,
whose altar to the Virgen de Guadalupe that sat perched on the hillside next to his
property guided migrants in distress to his door, would often assist persons to our camp.
The camp was seen then as a site of respite within the desert, where migrants were able to
receive aid or have the Border Patrol contacted so that they could return to Mexico.
An unwritten agreement had been reached previously between No More Deaths and the
USBP that no law enforcement agents would enter the camp unless invited, or deemed
absolutely necessary by the USBP. This agreement however, was breached at times,
challenging the supposed safety of the space of the camp. In an unpublished report that
was circulated between No More Deaths members, a longterm volunteer previously
involved with Sanctuary related the experience when in October, 2008, the camp was
raided by a large group of USBP agents on horseback. Below is the volunteer’s recounting
of a conversation with Officer Morales of the USBP (here I use an alias for the
volunteer’s name):
“Tony, we know you guys do a lot of good helping the migrants,” says Morales,
“but you have to call us the moment migrants show up in your camp, even before
you help them.”
The volunteer in his report, continues with his response to the agent:
“I hear what you are saying, but that is not the arrangement we have with the
Border Patrol. We’ve always been able to give migrants water, food and first aid
and we were not required to call the Border Patrol first.”
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After being threatened by another Border Patrol agent, who was the supervisor of the
raid, that the camp had committed a felony offense for harboring, Tony who was the
coordinator of the camp that week provided directions to the other volunteers:
“This will be the protocol from now on until you hear otherwise…[ ] Do not bring
any migrants in to the camp. If any walk in, treat them quickly, and tell them to
move on; it’s not safe for them here. Assume that the camp will be under
continuous surveillance.”
This encounter with USBP agents, approximately twenty, who arrived on horseback,
including their public relations officer, demonstrates the allpervasiveness of immigration
enforcement in this region. Although the camp is located on privateproperty under
agreement of the owner, the USBP is able to enter any private property at their discretion.
Importantly, it acknowledges the difficulty of providing sufficient aid under the pressure
of knowing that the USBP can detain someone at any given moment, even within the
relatively safe space of the base camp, due to the dynamic nature of Border Patrol policy
and activity. The possible surveillance of the camp, which had happened previously (see
Chapter 4), and threats that they were committing felony acts, meant also that volunteers
had to become extravigilant, altering their ability to provide aid to anyone who might
walk in to the camp, or who could be transported there from a trail. The presence of
USBP, perceived or actual, also created a lack of trust by migrants in need of assistance,
who were typically already suspicious of the camp’s motivation. Added to this, soon after
the raid, the USBP also setup a temporary guard post a few miles along the only road
that led to No More Deaths’ camp. This was done in part to monitor any vehicles leaving
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from the camp that may have been transporting migrants, or bringing evacuees in to the
camp: another internal checkpoint to navigate.
With the advent of Operation Streamline at the beginning of 2008, volunteers found
themselves confronted with an even more difficult situation in providing aid outside of
the relatively stable space of the camp, on the trails or roadsides that they patrolled.
Interactions with migrants are typically short, under pressure not to draw attention from
Border Patrol agents, and with the desire of migrants (and coyotes) to keep moving.
Volunteers typically must explain to migrants their options in as detailed manner as
possible, often on a roadside or deep within the desert on a trail, with temperatures
exceeding 110ºF in the summer months. Since the implementation of Streamline, aid
workers found that they must also explain that if they turn themselves in to the USBP, the
migrant may find themselves within the system of Streamline, facing the possibility of jail
time along with a criminal conviction on their record.
Given that on average the USBP puts 6070 migrants a day through Streamline, and that
they apprehended on average just over 800 people per day within the Tucson sector in
2008, the odds of going through Streamline were significant. Many migrants, upon
having this described, decided that handing themselves over to the USBP was too risky.
This possibility of incarceration, then, often resulted in migrants wanting to continue
walking, sometimes against the advice of humanitarian workers (who are commonly
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trained as Wilderness First Responders or Emergency Medical Technicians). The work
that Operation Streamline does, long before migrants find themselves in the courtroom,
becomes apparent: the migrant may never end up in court pleading guilty to the relatively
minor infraction of crossing undocumented, but risks further longterm injury or death
due to their efforts to avoid being apprehended. Handing oneself over to the USBP, being
processed and deported, and trying again within a day or two, or sometimes even that
same day, is becoming less of a realistic option.
6.5 Responding to Operation Streamline as a practice of structural
violence
It is important to understand the direct and indirect impacts of Operation Streamline – in
collaboration with other policies and practices of border militarization – upon the work of
No More Deaths and other humanitarian aid groups committed to promoting freedom of
movement and providing aid to migrants in the Sonoran desert. Groups such as these
must respond to such policies creatively if they are to effectively provide aid in the
dynamic space of the borderlands in which restrictive policies affect not only migrants
but also those intending on working in solidarity alongside them. How might groups like
No More Deaths overcome such prohibitive measures implemented by the state that
guarantee hardship and death for those passing through these spaces? In doing so, how
might these directaid groups actually help to shore up the operation of the USBP and
other law enforcement agencies, through inadvertent practices of spatial exclusion?
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Given that NMD and similar groups operate strictly within the deadliest corridor of the
border, and particularly within the scope of Streamline’s spatial reach, combating such
impacts are central. With the lessening ability to offer the option of contacting the USBP
for migrants no longer able to continue to safely walk north (though by no means an ideal
situation), and increasing criminalization of anyone found to be aiding in transportation
of migrants north, humanitarian aid groups have been forced to consider other means of
keeping those in vulnerable positions outside of the Streamline net.
One such option debated by No More Deaths over the summer of 2008 was to drive
migrants south, given their informed consent, and to then selfdeport across the border, in
order to reconnect with a guide, or with family members and friends who had also been
deported. Though such practices of ‘driving south’ may work to operate in solidarity with
migrants, allowing them to avoid the risk of a criminal record, time in detention, and
possible abuse at the hands of USBP or private security agents, critical reflection on what
this strategy meant on a larger scale was required for the group. What would it mean for a
grassroots network of humanitarian workers to be driving migrants south, on one hand
providing assistance in avoiding further criminalization, whilst also tacitly acting to
support other processes of spatial denial implemented by the U.S. government? If such
groups were to be driving migrants south, would this mean they were operating in a role
similar to that of the USBP and private security contractors, whose very means of
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existence is to take migrants south, further from their goal of entry into the United States?
Through interviews with No More Deaths volunteers, and also volunteering during
evacuations, I discussed this issue at length. Volunteer D discussed the effect of
Streamline on their operations:
That’s something that we’ve talked about in depth in our protocol meetings…[ ]
and I think that people have really not wanted to call the Border Patrol because of
Operation Streamline. So it has impacted how we think about things, and we have
started to warn people about the danger of that happening, they could be processed
and charged. And, so, I think as a result, there have been people willing to take the
risk of driving someone south.
In discussing with this volunteer the implications of driving south – both while we were
on patrol, and then later in Tucson during an interview – she stated that:
It is an interesting perspective to think about [that humanitarian groups might be
fulfilling the role of Border Patrol in taking someone further south]. But you can
also think about it in terms of that they are getting back to their starting point and
therefore they can hook back up with a group that is traveling, and might try again
and maybe be successful, rather than getting lost and being left behind.
As was explored in this interview then, and in speaking with other No More Deaths
volunteers, it became evident that Streamline and other policies implemented by the
Border Patrol, while a limiting factor upon aid provision, was beneficial in some sense, in
that it led to discussions within the group about differing strategies that could be applied
to more effectively provide solidarity with migrants crossing in this region. One
interviewee relayed his experience in driving a middleaged male back to Nogales who
was found (or rather that he found the No More Deaths volunteers) close to the town of
Arivaca, so that he could selfdeport:
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…the experience that I had last week driving someone to Nogales. It was really
heartbreaking to me, to have this guy who has gone through so much to get to
Arivaca, who can’t keep going because of the condition he is in, but he is not in
any kind of medical condition that would warrant evacuation either, it wouldn’t
warrant an emergency kind of medical response, his vitals were stable. And, so I
gave him a ride to Nogales. The main reason being that he was in the area where
people who are apprehended are in danger of ending up being prosecuted through
Streamline, and he was within that geographical area. A lot of the times we will
call the Border Patrol and have them take someone in to custody, with the
understanding that they are gonna be returned to Mexico by the Border Patrol
within a reasonable period, usually within a day. But I wasn’t ethically okay with
calling the Border Patrol for this guy, with the possibility that he could spend six
months in prison, just for trying to get a job. So I drove the guy to Nogales, and I
really would have much rather driven him to Tucson, you know? By transporting
him back to Mexico, I was really actually becoming in that action, like becoming a
party to Border Patrol’s overall strategic goal, which is to deny people access to the
United States, to create an impermeable boundary for people who don’t have the
economic resources to get a visa. I mean there were practical reasons for why I did
that, last week, but I was really conflicted about it…[ ] If I wasn’t there with No
More Deaths, I don’t know what I would have done. But because I was there with
the organization, it didn’t seem worthwhile to put their work at risk by bringing
him further in to the country [Volunteer C].
Volunteer C's notion that the man in consideration here was “not in any kind of medical
condition that would warrant evacuation” is important. Though migrants were frequently
encountered who required immediate emergency medical attention, and thus could be
transported to hospital, more commonly people were not in need of such attention. Rather
they were left behind by their group/coyote, or had minor ailments that could be remedied
mostly through rest and simple first aid. Though these were not serious enough to warrant
the need of immediate evacuation, they were enough to stop someone from continuing on
safely. Yet if volunteers could not transport them to their destination of Tucson or
Phoenix, and with the risk of being put in to Streamline should the USBP be called,
migrants were often left with little choice but to continue on or hand their fate over to the
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Border Patrol. Driving south, as Volunteer D mentioned in her interview, was at least a
way to ensure they safely made it back to Mexico, and to perhaps try again. It must be
noted however, that No More Deaths have never adopted within their protocols to drive
persons south, but rather this practice has remained only at the level of discussion during
meetings.
In her research regarding the intersection between humanitarianism and biopolitics,
considering the social geography of the various actors involved in their claim to
legitimacy over migrant bodies and aid, Magaña (2008) explores the importance of a
person’s health status in opening or closing possibilities for evacuation strategies. Magaña
refers to these as ‘exit strategies’ from the desert for migrants. That is, if a migrant is
found to be in need of immediate emergency medical attention, humanitarian groups can
argue that their transportation is of a patient in need of care, and therefore not a criminal
act. It is therefore an ‘exit strategy’ that can decriminalize both the person who has
crossed undocumented in to the U.S., and the practices employed by the humanitarian aid
groups. As Magaña states:
Because the ‘transportation of an illegal alien’ and a ‘medical evacuation’ of a
crosser in distress look fairly similar…the legitimacy to rescue a crosser hinges on
a particular separation of his injured body from his unauthorized entrant status
(p.146).
Similarly, another exit strategy for migrants in need of care was often created when they
were discharged from hospital. Although USBP agents would frequently deliver injured
or ill migrants to hospital in Tucson or elsewhere along the border, resources were often
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not sufficient to provide an agent to ensure their deportation upon recovery. Migrants
would therefore find that they could walk out of the hospital unhindered by Border Patrol
or other law enforcement agencies that had initially detained them and transported them
there.
Not unlike the work of Sanctuary, which made explicit efforts to frame persons as
refugees rather than illegal aliens, thus allowing both refugees and volunteers to avoid
deportation and/or criminal prosecution (see Bibler Coutin, 2005), directaid volunteers
were also often required to present undocumented migrants as medical evacuees to avoid
such repercussions. Further, as Bibler Coutin (1995) notes:
By continuing to act openly, sanctuary workers asserted the truth of their
construction of reality and resisted being defined as criminals (p.564).
Directaid volunteers’ continued use of transparency then, through civil initiative, as
discussed by Bibler Coutin above in reference to Sanctuary, was typically applied in
transporting undocumented migrants to hospital, suggesting that the humanitarian act was
legal and necessary. Yet due to previous practices of criminalization by the state, which
had largely put an end to medical evacuations by volunteers since 2005, such transparent
and essential acts were no longer possible. Volunteers, in concern for migrants’ safety,
were forced then to consider alternative options to evacuate them from the oftendeadly
desert landscape. Again, Bibler Coutin’s analysis of the Sanctuary movement and its
criminalization draws out important similarities:
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The government’s definition of sanctuary as alien smuggling delegitimized
citizens’ efforts to reinterpret the law and reinforced the power of the state (1995,
p.556).
Volunteers with No More Deaths were further reminded of this fact when conversing with
law enforcement and media in relation to their practices. Within the 2007 No More
Deaths volunteer handbook, it is stated volunteers should frame migrants as having being
“saved/rescued” rather than “aided/abetted.” Over time, such efforts to portray their work
as noncriminal have become essential, as practices of surveillance and criminalization of
humanitarian aid grows.
Although volunteers did not want to find people in severe medical distress, the options
were often more straightforward in these situations. If a migrant was mildly ill, or had
blisters, and was therefore not in good shape to continue walking, but was also not in need
of evacuation, strategies became more complex. On several occasions in the heat of the
desert, I worked with other volunteers for several hours, attempting to determine the best
course of action, often while in conversation on the phone with lawyers or more qualified
medics located in Tucson. It was recognized that if mild symptoms were not treated
effectively at the time of interaction, these symptoms could become deadly if the person
decided to continue walking. Medical knowledge for volunteers was therefore often
stressed, as this could allow volunteers to make a more convincing case to USBP or other
law enforcement agents that someone was in need of evacuation.
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Efforts were also made to have longerterm volunteers become certified Wilderness First
Responders (WFR), or to gain a higher certification such as an Emergency Medical
Technician (EMT). In the summer of 2008, alongside several other No More Deaths and
Samaritans volunteers, I took the WFR course in which it was frequently asserted by the
instructor that being a good advocate for your patient is essential. However, sometimes no
level of advocacy could lead to the desired outcome. This was demonstrated on one
occasion in 2008 when a USBP agent insisted on transporting a migrant to hospital whose
health had deteriorated while recuperating at the No More Deaths camp (see figure 6.2).
Volunteers arrived at the hospital to check that he had been given appropriate care, but
later found that the Border Patrol agent had decided to deport the man, who was suffering
kidney failure, to Mexico.
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Figure 6.2: No More Deaths volunteers deliberate with USBP and local
paramedics in the town of Arivaca, about appropriate medical care for a male with
kidney failure, seen in the rear of the truck (source: No More Deaths).
Alongside the concern of acting in a supportive role to the USBP, as Volunteer C referred
to in his interview, it was not easy to establish whether or not driving migrants south, to
be selfdeported, was actually a legal practice. Given that the DHS had made it very clear
they would no longer allow medical evacuations by humanitarian aid workers or other
civilians in which migrants had to be driven north to a hospital – as in the case of Shanti
Sellz and Daniel Strauss, discussed in Chapter 4 – there was considerable concern as to
what the DHS’ response would be to driving south, allowing migrants to avoid the
government’s new program of criminalization through Operation Streamline. As the
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earlier statement from Volunteer D mentioned, there was recognition of ‘risk’ in driving
someone south. However she continued in the interview to note that:
The lawyers don’t consider it risky because it’s not in furtherance of someone’s
illegal presence, so in terms of what our legal advisor’s saying, it’s not against the
law. But of course that’s an assumption.
These issues of legality remain an unresolved and problematic position for humanitarian
aid groups working in the Tucson sector, which require constant reflection and
negotiation. As Volunteer D’s earlier statement implied, the need for ongoing discussion
regarding the protocol of No More Deaths and other groups is a constant factor for long
term volunteers. Similar questions regarding legality of actions are not new to No More
Deaths or similar organizations providing aid in the U.S.Mexico borderlands. Given the
myriad law enforcement agencies active in this region, changing state and federal
policies, as well as differing sentiment towards volunteers from USBP agents and the
public, it is often difficult to determine what is within the legal scope. Further, and in
light of the position that ‘humanitarian aid is never a crime’, members of directaid
humanitarian groups often debate the merit of breaking the law to provide humanitarian
assistance, and if it is beneficial to their cause to be fined or arrested, due to the media
attention that such events draw.
In ongoing discussions, both formal and informal, during my time volunteering and
researching No More Deaths, the topic of diversity within the group often arose. It was
frequently recognized that the diversity of age and political standpoints within No More
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Deaths was both a benefit and hindrance to the group’s operation and development.
Several longterm volunteers, who were typically younger and often saw themselves as
more critical of the USBP and U.S. government, relayed to me that they felt the group
was often held back from taking more radical or progressive steps towards contesting the
criminalization and deaths of migrants, by those who had chosen not to challenge the
USBP more directly. In making this critique of other, typically older members, these
volunteers also recognized the difficulty in taking a more radical approach, which risked
the ongoing operation of the group, and of further punitive measures being taken by the
government against aid givers. As Volunteer C notes:
No More Deaths is almost exclusively…[ ] focused on really symptomatically
addressing the violence and the abuse that is happening on the border, and we
could continue to do so indefinitely, without the fundamental dynamics causing the
problems being addressed. And I think that there are a lot of people who
participate in the humanitarian groups in Arizona, who do so because it allows for
them to feel good about themselves, that they’re doing something about this issue
without really ever taking any risks, without really ever entering into a situation of
confrontation…[ ] And in the abstract I think that people are willing to
acknowledge that and critique those dynamics, but whenever it comes to actually
changing that in concrete terms, or moving a step further towards addressing things
in a systematic way, there’s always resistance within No More Deaths and within
the other groups that we are dealing with, and I think a lot of that has to do with
the diversity of people who participate, who come from very different political
backgrounds, who have really different analyses and motivations that have led them
to participate in this work.
He continues that:
And most recently, No More Deaths made the decision in the Spring that we were
going to be a “community in resistance,” that being cooperative with the Border
Patrol no longer made sense, given the policies that they are pursuing, and the
human cost of those policies…[ ] But once that decision was made, we never really
went further and articulated what that would mean in practice, and so there was
some value in formally establishing as a community…[ ] a more oppositional
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position to the Border Patrol, but ultimately I don’t think its had any impact on our
actual practices, in any concrete way…[ ] And it’s a dilemma because, anywhere
any compromise you make, it creates more space for the DHS to then come in and
control space and control people…[ ] any compromise becomes a relinquishing of
our rights and freedoms. But yet, you know, the idea of coming in to direct
confrontation with the Border Patrol, I think is a very frightening one, because you
are going up against the Department of Homeland Security. And, how do you
realistically approach that in a way that has any hope for a successful outcome? I
don’t know. But it’s definitely a space that we have to negotiate.
In this discussion of making compromises to the USBP and DHS, Volunteer C was
reflecting upon an issue that many other volunteers had brought up over the course of my
fieldwork and time spent volunteering, particularly by younger volunteers. After the arrest
and trial of volunteers in 2005 for conducting medical evacuations north to Tucson, No
More Deaths and other directaid groups decided to no longer evacuate people north
without the express consent of the Border Patrol. Alongside this, new checkpoints had
been set up, making any chance of evacuating somebody outside of the Border Patrol’s
knowledge almost impossible. In particular, the checkpoint on Arivaca road near the town
of Amado and the I19 – a strategic access road from the desert to the city of Tucson –
was set up in late 2007, affecting the ability to evacuate persons, as well as the routes of
transit for migrants who could no longer be collected by car on this road, as Volunteer C
elaborated:
What people are having to do now, instead of walk to Arivaca and get a ride, is
continue another two or three days until they reach Green Valley or Tucson [to
circumvent the checkpoint on Arivaca road]. And that has impacted our work, but
it has had a big impact on migrants too. If you look at where the deaths are most
concentrated, in this area and the Altar Valley, it’s all around Green Valley. People
are walking five, six days, and by the point that they are almost done with their
journey their bodies have been so beaten down by the elements that many people
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don’t make it. And that’s been totally due to the Border Patrol enforcement in the
area.
Talking with Volunteer B about this recently installed checkpoint, the everyday nature of
dealing with such aspects of border militarization for aid groups and local communities
was made clear, as it took a moment for him to realize what I was referring to:
Oh yeah! I guess I’m just becoming used to all this new militarization…[ ] That
checkpoint right there in Amado, has really been another huge kind of uppingthe
ante in terms of border militarization, and its been a big hurdle for us logistically,
like, if that had of been there in 2005, we couldn’t have evacuated anybody….[ ]
It’s just clear, obvious evidence of checkpoints and increased security actually
making things less secure – ‘border insecurity’ – and they’re forcing people to
walk further like that.
Many volunteers then, felt that they had conceded too much ground to the USBP after the
trial in 2006, and the subsequent changes of protocol that followed. Regaining this ground
would prove to be difficult given the rapidly progressing militarization strategies of the
USBP that were leading to their further control of the space in which humanitarians
operated. The difficulties that Operation Streamline was now presenting further brought
this point home. Perhaps if they had not conceded ground earlier – volunteers lamented to
me during discussions at base camp and in Tucson – they would not have to be
considering strategies such as driving people south. Volunteer B reflected about how
some of these concessions were made initially:
Things have changed a lot, like 2005, we did things like evacuations and whatnot
and we were real transparent about it, and turned in letters to Border Patrol letting
them know we were doing it, and they would sit there on the hill and watch us
[referring to their roundtheclock surveillance of the camp in 2005], and watch us
do it, and nothing ever happened until they arrested Daniel and Shanti. Then, we
entered in to the 2006 phase, where we were like, kind of ‘kissass’ to Border
Patrol, and that was really hard for a lot of us to deal with, because we even had
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Border Patrol agents in our training, a Border Patrol agent, an armed Border Patrol
agent – would be in the church – giving a half an hour spiel…[ ] as part of our No
More Deaths trainings, and that was really hard for us to stomach. But at that time
we were sort of, a lot of big decisions were sort of made by a few folks, who
thought that that was a good idea. And that led to a lot of strife, which in turn led
to what I think is a really cool consensus model that we have now…[ ] But I think
that the idea there was to just try not to get shut down, I think we were really
concerned that the government was just gonna clamp down on us, and throw
Daniel and Shanti in jail, and we were trying to mitigate that I guess.
Volunteer B’s statement reflected the struggle that many groups faced who are involved in
the provision of directaid to undocumented migrants in the U.S.Mexico borderlands,
under the everpresent surveillance of USBP agents and the DHS. Recognition was
frequently made of the ability for the USBP to make No More Deaths’ operation next to
impossible should they so choose, to be simply ‘shut down’ as Volunteer B mentioned.
Yet in curtailing their practices in order to appease the USBP – most typically the chief of
the Tucson sector – recognition of the ground they were conceding was also made. As
Volunteer B discusses in the quote above, a restructuring of the group’s operation was
made in 2006, in an attempt to ensure such mistakes would not be made in how they
responded to the USBP’s demands. The use of consensus based decision making was
officially adopted by the group in 2006/7, allowing agreements to be reached regarding
their operation that took in to account the views of all involved in the decisionmaking
process. Though using a consensusbased decisionmaking model in meetings and
strategy sessions – which I witnessed during weekly No More Deaths gatherings in
Tucson – helped to strengthen the group’s operation, it did not resolve all issues. It did
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however lead to betterthought out strategies for dealing with the USBP sector chief’s, as
well as agents on the ground, as volunteers reflected to me:
Since then [2006] we’ve been more, slightly more proactive and let them [USBP]
know what it is we are doing…[ ] we’ve decided to be less defensive about it.
Because we were even on the defensive as recently as just this year you know,
20072008, when the new chief, Chief Gilbert, was like, “no you can’t give food
and water to migrants in custody anymore”, you know, he would just come in and
tell us this stuff, and tell us how it was going to be and leave, and we would just be
like, you know, on the defensive, “wait, wait!” And so we decided not to do that
anymore [Volunteer B].
While it was evident during my time of research and volunteering that the group was
becoming better informed and more cohesive in how it responded to the USBP, and in
how it made demands, it was also clear that earlier decisions and concessions would have
longlasting impacts. Not only had the agreement to stop medical evacuations curtailed
the ability to provide muchneeded aid to migrants in distress, it had further helped to
support the U.S. government’s framing of No More Deaths’ operation as criminal, by
closing off certain avenues of possibility, while the USBP moved forward in its practices
of spatial control in the Altar Valley region. As I discussed in the case of Buenos Aires
Refuge and the ticketing of humanitarian aid groups for littering, the criminalization of
aid provision presents a challenge for groups who maintain a policy of transparency. As
aid groups lose their ability to perform certain functions, other strategies may have to be
sought out, in order to continue to give much needed aid and support. Yet with an
ongoing criminalization of both undocumented migrants and humanitarian aid groups for
their presence and certain movements within the space of the borderlands, some methods
of providing aid are becoming less transparent. As my research has found however, such
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as in the example of driving migrants south, these practices may also be seen as less
effective in promoting freedom of movement in this region. By becoming less transparent
in their practices, even if only for certain aspects of their work, directaid groups may also
risk further criminalization, as acting in a clandestine manner implies illegality to those
seeking to persecute them.
6.6 Summary
The devolution of immigration law to the state and local level, and proliferation of law
enforcement agencies in the borderlands, have resulted in very specific conditions within
varying spaces along the border, and internally throughout the United States. This is
demonstrated also by the adoption of Streamline and similar zerotolerance policies, in
which individual USBP sectors decide whether or not to apply such policies, what
Mathew Coleman (2007) refers to as the “uneven spatiality of immigration enforcement.”
Such an approach also results in the differential criminalization of migrants for the same
act of crossing undocumented, as it is dependent upon the place in which they decide to
cross. This in turn creates a unique set of constraints for humanitarian aid workers
depending also on their location.
The application of direct action, or directaid, practices by aid groups have demonstrated
the importance of creative placebased strategies to counter some of the myriad impacts
that have been created by Operation Streamline, as well as the ongoing militarization of
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space within this region. Yet as I found, these strategies could only do so much,
particularly in light of earlier concessions made by the group, and at times may have
actively worked to support the role of the USBP in restricting certain populations’ access
to the United States through spatial practices of denial and containment. Such struggles,
and often times the subsequent persecution of humanitarian work, has however led to No
More Deaths and other organizations critically reflecting upon their positionality and
practices of providing aid.
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Chapter 7: Responding to Deaths in the Desert: The U.S.
Border Patrol and the Trope of Humanitarianism
As Border Patrol agents, we wear three hats: law enforcement, rescuer and
humanitarian.
Mike Scioli, USBP Tucson sector spokesperson, in Beale, 2008
Throughout the development of the militarized border space that is now visible across the
2000mile international line, innumerable deaths and abuses have occurred to those
attempting to cross. Such deaths and abuses are not new, but appear to be a more common
part of the picture when considering the contemporary border condition (see for example
Falcón, 1998; Eschbach et al., 1999; Nevins, 2008). As this condition continues to
worsen, the response of the U.S. Border Patrol and Department of Homeland Security has
developed in some unique ways that further demonstrate the severity of the situation
created through intensified militarization and closure of space in the borderlands. Over
the past decade the USBP has taken steps to initiate a humanitarian response to the
difficult situations that those crossing undocumented are facing. That the USBP has
presented itself as a humanitarian organization, or with humanitarian concerns, is perhaps
not surprising given the rising death toll within its region of enforcement. However, it is
necessary to understand the Border Patrol’s role, either through official policy or in the
field, as a provider of humanitarian aid visàvis the claims of grassroots humanitarian
groups, who actively assert that the USBP has failed in assuring the human rights and
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safety of those crossing undocumented. This response from the USBP, as well as other
agents present, creates a problematic, as well as dynamic, relationship in the space of the
borderlands.
Within this chapter I first discuss the adoption of humanitarian discourse by the USBP
and other agencies, particularly within the Tucson sector, as a method of claiming
legitimacy to provide aid in this space over that of humanitarian directaid groups. How
are policies implemented by the USBP, that typically result in the further militarization of
the borderlands, framed as being humanitarian? How have these impacted undocumented
migrants, in their efforts to make the borderlands safer? What outcomes have they
generated, if any? In assessing these policies and programs, put in place predominantly
since 1998 when rapidly rising death tolls were coming to attention of both the USBP and
the public, I consider also the role of the search and rescue wing of the Border Patrol.
Since their inception in to the space of the Sonoran desert in the late 1990s, what has
been their influence upon migrant safety and rights? Further, within this chapter an
analysis of other strategies applied by the Border Patrol to present a compassionate
approach to their work is analyzed, including the use of popular media, collaboration with
local counties, and the use of what I frame as extraterritorial practices to remove ‘at risk’
migrants from the desert landscape.
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Following from an analysis of USBP policy and practice, an exploration of citizen border
patrols and vigilante groups is presented, considering their recent efforts to be portrayed
as both ‘protecting the border’, and as acting in a humanitarian role. Finally, I explore the
response of grassroots humanitarian groups operating in this region, to that of the USBP’s
approach to humanitarian aid provision and discourse. This is done through a reflection
on my fieldwork and time spent volunteering with these groups, and from interviews with
longterm volunteers, allowing a contrast between official policy with everyday practices
that occur within the space of the Sonoran desert. I argue that the application of
humanitarian discourse by USBP and other state, federal, and private law enforcement
agencies, as well as vigilante organizations such as the Minutemen, is used to discredit
the work done by humanitarian aid groups, forming one of several methods that may limit
the provision of necessary lifesaving aid in this region, and to further criminalize these
groups.
7.1 The USBP as humanitarian organization
Towards the end of the 1990s, the USBP began to implement a number of initiatives to
counter the rapidly rising rate of deaths in the U.S.Mexico borderlands, particularly
within the desert corridors located in the eastern portion of California and in southern
Arizona. This included the improvement of their search and rescue operations, largely
through the formation of BORSTAR (Border Patrol Search Trauma and Rescue), the
Border Safety Initiative (BSI), and certain aspects of the Arizona Border Control
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Initiative (ABC). Several other smaller programs were also developed, that although not
initially developed as direct responses to the continuing deaths in this region, were later
deployed as a humanitarian response. Other avenues for promoting the humanitarian
aspects of the Border Patrol and Homeland Security’s operations have also been used,
particularly as these law enforcement agencies develop their media and public relations
components, largely in response to criticisms leveled at their practices of border
militarization and interdiction that have led people to cross in more dangerous regions.
Hilary Cunningham (2004) provides some useful insights in to how the USBP has
enacted this role of both enforcement agency and caretaker. As she notes:
The Border Patrol argues that they are responding to the tragedies of the desert
through humanitarianism, an umbrella term that both occludes some of the larger
issues around migrant labor and yet services the image of a security force as a
tough but compassionate enforcement agency (original emphasis; p.341).
Although the Border Patrol has made concerted efforts to promote this role of
humanitarianism over the past decade or so, it is important to note that this has been an
ongoing, though underlying, narrative of the organization for many years. Timothy
Dunn’s (1995) analysis of the Border Patrol’s doctrine of ‘low intensity conflict’ (LIC)
during the period of 19781992 alludes to this briefly, in which humanitarianism,
typically the domain of nonstate actors, is adopted by the agency:
A third component of LIC doctrine with domestic implications is the provision of
socalled humanitarian aid, often by privatesector U.S. organizations (e.g.,
churches, relief organizations, and businesses). This “aid provider” role may also
be undertaken by military and security forces. Such measures can play an
important role in winning support for LIC policies among the hostnation
population as well as among the U.S. public (p.28).
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Dunn’s assertion that the ‘aid provider’ role is able to be applied in order to create support
for LIC practices – in this case militarizing the border through building fences, amongst
other practices – and Cunningham’s recognition of the Border Patrol’s ability to be
portrayed as a “tough yet compassionate enforcement agency” through the deployment of
a humanitarian framework, are important in understanding the methods in which the
USBP can maintain legitimacy in their operations while avoiding being seen as complicit
in the deaths of border crossers. This is also witnessed through the wellknown practice
of deferring blame to human smugglers, or coyotes, who are referred to as the primary
force behind migrant deaths (Cornelius, 2001). As Border Patrol agent Jesús Rodríguez
stated in an interview with the Tucson Weekly:
Our job is to secure the border, but at the same time, we wear our rescue hats and
save people. Our job is not to lead people out to the desert. We’re not the ones that
take them out to the desert – they [coyotes] just leave them there (Regan, 2007).
This statement is not unique, and can be found in similar form in innumerable interviews
with USBP agents discussing their role in the borderlands. However, it is important
because as demonstrated in the quote above, the Border Patrol can simply change ‘hats’
when necessary to move from enforcement agency to compassionate aid provider, which
as I discuss in this chapter and elsewhere, is used as a method to further remove the
legitimacy of other nonstate actors concerned with providing humanitarian assistance.
This ability to switch between enforcement agency and aid provider is typically applied
by the Border Patrol when promoting its efforts in saving lives through the conducting of
rescues, often reported within the media proceeding such events.
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As Joseph Nevins has noted, humanitarianism has also been deployed as a means to
justify the further militarization of the border, by the USBP, antiimmigration groups (to
which I return), as well as elected officials in the United States. Using the rhetoric that
stronger enforcement will lead to fewer crossings, and thus fewer deaths, Nevins notes:
…many who champion everstronger levels of boundary and immigration
enforcement now decry the deaths and use them to bolster immigration and
boundary restrictionist positions (2008, p.170).
In a 2008 Customs and Border Protection press release, stating the successes of the
Tucson sector during fiscal year 2008, the rhetoric of tougher enforcement and increased
Border Patrol presence, leading to increased safety for those crossing, is demonstrated:
The enforcement efforts have also allowed agents to continue their life saving
operations while reducing migrant deaths in Arizona. Tucson Sector agents were
able to save 443 illegal aliens from certain death after being abandoned by their
smugglers, while reducing the number of deaths by 17 percent, from 202 in fiscal
year 2007 to 167 in fiscal year 2008. Without the efforts of these agents, hundreds
more could have died in the unforgiving deserts of Arizona (Customs and Border
Protection, 2008).
One particular advocate of tougher enforcement as a humanitarian response has been
Duncan Hunter, a San Diego Republican, who has argued that by fencing the desert, lives
can be saved (see Nevins, 2008). In a unique twist, Duncan Hunter’s brother, John
Duncan, founded the San Diegobased grassroots group ‘Water Station Inc.,’ a
humanitarian organization that places water stations in the El Centro sector of the U.S.
Mexico borderlands (Catania, 2007). While the two are often at odds over how best to
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make the borderlands a more ‘humane place,’ they also at times support each other’s
efforts. It is some of these unique relationships, discourses, and practices around
humanitarianism in this region that I critically analyze within the remaining sections of
this chapter, and in the following chapters of this research.
7.2 Humanitarian policies implemented by the USBP in the Tucson
sector
Since 1998, several program initiatives, along with other policy changes within the USBP,
have been implemented, particularly within the Tucson sector in response to the
significant increase in deaths of border crossers. I discuss here these initiatives, which are
either framed as specifically humanitarian in their concern and application, or that
contain humanitarian components, considering the local, regional, and transnational
scales of implementation and intended impact.
7.2.1 The Border Safety Initiative and BORSTAR
On June 16 1998, in a joint effort between the Mexican and U.S. governments, the Border
Safety Initiative (BSI) was implemented, marking an official recognition of the mounting
death toll in the U.S.Mexico borderlands, following the initiation of border militarization
projects that had funneled crossers out of urban areas and in to desert corridors (Mohar
and Alcaraz, 2000). The BSI was described by the U.S. Border Patrol as a “binational
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strategy designed to reduce injuries and prevent fatalities and ultimately make the border
region safer,” based on “longstanding public safety and humanitarian measures practiced
by the U.S. Border Patrol” (Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, 2003, p.1). The
BSI consists of the following efforts to mitigate migrant deaths:
 Prevention – Preventing entries through hazardous
areas
 Search and Rescue – Maintaining and expanding
search and rescue capabilities
 Identification – Identifying deceased migrants for
family notification
 Tracking and Recording – Collecting related BSI
data (migrant deaths and Border Patrol rescues) for
reporting and analysis
The program, though targeted across all nine USBP sectors, focused specifically upon the
Tucson sector and its four counties (Cochise, Pima, Pinal, and Santa Cruz). Although the
BSI reflects an important program implemented by the USBP to mitigate migrant deaths,
to date there have been no systematic assessments of the effectiveness of this program
(Guerette, 2004).
Under the Border Safety Initiative, the Border Patrol Search, Trauma, and Rescue
(BORSTAR) program was created. BORSTAR, which consists of a select group of
specially trained Border Patrol agents in search and rescue operations and emergency
medical skills, was initially implemented in the San Diego sector, and was soon expanded
to the Tucson sector in 1999, before becoming a national program in 2001 (Customs and
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Border Protection, 2003a). In a Congressional Research Service report for Congress, it
was stated that:
BORSTAR’s primary mission is to respond to all incidents involving distressed
people along the border. While the individuals rescued are typically illegal aliens,
BORSTAR teams have also rescued American citizens who reside along the border
as well as USBP agents… In the almost three years the initiative has been
operational, USBP agents have rescued 3,977 people along the Southwest border.
There are currently nine BORSTAR teams comprised of 141 specially trained
USBP agents (NuñezNeto, 2005, p.16).
Although the above quote in the report to Congress states that there were 141 agents
assigned to BORSTAR in 2005, it is difficult to gain an accurate figure on how many
agents are involved currently, or to where they are assigned specifically. In a DHS press
release in 2005, it was stated that 26 agents would be assigned as search and rescue in
Arizona, under the Arizona Border Control initiative (Department of Homeland Security,
2005; see also Fernandes, 2007). By 2008, the average number of BORSTAR agents
operational within the Tucson sector was reported to be 44 or 45 agents, along with 60
agents trained as Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs; Shacat, 2008b). What is
evident, however, is that this search and rescue arm comprises only a marginal percentage
of the everexpanding USBP, which now consists of over 18 000 agents. Though only a
small piece of the wider USBP apparatus, Magaña (2008) notes the various roles that
BORSTAR plays, including their more recent assignment to that of public relations:
Through their presence alone, BORSTAR agents are a public relations statement.
Known for their friendly disposition and their celebrityperfect tans and smiles,
they double as the field face of the agency. In Arizona, those granted a ride along
with the Border Patrol – from the media to politicians – will most likely have the
opportunity to interview and photograph a BORSTAR agent (p.181).
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It is not surprising that this newest addition to the USBP has become the public face for
much of the agency’s media representation. BORSTAR is therefore able to transcend both
the role of the tough enforcement agency aimed at interdicting illegal immigration, as
well as the compassionate agency whose goal is to save lives. As Magaña points out, they
are the ideal public relations tool to be deployed by the Border Patrol in attempts to
promote its humanitarian efforts.
BORSTAR agents are also often the arm of the USBP who interact with humanitarian aid
groups most directly in the field. During my time volunteering with these groups, I
witnessed several interactions with BORSTAR agents who had either been called out by
the directaid groups, or were encountered while responding to someone in need of
evacuation. Given the severity of the situations that BORSTAR must typically respond to,
I found that interactions with these agents were mostly cordial, though not unlike USBP
agents more generally, this was on a casebycase and agentbyagent basis. Those
volunteering with directaid groups recognized their importance, and typically spoke of
them in high regard, particularly in relation to other USBP agents that the groups
encountered. As one volunteer stated:
If every Border Patrol agent was like a BORSTAR agent, the border would be a
much more humane place. [This is] because the regular agents have no first aid
training, no first aid materials, and they are pretty much bumbling idiots, who don’t
really have the necessary tools to make public safety or humanitarian aid a priority
[Volunteer B].
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Directaid volunteers also acknowledged the importance of BORSTAR when their
medical capabilities were exceeded. This was often the case when someone was suffering
from a serious heatrelated illness:
BORSTAR has always been a group that we will turn to in certain situations,
because they are the only technical search and rescue group out there that’s willing
to respond to lost migrants, for example, or someone in a remote area in need of
immediate evacuation and I.V., like the woman that was found unconscious a
couple of weeks ago. And BORSTAR are a lot better trained, their emphasis is on
emergency medical response and not on law enforcement. I actually really
appreciate their ability to come in and help when they are needed, it’s definitely
been helpful in the past when we’ve had searches that have needed to be done that
we don’t have the capacity to do [Volunteer C].
This statement from a No More Deaths volunteer acknowledges that there is little help
available in the desert corridors of the southern Arizona borderlands, and the crucial role
that the limited amount of BORSTAR agents fill. However, volunteers with humanitarian
aid groups also expressed some frustration, not with BORSTAR agents specifically, but
with the wider Border Patrol agency, who had hired so few of these specialized search
and rescue agents, while the remainder of the USBP enforcement agents typically had
little, if any, firstaid training. On innumerable occasions, volunteers had stayed with
persons in the desert, at times critically ill, for several hours waiting for BORSTAR to
respond who were attending to other emergencies, while other Border Patrol agents
watched on unable to provide assistance due to their lack of medical knowledge.
Volunteer C described this situation to me during one of our many discussions:
We’ve had experiences in the past where we’ve had a real crisis situation, and
we’ve called BORSTAR, and it’s taken them four hours to get there, because they
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had two other calls before ours that were as equally critical. So when Border Patrol
toots their own horn about making rescues, and being humanitarian, its total
bullshit, because their priorities as an agency do not lie there at all, and that’s
reflected in the amount of resources that they give to that one unit [BORSTAR]
that does have that mandate [Volunteer C].
Volunteer D, a volunteer with Samaritans and No More Deaths, who is also a registered
nurse, described a particularly difficult encounter with illequipped Border Patrol agents:
“One time when we called them [USBP], some agents responded. There were two
men by the side of the road, one was really sick, could hardly stand up, and his
nephew was helping him, and the nephew was really sick, really out of breath. And
you could see they were very visibly ill, both of them, from dehydration. And we
called and they did respond, well the regular [Border] Patrol responded…[ ] They
had passed those two sick men, passed them by several times already on the road.
Finally they stopped, they finally did get BORSTAR there, but they weren’t very
proactive, they just kind of stood there and couldn’t decide what to do. And finally
there was a guy who began starting an I.V., but it took quite a bit of time, more
time than you would guess. Maybe they were new, I don’t know…”
The long waits that humanitarian aid workers experienced, and more importantly for
those critically in need of medical aid and evacuation, reflect also the extended time to
response and evacuation created through border militarization strategies that have pushed
people further in to the desert. The inability, or reluctance, of some humanitarian aid
volunteers to transport migrants in need of immediate care due to recent criminalization
efforts by the government, also extend this time to necessary medical attention. So while
directaid groups, amongst others, sing the praises of BORSTAR agents, there is a distinct
recognition also of the low priority of this arm of the Border Patrol, what Deepa
Fernandes (2007) has called “a lukewarm humanitarian gesture [that] has emerged as part
of increased funding to the Arizona sector” (p.50).
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7.2.2 The Arizona Border Control Initiative
The Arizona Border Control Initiative (ABC) began on March 16, 2004, and was
promoted as a multidisciplinary initiative that would coordinate federal, state, and local
authorities to work together in controlling the southern Arizona borderlands (NuñezNeto,
2005). Aimed at stopping smuggling operations across the border, including people,
drugs, weapons, and other items, the ABC brought 200 additional Border Patrol agents to
the region, increasing the total to approximately 2000 agents. In addition to this, the ABC
contained a humanitarian component, in which 60 ‘special operations agents’ trained for
search and rescue were brought in to the Tucson sector for the summer period, leading to
70 rescue operations being conducted (NuñezNeto, 2005). Though posed as a
humanitarian initiative by the DHS, in which the presence of more Border Patrol agents
was equated with creating a safer border region, many saw this as doing little to mitigate
the growing death toll. As Scharf (2006) notes:
The DHS has hailed the ABC as a success. Yet, while the DHS applauds itself for
increasing Borderrelated arrests since the implementation of the ABC, it fails to
mention that during that same year, deaths of people attempting to enter the U.S.
illegally along the Border in Arizona reached an alltime high. Michael Nicely,
chief of the Border Patrol’s Tucson sector, described the humanitarian aspect of the
ABC as a failure (p.161).
The ABC and its humanitarian components were also coupled with the implementation of
new border surveillance technology and aircraft, including two Unmanned Aerial
Vehicles (UAVs) and four helicopters. Scharf further points out the contradictory nature
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of this initiative which was often discussed in humanitarian terms by Border Patrol and
DHS officials:
Although the ABC has a humanitarian component, it is not a humanitarian
initiative. For example, the aircraft the Border Patrol has touted as increasing its
ability to perform emergency rescues includes new helicopters that are
significantly quieter than those previously used by the Border Patrol. That the
Border Patrol is seeking stealthier means of discovering illegal activity around the
Border reinforces the point that the ABC’s focus is on patrolling the Border, not
saving lives, for there is no need to sneak up on an individual dying of exposure
(p.162).
At the close of the program’s first year in October 2004, spokespersons from
humanitarian directaid groups in southern Arizona, including Samaritans and Humane
Borders, expressed their lack of faith in the humanitarian component of the program,
referring to it as a public relations effort in which the increased militarization had only
led to more deaths (Marizco and Ibarra, 2004). After having spent close to US$15 million
on the program, the Tucson sector recorded a record number of deaths in fiscal year 2004.
However, in 2005 the DHS announced that Phase II of the program would be
implemented, touting the successes of the previous year. Alongside efforts to increase
coordination between state, tribal, and local law enforcement, as well as increase USBP
presence and implement further “smart border” technology to help secure the border, it
was stated that:
DHS has again selected the summer months for this program given that the danger
of loss of life is greatest in the desert heat. Besides the additional resources, Phase
II will build on partnerships with the Government of Mexico to create a safer and
more secure border through the Border Safety Initiative and repatriation programs
(Department of Homeland Security, 2005).
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7.2.3 Operation Desert Safeguard
In 2003 the Tucson sector also implemented Operation Desert Safeguard, focusing upon
the space of the ‘West Desert Corridor.’ The program, which was put forward as a
specifically humanitarian response to deaths in this particularly inhospitable region of the
Tucson sector, also spoke to the mantra of “increased militarization equals a reduction in
the loss of life.” The program consisted of an additional 150 Border Patrol agents, an
unstated increase of BORSTAR agents as well as BORTAC agents (the Border Patrol
Tactical Unit), new helicopters and specially equipped Hummer vehicles for search and
rescue operations (referred to as ‘all terrain ambulances’), as well as 150 “hot weather
kits,” which contain Gatorade, electrolyte tablets, water, food, cold packs, and instructions
on how to treat the various stages of heatrelated illness, similar to what humanitarian aid
groups carry (see Customs and Border Protection, 2000). The program was described as
both a binational and multiagency program, involving the Mexican government, fire and
law enforcement personnel in Mexico, the United States Attorney's Office for the District
of Arizona, U.S. state and local agencies, including the Arizona Department of Public
Safety, the Arizona Game and Fish Department, the Pima, Pinal, and Maricopa County
Sheriff's Offices, and the Tohono O'odham Nation's Police Department (Customs and
Border Protection, 2003b). Added to this was the involvement of the then Bureau of
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), “contributing Special Agents, Detention
and Removal support, and air assets” (ibid).
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The combination of new technology, additional agents, and cooperation with ICE and
several local law enforcement agencies, demonstrated clearly the focus upon
militarization and interdiction with a presupposed humanitarian outcome. In an interview
with National Geographic in 2003 regarding Operation Desert Safeguard, Joseph Nevins
argued that the net outcome of this program and other similar initiatives was to push
people further into remote desert corridors, reducing the likelihood of their apprehension,
but increasing deaths, stating that:
This announcement is sort of an old game… Every summer lots of people end up
dying in the desert and every summer some new plan is announced to save lives,
which actually makes the border deadlier (in Meek, 2003).
The program did however include the implementation of 20 emergency rescue beacons, a
more clearly humanitarian component to the program. The rescue beacons, which now
number approximately 22 within southern Arizona, including on the Tohono O’odham
reservation, can be pressed by a stranded person or group, and will lead to the dispatch of
BORSTAR. Luis Alberto Urrea, in his novel The Devil’s Highway (2005), which recounts
the deaths of 14 men in the Sonoran desert in a single day, describes the rescue beacons:
Agent John Bergkretter designed a lifesaving tower. It was an engineering marvel.
Thirty feet tall, with a crown of aluminum reflectors hanging like fishing lures and
flashing in the sun, each tower has a beacon that flashes every ten seconds. Visible
day and night. Each tower is powered by a solar panel and a battery. On the pole,
there are signs with illustrations, in Spanish and English (p.213).
The towers have led to the rescue of many migrants stranded in the desert since their
implementation, while new towers are periodically added to the desert landscape. They
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have also been used by humanitarian aid workers, themselves in need of assistance, as one
CBP press release noted, no doubt to the amusement of Border Patrol agents (Customs
and Border Protection, 2006). The towers however, also lead to the apprehension and
deportation of migrants in distress, thus often resulting in a reluctance for some to use
them. As Volunteer D reflected:
The Border Patrol put them [emergency beacons] in there over the last couple of
years. There’s one in Brown Canyon, and one on the east side of [highway] 286.
And the Border Patrol likes to take credit for them saving lives, which I’m sure
they have saved lives. We did hear a story about a young woman who was reported
missing. We went out and searched for her. Subsequently we found out that she did
find her way to one of those poles, pushed a button, and she was rescued, then
detained at the border.
7.2.4 Placing 911 capability on surveillance towers
During the summer months of 2008, and in response to the growing recognition that
migrants were often dying due to isolation from necessary services, Pima County
supervisors requested that the DHS place 911capability on their soon to be installed
surveillance towers. A common occurrence for USBP and humanitarian aid groups alike
was to encounter an individual or group of migrants who had left a person or persons
behind due to an illness or injury rendering them unable to continue to walk. When asked
to describe where they had last seen this member of their group, it was common that they
were unable to give a very accurate location. Due to the lack of landmarks in the desert,
relative newness to the region, or having crossed during the night, amongst other factors,
migrants are often hard pressed to recall much more than the most simple of spatial
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locators. This would lead to oftentimes lengthy and ineffective searches, and in turn a
greater risk of death for those left behind as the time to assistance grew.
With the proposed addition of surveillance towers to the initial 12 towers that had been
tested in the Tucson sector under SBInet (see Chapter 4), and with the capability through
new technology to allow 911 to be called in a region with littletono cell phone reception,
Pima County supervisors, as well as the USBP, argued that adding this service would
provide a humanitarian service, reducing the likelihood of deaths in areas where the
towers are located (McCombs, 2008f). This proposal came alongside the stipulation that
no other cell phone service would be possible from the towers, ensuring that coyotes and
drug smugglers would be unable to make calls. In total there would be 23 towers that
would support the 911 service dotted throughout the landscape. BORSTAR agents,
responsible for conducting search and rescue operations for migrants in distress, noted
that many searches were initiated from receiving a 911 call forwarded from the nearest
county’s sheriffs department (Echávarri, 2008). Further, in the summer of 2008, it was
reported that BORSTAR paramedics had received a 200 percent increase in the number
of cell phonegenerated calls for help (Associated Press, 2008). There was recognition
then of the importance for the ability to call 911 for those in distress crossing in the
desert, however the lack of cell phone service in such a remote region often made this
impossible.
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The proposal for the extended 911 service was met with mixed responses by local
humanitarian aid groups, who voiced their opinions in local media and to the USBP.
Some groups, such as Humane Borders, stated that this was an essential service that
should be implemented immediately in order to save lives in the desert. Since 2005,
Humane Borders had led a campaign calling for the inception of such capabilities,
recognizing that many deaths in the borderlands occur in regions where there is no cell
phone reception. Alongside Humane Borders’ efforts to map migrant deaths in the U.S.
Mexico borderlands, the group has also mapped cellphone coverage within the west
desert region of southern Arizona, demonstrating the lack of coverage in areas of high
death tolls (see appendix F). Others were more apprehensive to the proposal. As stated by
Walt Staton, a No More Deaths volunteer, in the Arizona Daily Star, the adding of 911
capability to the towers was akin to “admitting that their [USBP] border enforcement
strategy is placing people's lives in danger" (McCombs, 2008f). This was further backed
by the Samaritans, who believed that the 911 service would allow USBP agents to stake
out the surveillance towers and apprehend migrants attempting to call for help. A
suggestion made by No More Deaths and Samaritans was for separate 911 towers to be
constructed, independent of the controversial surveillance towers being implemented as
part of SBInet, however this was judged to be too costly and unnecessary by both Pima
County and the USBP. The division in responses between the three groups was not an
uncommon occurrence around such issues, particularly when it was believed that one
group, or individuals within, were attempting to side with the USBP or DHS, lending the
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law enforcement agencies further credibility. In a conversation about the inception of 911
on the towers, and humanitarian aid groups’ response to this proposal, a volunteer with
No More Deaths referred to the difficulty of negotiating such relationships with the
government in trying to mitigate deaths in this region:
And it’s really been, it’s been an ongoing debate amongst all the humanitarian
groups in the region, in southern Arizona, some of them have really made the
decision that the way to go is to be as friendly as possible to the Border Patrol, with
the hope that by doing so, they will gain access and be able to both reform the
agency and their practices, as well as be able to cooperate on projects like putting
out emergency beacons out in the desert. Like Humane Borders [for example], they
have distanced themselves from anyone who is critical of the Border Patrol,
because they feel they have a working relationship with them, and are then able to
cooperate with them on things like the rescue beacons. And it’s been a constant
debate between the Samaritans, and No More Deaths, and Green Valley
Samaritans, and people in Cochise County [Citizens for Border Solutions], of how
to negotiate that relationship with the government [Volunteer C].
Furthermore, a closer analysis of the tower locations demonstrates the lack of
effectiveness that such capabilities would provide. The large majority of the towers are
dispersed in an area along the border, generally less than 5 miles from the international
boundary. Though many migrants do run in to trouble in this area, which is also typically
remote, few towers are placed deeper into the Tucson sector, at points where migrants
have been walking for many days. This area is also notoriously rugged, with mountains
and canyons dotting the landscape, reducing the ability for access from emergency
services.
7.3 USBP press releases: deploying humanitarian discourse in the media
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Over the past several years, from 20052009, I have maintained a content analysis of
articles relating to the U.S.Mexico border in daily newspapers, most notably the L.A.
Times, New York Times, Tucson Citizen, and the Arizona Daily Star, as well as the
Tucson Weekly. The Arizona Daily Star has been of particular interest due to its
geographic focus (Tucson and southern Arizona), and most specifically its online archive
of border related articles and reporting. Recognizing the importance of border issues to
its readership, the Star has compiled several special investigative reports and stories, and
an online border death database, along with its almost daily reporting on the border (see
www.azstarnet.com/sn/border). During 2008, shortly before I was to return to Tucson and
southern Arizona to conduct fieldwork and volunteer with humanitarian aid groups, a
new aspect to this reporting had begun. Around the month of March, not long before the
deadliest summer weather was to descend upon southern Arizona, the USBP began to
submit weekly (or more frequent) press releases to the Daily Star, which was confirmed
to me in an interview with the Star’s border reporter (personal communication with Brady
McCombs, 07.04.08). Given the Daily Star’s limited budget, such press releases provided
material for the daily newspaper without the need for dedicating any resources, and so
were welcomed by the paper.
These press releases contained a notably ‘humanitarian’ angle to them, predominantly
focusing upon two aspects: the saving of illegal migrants and recovery of bodies, and the
apprehension of drug smugglers and/or their cargo. Of interest here is the focus upon the
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‘saving of lives’, a term that was deployed frequently within these press releases. General
locations of where such rescues took place were typically given, the rescues often
occurring within the Tohono O’odham reservation, or other remote areas where
humanitarian aid groups are often unable to enter, such as Organ Pipe National Park.
Articles also made mention of USBP agents saving individuals and groups who had been
abandoned by their coyote, placing blame on these smugglers for having led migrants into
such situations that required them to be saved, and then abandoning them. This is not a
particularly new tactic of the USBP and U.S. government, who since the rapid rise in
demand for smugglers after more recent militarization strategies had made it too difficult
to cross accompanied, typically framed such smugglers as almost entirely to blame for
migrant deaths and abuses. This leveling of blame at smugglers however is not limited
solely to the USBP and other government agencies, with the media, as well as academics
also making such connections (see for example Nevins, 2008).
The work that these articles do, regardless of how many lives were apparently saved by
the USBP, is to portray a distinctly humanitarian basis to the work of this law
enforcement agency, typically to a public audience who do not live in direct proximity to
the border. With relatively little representation of voices from humanitarian groups in
local or national media, the voice of the USBP and DHS is most notable regarding their
work to mitigate deaths. Press releases of this nature are certainly not only limited to
avenues such as the Arizona Daily Star, often being published on the Customs and Border
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Protection website, as well as in other daily newspapers, particularly in southwest border
regions, though with less frequency than what has been seen in the Daily Star.
The significance of their publication within the Daily Star, which maintains one of the
highest circulation rates in southern Arizona, was apparent to those involved with
humanitarian groups in this region. This was seen as a specific strategy by the USBP to
claim a space of legitimacy within wider debates over the need for humanitarian aid in
the southern Arizona borderlands. The press releases, therefore, were viewed as an active
assertion by the USBP to citizens living in this region that their work in saving lives was
sufficient in reducing deaths within the Tucson sector, and that effective measures had
been applied to do so. In response, during the summer of 2008, No More Deaths began a
media workinggroup to consider ways they could better maintain a voice in local and
national media outlets. Although humanitarian aid groups like No More Deaths, along
with Samaritans and Humane Borders – as well as other immigrant rights groups active in
Tucson – were frequently interviewed by the Daily Star, and many hundreds of other
media outlets, the emphasis of the workinggroup was on presenting press releases that
specifically stated their successes in saving lives. The outcome was seen in such articles
as “Border volunteers rescue stricken Mexican” (McCombs, 2009c), in which No More
Deaths was able to specifically state their direct role in reducing deaths in the desert
through their rescue efforts. Against the increasingly wellfunded DHS, it is difficult for a
grassroots volunteerbased organization to maintain a notable countervoice to that of the
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USBP and similar agencies. In interviews with No More Deaths volunteers who were
been involved in the media campaign, they acknowledged this positionality:
We know the odds are stacked against us in the P.R. camp, and in the national
security framework there are plenty of things getting out there that make it seem
natural for people to be suffering and dying like this, that it’s inevitable [Volunteer
A]
Right now I think the Border Patrol is the voice that’s getting heard, much more so
than we are. And I think that you have to make a really concentrated effort to get
our voices heard, and to make the point that people are dying, how many have died,
and how many bodies are not ever found…[ ] Like there was a Humane Border’s
volunteer who found a body a couple of days ago, and we don’t hear about that
[Volunteer D].
Although the presence of No More Deaths and other’s direct voice within the media may
be limited in regards to the USBP and DHS, the efforts of both humanitarian and law
enforcement groups to present their versions of the truth in the press, demonstrate further
the contested nature of humanitarianism surrounding undocumented migration in this
region. As Magaña states in her study of the media’s portrayal of undocumented
immigration and deaths in the borderlands, “Ultimately at the center of this political field
and its production is not the individual migrant, but the legitimacy of claims to control
people and space” (2008, p.184).
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7.4 Extraterritorial practices: interior repatriation and lateral
repatriation
Customs and Border Protection (CBP), under the DHS, have applied a number of extra
territorial practices to further confound efforts of undocumented migrants to return in to
the U.S., including the use of repatriation flights as well as lateral repatriations. On June
9, 2004, through an agreement with the Mexican government, the Interior Repatriation
Program (IRP) was implemented (NuñezNeto, 2005). These voluntary repatriation
flights to Mexico City and Guadalajara are offered to ‘noncriminal’ migrants from
Mexico free of charge, allowing them to return much closer to their hometowns in
southern Mexico. It has been noted however that this option is not entirely voluntary in its
nature, given lack of access to a fair trial and the alternative of possible detention for
those who refuse.
The program, also known as ‘deep repatriation,’ is specifically targeted upon the space of
the Sonoran desert, within the Tucson sector (Dear and Burridge, 2005). Flights leave
twice daily from Tucson International Airport, one of the only international flights
operated from this airport, and are offered to those who are supposedly deemed ‘atrisk’
by the USBP, due to issues of age, physical condition, or travel status that may add to the
possibility of their death should they attempt to cross in the desert once more (U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 2007). During the summer of 2004, it was
reported that approximately 2500 Mexican nationals were deported through interior
repatriation, at a cost of US$13 million (NuñezNeto, 2005). By 2008, it was found that
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the program, run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement since 2005, had cost US$51
million to operate over the four year period, and had deported over 64 000 persons, or
about 20 percent of all Mexican nationals apprehended in the Tucson sector during this
time (McCombs, 2008h). While a program designed to reduce recidivism rates, by
deporting migrants a significantly greater distance from the border, and thus increasing
the costs and time in making a return trip, the program was most commonly touted as
being in the migrants’ best interest, through its humanitarian outcomes. Kelly Nantel, the
press secretary for ICE, regarding the deportations through the IRP in the first two weeks
of the 2008 program, stated in an interview with the Arizona Daily Star:
“That's 3,600 individuals who we know are not subject to extreme heat in the
desert, to traffickers and smugglers who don't have their safety in mind… We've
seen smugglers and traffickers right there at the border who are only interested in
making a buck, waiting to see if they can exploit the individuals” (in McCombs,
2008h).
Within the interview, she suggests also that through the interior repatriation program,
migrants’ well being is of primary concern, and is addressed by ICE through its operation
of the flights:
"We could be not taking into account that it reaches temperatures of 120 degrees or
higher" in the border desert, Nantel said. "But we do because we recognize that
there are human beings involved in this process and it's critical we take care of
them" (McCombs, 2008h).
While the program’s humanitarian concerns are lauded by ICE, CBP and DHS officials,
little concern is afforded to the fact that in general, this program simply inconveniences
migrants, and may actually increase their exposure to lifethreatening hardships, by
ensuring they must repeat their journey through Mexico once more, before even reaching
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the border and the many days of walking in the desert that follow. Perhaps even more
condemning of the programs supposed humanitarian reasoning, were findings that deaths
had not decreased at all during the time of the IRP’s operation. The Arizona Daily Star
compiled data on deaths for the summer periods of 20012003, previous to the program’s
implementation, and contrasted those with deaths during 20042007 when the IRP was in
operation. It was found that in the 362 days during 20042007 that the program had
operated, offering the voluntary flights, 342 undocumented migrant bodies were
recovered within the Arizona borderlands. Meanwhile, chief of the USBP Tucson sector,
Robert Gilbert, asserted that through the implementation of the IRP “[c]ombined with our
humanitarian efforts, deaths declined by 19 percent during 2008” (Gilbert, 2009).
For those who refuse this service, and many others who are not given the option, the use
of lateral repatriation is also used to create greater headaches in attempting to cross once
more. Starting in September 2003, the Lateral Repatriation Program (LRP) was initially
implemented for 23 days and deported migrants apprehended in the west desert, within
the Tucson sector, to south Texas (Guerette, 2004). Migrants have relayed to volunteers
working with No More Deaths and other organizations that instead of being deported
close to where they crossed or were apprehended, they were instead bussed many hours to
other ports of entry in Texas and California, before being deported back in to Mexico
(Scharf, 2006). In much the same manner as the IRP, lateral repatriation was also
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described as being in the migrants’ best interest, as the following statement from a CBP
press release demonstrates, regarding the program’s operation in 2008 under a new name:
The Alien Transfer Exit Program safely returned 5,380 illegal aliens through ports
of entry in California [from Arizona]. This program safely removed aliens from the
waiting hands of the smugglers who would certainly force them to endure several
days in the harsh environment in another attempt to illegally cross the border only
to face certainty of arrest by Border Patrol agents (Customs and Border Protection,
2008).
By the close of fiscal year 2008, it was reported that approximately 10 000 Mexican
nationals had been deported from Arizona to California via lateral repatriation
(McCombs, 2009a). Volunteers staffing border aid stations at various ports of entry in
southern Arizona/northern Sonora, where upwards of 1500 migrants a day can be
deported at any one port, also frequently witness the deportation of separated family
members, where one member is returned later than another, or is sent to a different port of
entry. This practice of lateral repatriation and changing locations for deportation can
make it particularly difficult for humanitarian organizations who set up reception
programs on the Mexican side of the border at the official ports of entry. Groups such as
Citizens for Border Solutions and No More Deaths, along with Mexican partners, who
operate at the Mariposa, Agua Prieta, and Naco ports of entry, would frequently cite
frustration at these practices, in which deportation levels could go from somewhere in the
range of one thousand people per day, to only a few hundred or less, leaving volunteers to
wonder where everyone else was being deported, and in what condition.
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In a June 2008 meeting that I attended with the Mexican Consulate in Agua Prieta,
Mexico, involving several organizations concerned with the wellbeing of migrants, the
humanitarian aid group Citizens for Border Solutions, which operates a migrant resource
center on the Mexicanside of the border in Naco, noted the impacts of this practice. For
the month of March 2008, they provided their services to 1039 migrants who visited the
center. However in April, only 62 migrants came through the center. By the close of May,
580 had requested assistance. Though not every person deported visits the center, and
some months are busier than others for deportations due to various factors such as
climate, the stark contrast in numbers very clearly demonstrated the effect of the Border
Patrol’s practice of rapidly shifting deportation routes with no warning, through policies
such as lateral repatriation, as noted by the Naco migrant shelter’s coordinator at the
meeting.
While the LRP program was promoted as a humanitarian effort to stop migrants
reconnecting with their coyote and crossing within desert corridors soon after they had
been deported, thus reducing deaths, not unlike interior repatriation efforts, no systematic
studies have been conducted to determine if any real impact on the death toll has
occurred. Further, although extraterritorial practices such as interior and lateral
repatriation, in which migrants are removed far from the Tucson sector, are claimed as
humanitarian, little is also known of the deaths that occur after people are deported. Yet
evidence from migrant aid stations in Nogales and elsewhere within Mexico, suggests that
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many are deported with lifethreatening injuries that may never be addressed adequately,
due to lack of access to necessary medical aid and strains upon bodies from walking
many days in the desert. One of the most common illnesses encountered by humanitarian
groups when providing aid in the desert was diabetes, with many migrants having gone
for hours or days without necessary medication. These hardships have untold outcomes
on persons, if not immediately in the desert, then at some point in the future.
7.5 Citizen border patrols and the adoption of humanitarianism
Southern Arizona is also well known for a particular kind of actor within the U.S.Mexico
borderlands, one that has a long history in this region. Vigilante groups and hostile
ranchers have made headlines for many years regarding their treatment of undocumented
migrants crossing through their land, or in areas in which vigilante groups patrol (see for
example Chavez, 2008; Doty, 2009; Vanderpool, 2009). Many also hint that there is an air
of complicity from law enforcement agencies in this region, including the U.S. Border
Patrol. In 2002, the Border Action Network (BAN), a nonprofit organization based in
Tucson working around immigration rights and advocacy, released the report Hate or
Heroism: vigilantes on the ArizonaMexico border, noting this implicit support by local
and federal agencies of vigilante groups. The report recognized the role of border
militarization efforts in magnifying concerns surrounding undocumented immigration in
the region, and the various actors involved, particularly in the eastern portion of southern
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Arizona, which is comprised of significantly more private property than in the western
portion:
Because of increased border militarization, immigration routes have been
compressed into rural southern Arizona. This has created a situation in Cochise
County that is untenable for immigrants, local residents, human rights advocates,
and for antiimmigration advocates alike (p.1).
The report by BAN appeared around the same time that the Civilian Homeland Defense,
led by Chris Simcox, was beginning to develop, and only a few years later had led to the
formation of the now globallyknown ‘Minutemen.’ Although Minutemen chapters now
appear across the U.S., and a series of factional divides have led to several formations
under slightly differing names (see Loyd and Burridge, 2007), southern Arizona is best
known for being the place in which the Minutemen began in 2005, followed soon after by
a series of citizen ‘border patrol’ actions. Since then, citizens from within Arizona, and
across the U.S., have come to this region of the border to do the job they feel the
government has failed at doing: securing the border. Although a recent development, as
Chavez (2008) notes, the Minutemen have developed out of a long history of vigilantism
in the southern Arizona borderlands:
The Minuteman Project’s enlistment of citizens to conduct surveillance along the
border in Arizona is a logical consequence of this decadeslong maelstrom of
rhetoric associating Mexican immigration with narratives of threat, danger,
invasion, and destruction of the American way of life (p.34).
7.5.1 Citizen border patrols within the Altar Valley
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The Altar Valley, in which humanitarian directaid groups predominantly patrol, is also
known for its presence of vigilante groups. In particular, the Minutemen Civil Defense
Corps (MCDC), including their Tucson and Green Valley chapters, has been active in this
region for several years, beginning their patrols in 2006. Gatherings of the MCDC are
typically witnessed at key locations, including in the town of Amado, close by to the I19
freeway, and outside of the Longhorn Grill, a particularly distinctive building due to its
large cattle skull design. However, volunteers of humanitarian aid groups rarely reported
any encounters with this group. This was not due to the lack of presence from vigilante
groups, but rather from the MCDC’s specific strategy of setting up their ‘border watch’
stations on private ranch land. In particular, the group would conduct its operations on
ranches such as the Anvil Ranch, long known for its hostility towards undocumented
migrants crossing through their land (see Lydersen, 2005; Taylor, 2008; Doty, 2009).
The MCDC, and similar Minutemen/vigilante organizations, have received significant
coverage both in academic circles and from the media. Academic studies have focused
upon their formation and operation at the border and in the interior of the U.S. (Taylor,
2008; Doty, 2009; Lyall, forthcoming), racism exhibited by the group (Kil and Menjívar,
2006), ability to pressure the government, largely through their media presence
(American Civil Liberties Union, 2006; Chavez, 2008), and several other facets of this
recent resurgence of vigilante activity. It has also been noted that vigilante groups
concerned with stopping illegal immigration are not new, with various incarnations of
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such groups being seen, particularly around the time of Proposition 187 in California,
including the ‘Light up the Border’ campaign, as well as the Ku Klux Klan and other
white supremacist groups’ earlier border patrol campaigns (Palafox, 2000; Nevins, 2002;
Purcell and Nevins, 2005).
Within this research then, there is not the need to recap the operation of such groups in
detail. In part this is due to the overwhelming attention paid to these groups that I do not
seek to further; groups which in general have declined significantly in their importance
and overall numbers of volunteers or members since 2005 and 2006. Vigilante groups,
Minutemen and otherwise, as well as notoriously violent ranchers such as the Barnett
family, are however still active particularly within southern Arizona (Chavez, 2008;
Taylor, 2008). While their mediagrabbing and betterdocumented activities have been
researched, I want to address one important gap – the supposed humanitarianism of
vigilante groups concerned with stopping undocumented persons crossing the border.
In part due to perceptions of the MCDC as a violent and racist organization, and in efforts
to distinguish themselves from other Minutemen organizations that had come under
intense scrutiny for their actions, chapters active within the Altar Valley began to promote
their work as humanitarian, particularly during the summer season. While humanitarian
aid groups appeared to be gaining wider acceptance by local communities, such as in
Arivaca, the MCDC was encountering greater hostility, with some business owners
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chasing them away when they attempted to congregate (Norrell, 2007). Similar to USBP
and BORSTAR efforts, the MCDC took the ‘firm but compassionate’ approach, by
reporting to the media and on their websites that they were conducting a humanitarian
mission (see for example Coolican and Navidi, 2008; Ong Hing, 2008). Lance Altherr,
the leader of the Tucson Chapter of the MCDC, has frequently cited the effectiveness of
their more recently developed ‘search and rescue’ operations. Recounting one of these
missions on the MCDC website, Altherr wrote:
…we spotted an illegal along the side of hwy 286. Our State Director Stacey
O'Connell and one of the Search and Rescue team members quickly came to his
aid. He was ready to give up, as his feet were blistered and swollen. While they
waited for Border Patrol to arrive, they gave him water and preformed first aid on
his feet. There where [sic] blisters from his toes to his heels on both feet, and they
had burst. His feet were swollen. His feet were cleaned by the Minutemen on scene
and the wounds were disinfected. The Illegal Alien was amazed when he learned
that is [sic] was the Minutemen that were assisting him with his medical
problems… Just a few examples of how we are helping save lives, and being
compassionate, while helping secure our borders (Altherr, 2006).
Lawrence Taylor (2008) who has also written on the operation of humanitarian directaid
groups (see Chapter 2), attended MCDC trainings and operations conducted from the
Anvil Ranch, located in the Altar Valley of southern Arizona. He recounts the volunteer
training, in which the rules of (non)engagement were stated:
The volunteers were not to engage with or even approach ‘illegals.’ If the latter
were in need – as was often the case – of food or water, the volunteers were to put
bottles of water or food bars on the ground and then retreat a few paces, rather than
make any contact (p.96).
While the benefit of the doubt may be afforded that these groups are indeed providing aid
to those they encounter during their civilian border patrols, the motivations of such
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actions are certainly questionable, as well as the effectiveness of giving basic aid followed
by “retreating a few paces.” Importantly, it has been well documented that the presence of
Minutemen and other civilian border patrol groups operate on wellknown trails that are
heavily trafficked by undocumented migrants. In an interview with John Chamblee of the
Center for Applied Spatial Analysis (CASA), involved with mapping migrant corridors
and deaths in southern Arizona in collaboration with Humane Borders, it was noted that
once word has spread between coyotes regarding the presence of such groups, migrant
paths will alter to avoid detection by these civilian patrols, leading migrants into more
arduous terrain which ultimately creates increased hardship, as the time spent in the
desert attempting to hike north extends (personal communication with John Chamblee,
11.03.08). While the MCDC and others may provide aid, their impact is typically to shift
migration routes to less direct and dangerous paths.
In interviews with directaid groups, and while on patrol, I discussed with several
volunteers the impact of these vigilante groups upon the operation of humanitarian aid.
The general response, in contradiction to the many media reports that suggest their
presence is continuous and highly visible, was that they had rarely, if ever, come in to
contact with specific vigilante organizations, and that more commonly it was disgruntled
ranchers:
I haven’t really interacted much with the Minutemen very much here…[ ] In terms
of vigilante groups like that, who have come down here to patrol the border, our
experience is that if they come, they greatly exaggerate their numbers, and they
come for a week in April and a week in October before it becomes too hot or too
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cold. So they don’t disrupt our work very much, because our work consists of
hiking pretty far in, and going to really remote places [Volunteer A].
The impact of vigilante groups upon that of humanitarian aid volunteers then, appears
minimal in their daytoday operation. Most battles waged against the directaid groups
took place in the media and through online discussion boards, such as in response to
articles published on the Arizona Daily Star website and similar news sites. From my
reading of these comments – typically over 100 comments were lodged each time the
Daily Star posted an article that made mention of humanitarian groups – I found that the
most common response by those who identified as vigilante group members, or
sympathizers, was that the aid given by these humanitarian groups was not only illegal,
but that it was providing false hope to border crossers, and thus the humanitarian aid
groups were guilty of leading people to their deaths. In response to an article in the Daily
Star regarding Humane Borders’ request to place more water stations on the Buenos Aires
National Wildlife Refuge (a site of many bordercrossing related deaths; see Chapter 5),
one comment stated:
Keep arresting the water carriers, AND remove the SOS alarms in the desert. That
will stop a lot of the illegal flow. These people who put these water stations in the
desert should be arrested and charged for aiding and abetting criminal activity
(‘Mack S.’ in McCombs, 2009e).
Comments such as the one cited above, were certainly not unique in their critique of
Humane Borders and other aid groups. Rarely, if ever, were such critiques, however,
aimed at the Minutemen or the USBP for their implementation of humanitarian aid
policies. Similarly, Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, in a radio interview
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in 2005, demonstrated his support for the Minutemen while discrediting the work of
humanitarian aid groups in almost the same breath, stating that the humanitarian’s
provision of water in the borderlands was a system “set up to really invite people to come
in here illegally, and that has to stop” (Nicholas and Salladay, 2005). What distinguished
these differing efforts to provide aid was that the Minutemen and USBP did so as an
afterthought and only through exceptional necessity. That humanitarian groups were
providing aid, while supporting the believed right to freedom of movement, led to such
widespread critiques that they were simply ‘aiding and abetting criminal activity.’
7.5.2 Sabotage of humanitarian aid by civilian border patrols
Vigilante groups and frustrated ranch owners have also been associated with sabotage of
humanitarian efforts by local aid groups, in Arizona as well as in California, through the
destruction of permanent water stations, and by ‘staking out’ these sites of water
provision (see for example Menjívar, 2007). Though not always directly attributable to
organized vigilante groups, responsibility for sabotage of the water stations was at times
believed to be carried out by these groups, including threats that they had poisoned the
water supplies (see Raftery, 2008). The most common practice of sabotage of water
however, was the slashing of gallon jugs left behind by No More Deaths and Samaritans
volunteers. On numerous occasions volunteers would find caches of water they had
placed on desert trails a few days previous with slashes in the bottom of the bottles to
drain the water out, the caps often still in place and sealed (see figure 7.1). In Cochise
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County, on the eastern edge of the Tucson sector, known for antiimmigrant militias and
ranchers such as the Barnett family, water stations were sabotaged or stolen so frequently
that they were moved a mile or two south in to Mexico. The water stations were therefore
set up within view from the U.S., but on Mexican soil.
Figure 7.1: A gallon water jug left by humanitarian aid groups, with slash in the
bottom to drain water (shown in red); Altar Valley, June, 2008 (photo by author).
On a particularly hot morning in June, 2007, I rode along with volunteers from Agua
Prieta, Mexico, to fill the water stations located on Mexican territory. The Centro de
Rehabilitacion y Recuperacion para Enfermos de Drogadiccion y Alcoholismo
(CRREDA), is an entirely nonprofit grassroots organization located within the border
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states of Mexico, with 13 centers in total. CRREDA #8 in Agua Prieta, through funding
from several organizations in the U.S. and Sonora, Mexico, volunteer to maintain the
water stations under the name Agua Para la Vida (Marcus, 2005; see figure 7.2). Though
located on the Mexican side of the border, many migrants have already walked for a day
or more from the nearest highway before crossing the border (see also Cornelius, 2001).
Given the desert landscape of this region, and the long walk ahead, water is already in
need by this point.
Figure 7.2: One of several water stations maintained by Agua Para la Vida;
Sonora, Mexico, 2007 (photo by author).
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Although vigilante groups and antiimmigration advocates had been involved in sabotage
of water stations, and commonly critiqued humanitarian directaid groups for their work,
it may also be seen that both vigilante and humanitarian groups share some distinctive
commonalities. Though with a different emphasis, both groups aim to specifically create
a wider sense of awareness of the situation at the border, albeit with different reasoning
about what the issue was: the common thread between the two groups is the belief in the
failure of the government to respond appropriately. As Chavez (2008) notes in his study
of the ‘spectacle’ of the Minutemen in Arizona:
The organizers and sympathizers of the Minutemen Project viewed its activities as
a stand against the destruction of the nationstate symbolized by the inability of the
state to control the flow of unauthorized border crossers (p.44).
Sharing the common strategy of direct action (see my discussion of this practice in
Chapter 3), both vigilante and humanitarian aid groups have taken to the space of the
Sonoran desert to contest the government’s perceived failure to either secure the U.S.
Mexico border or offer adequate protection to those crossing, and in some instances,
whether implicitly or explicitly, doing both.
Recognizing also the influence of a long history of vigilantism in this region, as discussed
earlier, some similarities may be drawn in relation to the significantly placedbased
activism of organizations and social movements in this region, in which grassroots
organizing around undocumented immigration has situated itself for several decades.
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These seemingly dialectic groups then, share a long and uneasy history within the
common space of the Sonoran desert. The contested nature of this space, alongside the
operation of several other government actors including the USBP, and land management
organizations like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Forest Service, combined
with the funneling of migration in to this desert corridor, ensure that these claims to
legitimacy will continue for the foreseeable future.
7.6 USBP and private companies as a barrier to humanitarian aid:
counterresponses from directaid groups
7.6.1 Douglas and Agua Prieta, JuneJuly 2007
During my first three weeks of volunteering with humanitarian directaid groups in
southern Arizona I was sent out to the border communities of Douglas (U.S.) and Agua
Prieta (Mexico), a few hours drive southeast from Tucson. Alongside two other U.S.
based volunteers, I helped to staff the Centro de Recursos para Migrantes, a migrant
resource center in Agua Prieta, run in part by the binational organization Frontera de
Cristo (see figure 7.3). Several local volunteers from Agua Prieta also staffed the center,
alongside the frequent comings and goings of volunteers sent by No More Deaths. Many
of the local volunteers were mothers who worked in the town, cared for their children, and
committed several hours a week to volunteering at the center.
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The purpose of the center – located only a few feet from the international border and from
the Mexican customs building, from where detained migrants from Central America
caught in Mexico were bused back to Mexico City to be deported – was to welcome
migrants who had been apprehended in the desert and deported. Many had never been to
Agua Prieta before, and were often out of money. The center provides basic amenities:
food, water, coffee, minor first aid, clothing, shoes, socks, and often most importantly
someone to help orient the recently deported migrants as to where they were, and to
where they could find a place to stay. The men could walk to a nearby church that
doubled as a hospice for migrants, women and children were directed to a shelter by day,
and driven by night, and unaccompanied minors were taken to a local YMCA, where their
parents were contacted. For those wanting to return home, they were directed to the
Grupo Beta station across the street, where they could request bus tickets at a 25 percent
discounted price, but that only led south, not laterally across the border, to reduce
attempts of crossing once more in to the United States. Meanwhile, coyotes milled about
close by, but generally respected requests to stay away from the center. Instead they
congregated by the taxi ranks, which I later found out served the primary purpose of
transporting migrants to the outskirts of the city, to attempt crossing through the desert,
often still a day’s walk south of the U.S.Mexico border.
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Figure 7.3: Centro de Recursos para Migrantes; Agua Prieta, Mexico, June 2007
(photo by author).
Typically, I volunteered for an evening shift, from 7pm until 1 or 2am. Thankfully the
heat had often subsided a little by this time within the nonair conditioned and barely
furnished building. At first I was unsure how I would recognize those who had been
deported as distinct from citizens who crossed frequently using border crossing cards,
which allowed them to travel within a certain distance of the border for up to 72 hours,
typically to shop at the nearby Walmart in Douglas or to visit family. “You will know,” a
local volunteer repeated to me. Sure enough I did easily recognize those being deported –
typically wearing all black, shoelaces removed by Border Patrol agents, and a small clear
plastic bag in which their belongings had been returned to them. Volunteers would invite
those who had been deported and marched across the border in to the center, offering
food, water, and coffee, as well as muchneeded socks for those who had been walking in
the desert for several days. At least one bus each evening would typically arrive at the
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border port of entry, and somewhere between 20 and 50 people would exit. Sometimes
several buses would arrive within the space of one evening, on other nights no one would
be deported into Agua Prieta. Each night I would close the center, hoping that I wouldn’t
narrowly miss another bus, and ride my bicycle back across the border to sleep at a
volunteer house in Douglas. Asides from the small inconvenience of the constant
questioning by CBP agents at the port of entry about why an Australian on a bicycle was
in Agua Prieta, and volunteering to provide aid to undocumented migrants, my relative
privilege of possessing the correct documents allowed me to cross back and forth, often
multiple times per day, with little concern.
On several occasions while volunteering at the center, persons within a group, or deported
alone, would require immediate medical care and have to be driven to the local hospital.
Others would refuse aid that was clearly needed, but often unaffordable. Sprained and
broken ankles were most common, while the volunteers knew also that many more did
not speak up about their injuries or illnesses. Although I had previously visited the U.S.
Mexico borderland region, including various border towns on several occasions, and had
read a great deal on the current situation surrounding border militarization and migrant
rights, little had prepared me for this, or for the following months hiking trails and
encountering lost and seriously ill or injured people. I began to question, like many
others, how people could be deported in such shape. How many government and private
agencies had they been passed through in which necessary aid was denied? And what did
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this reflect upon the USBP and other government agencies supposed policy of
humanitarianism?

In discussing the operation of immigration enforcement agencies, alongside other
agencies not previously tasked with policing the borderlands – both federal and non
federal – what Heyman (1999, 2001) has referred to as the ‘local state’ of immigration
control, it is necessary to recognize the various actors that are involved in the provision
and denial of necessary humanitarian aid to undocumented migrants within this region.
This proliferation of enforcement agencies, as I intend to demonstrate within this
research, create unique situations for grassroots directaid groups, who must navigate
various laws, agents, and attitudes towards their work and presence. In the following
chapters I consider in detail the impact of the rapid growth in presence of actors involved
with the interdiction and detention of undocumented migrants, as well as the
implementation of policies that further criminalize their presence. In closing this chapter,
however, I want to provide an analysis of one of the mundane yet important ways in which
these actors, working alongside the USBP and DHS, actively remove the right to aid for
those who require it. While a daily occurrence in the borderlands, and at times a matter of
life and death for those apprehended and detained, these practices occur with little to no
recognition outside of these spaces.
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7.6.2 Wackenhut and the ‘business of detention’
1
Dotted throughout the desert landscape of the Altar Valley where humanitarian aid
groups patrol, Wackenhut
2
buses can be seen waiting for USBP agents to deliver to them
groups of migrants who have been apprehended (see figure 7.4). Replacing the job
previously done by the federallyrun Border Patrol, the initial contract for the private
company Wackenhut was for 100 buses and 270 agents to transport migrants to the border
(Borowitz, 2007). Wackenhut has been contracted by the DHS to transport apprehended
migrants to USBP processing centers, and to then deliver them to the border to be
deported in to Mexico, another outcome of the ongoing privatization within immigration
enforcement along the border. Those working with No More Deaths and Samaritans have
noted a distinct lack of accountability from Wackenhut agents operating the buses, as is
often witnessed when attempting to provide aid to migrants detained on the buses, often
for many hours at a time until the bus is full. Reports from interviewed migrants,
conducted by humanitarian groups, have found that agents will turn off the air
conditioning, alternatively turning it on in winter months or when migrants are wet from
a recent monsoon rain. Water and food is also frequently denied, often to migrants who
have been apprehended after several days walking in the desert without water.
1
‘Business of detention’ refers to a U.S.based online publication of the same name created by reporters
Stokely Baksh and Renee Feltz, which has explored the operation of Wackenhut and other private
contractors involved in the detention and deportation of undocumented migrants, both in the U.S. and
abroad; see www.businessofdetention.com.
2
Wackenhut is now called G4S, however their buses still display the Wackenhut logo, and most groups
active within the borderlands and who work around migrant rights issues refer to the company by its
initial name. Therefore I continue to use Wackenhut within this research.
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Figure 7.4: Wackenhut buses with detained migrants in the town of Amado, close
by to where vigilante groups also congregate; June, 2008 (photo by author).
On March 29 2007, Robert Gilbert became USBP’s Tucson sector chief, replacing Chief
Nicely. Soon after, in November of 2007, Gilbert wrote a memorandum to all patrol
agents and unit supervisors within the Tucson sector that, “civilians are precluded from
providing care and/or food to Border Patrol detainees,” which included those detained on
Wackenhut buses (see appendix L). The memorandum stated that the USBP “recognizes
the humanitarian purpose of immigrant care organizations,” referring directly to No More
Deaths, Samaritans, and concerned local residents, reasoning that food provided from an
‘outside source’ could lead to a detainee becoming ill. The memorandum then proceeded
to argue that:
Agents are to ensure that detainees are not directly contacted by civilians while in
Border Patrol custody, to include the acceptance of consumable items from
civilians for individuals in custody. By doing so the Agency retains a controlled
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environment and better assures that aliens in custody receive any necessary care
and food.
In interviews I conducted with No More Deaths and Samaritans volunteers, as well as
through my observations in the field, questions around challenges of how to provide aid
to migrants – who were actively being detained either by Wackenhut, or by the USBP, but
who had not yet been driven to processing centers – frequently arose. In some situations
volunteers would encounter individuals or groups of migrants in distress before USBP
agents arrived, either by coincidence or after migrants had requested that they call Border
Patrol for them. On other occasions volunteers would encounter groups in the process of
being detained in the desert, or being transferred on to Wackenhut buses. In both
situations, volunteers would be met with differing responses from USBP and Wackenhut
agents. One longterm volunteer articulated that:
Usually with the agents if you come across them, it’s alright, you know. I mean,
sometimes there’s an agent who is real nice, sometimes there’s an agent who is a
real asshole, but usually it’s somewhere in between, and they kind of let us do our
thing, sometimes, and sometimes they are a pain in the ass about it. Of course
lately they have stopped allowing us to give food and water to people in custody,
which has been a huge negative effect on how much good we can do out there in
our opinion, because the Border Patrol or Wackenhut, or whoever it is that is
detaining these people, often don’t give them food or water, or medical attention
[Volunteer B].
Another volunteer recounted their interactions with agents:
I will say, that I think there are some agents that think that being a presence in the
Border Patrol is going to be beneficial, in the sense that they support the
humanitarian concerns. And their thought is that “well at least if I’m there I will be
able to in someway respond on my level.” And so there have been agents who have
come and given us medical supplies and said “I was never here.” Or some people
that have said “there’s a group back there that was scattered, and we know that
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there were two pregnant women” and all those sorts of things. Those things have
happened, but they’re rare [Volunteer A].
In cases where agents were less favorable to humanitarian’s presence and of requests to
provide aid, volunteers found that they must become active advocates for those being
detained, something that was also stressed in the weekly trainings in Tucson for new
volunteers. Through these discussions and while volunteering, I witnessed differing
strategies to overcome agents’ reluctance, particularly after Chief Gilbert’s specific
mandate that under no circumstances were agents to allow aid to be given to those in
detention. In an interview with Volunteer D these strategies were elaborated upon:
[Typically agents] will just say “We’re in the process of processing these people or
rescuing these people, and you’re interfering with our work,” and that’s it…[ ] I
think talking directly to the migrants, to the travelers, and saying “are you thirsty,
are you hungry, are you hurt, or sick?” and then seeing how they respond [is a
useful strategy]. And then trying to interact with the Border Patrol, and saying
“these people haven’t eaten for three days, they need food, they need water, that
one has an injured ankle she needs to get to the hospital.” I think really advocating
for the migrants directly is a good way to interact.
Such efforts to provide aid were used both when dealing with law enforcement agents, as
well as with coyotes who were unwilling to stop their group long enough to receive aid.
By talking directly to those in need of aid, and assuring them that it was okay to speak up
and request food, water, or medical attention – rather than asking an agent or coyote if it
was okay to do so – it was often possible to generate enough responses to overcome
previous denials to provide humanitarian assistance: agents and coyotes would frequently
cede to group demand. On other occasions, volunteers with greater medical training than
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USBP or Wackenhut agents would use their position to assert their right to provide aid to
migrants. Such strategies, however, only met with limited success on most occasions.
At other times, the contradictory nature of border enforcement and humanitarianism
would become exceptionally evident. On more than one occasion, while patrolling with
No More Deaths, the group would be flagged down by an individual who had been
separated from their group. Many related to us a common story: realizing they were lost,
injured, or ill, they had found a road and waited until a car or Border Patrol vehicle would
pass. All too often, agents would drive past, sometimes swerving to avoid them, and
continue on. No one could really offer an explanation why, but the general consensus is
that Border Patrol agents at the end of their shift typically did not want the extra work of
processing a single migrant, or alternatively, that they were only concerned with larger
groups while on patrol. Late one evening near the ghost town of Ruby, only a few miles
north of the border, we witnessed this happen as a migrant unsuccessfully tried to wave
down a USBP vehicle. In the end, a white, middleaged, female volunteer was successful
in getting an agent to stop. Sometimes even giving oneself up to the Border Patrol was not
enough to escape the desert landscape and receive basic aid.
7.7 Summary
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Within this chapter I have argued that the USBP, along with other law enforcement
agencies and civilian border patrol groups, have deployed the concept and practice of
humanitarianism to assert a legitimacy to the space of the borderlands, a practice that has
also been used to delegitimize the role of grassroots humanitarian aid groups. Although
there are several methods in which statesanctioned agencies, tasked with interdicting
undocumented migration in this region, claim their rights and ability to police such space,
the trope of humanitarianism, in official policy, in media discourse, and at times in
practice, is a powerful tool in discrediting grassroots organizations operating without the
support of the state. I have also aimed to demonstrate within this research the methods in
which humanitarian aid by grassroots groups differs to that provided by the state, in that it
seeks to operate as a means of solidarity – though not always successfully, and at times
problematically – rather than as a means of creating a dependent relationship between aid
giver (the state) and receiver (migrant).
While this chapter has provided an analysis and critique of predominantly USBPled
humanitarian efforts, conducted in part through a critical engagement within the space of
the Sonoran desert, I do not wish to discredit the lifesaving work conducted by many
dedicated USBP, BORSTAR, and other agents. As has been discussed, there is a need to
distinguish between departmental policy, often initiated at great distance from the various
spaces of migration and interdiction, with that of individual agents operating on a daily
basis with undocumented migrants. Yet through the evidences derived through the use of
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field work, interviews, volunteering, and witnessing, it is apparent that these agencies
have largely deployed the concept of humanitarianism to address critiques of their
operation and rising death tolls, and to discredit the work and presence of grassroots
organizations. Since the inception of the BSI in 1998, a distinctive break may be seen
then, in which the USBP has more actively asserted its role as a humanitarian
organization, though with little proof of its effectiveness in reducing deaths. Such efforts
to be portrayed as humanitarian however, work to create further contestation within such
spaces of migration, interdiction, and aid.
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Chapter 8: The Production of Contested Spaces within the
Border Landscape
Let me be clear. The answer to the border crisis will never be solved with more
water stations in the desert, however valuable they are in saving lives… This
problem demands an entirely new way of thinking about borders and the nation
state.
Rick UffordChase, founding member of Samaritans and No More
Deaths, 2005, p.6
8.1 Introduction
A series of case studies have been explored in this empirical research, concerned with the
evolution and operation of directaid humanitarian groups within a heavily contested
landscape, and involving a diverse array of actors with whom they negotiated on an
almost daily basis. In this chapter I want to step back from these specific examples and
make a more encompassing analysis of the groups and their operation visàvis the
communities and spaces they are present within. In particular this chapter sets out to
critically examine the geographies and countergeographies of the directaid movement in
order to develop an in depth analysis of the implicit and explicit practices of resistance
that it has created, and its efforts to rewrite the dominant narrative of the space of the
borderlands and promote freedom of movement. Of central concern are issues
surrounding the presence and mobility of these groups in response to the overt as well as
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covert methods of spatial control that present obstacles to, and often criminalize, the work
of directaid humanitarianism.
8.2 Evolution of spatial knowledge and the production of space
The cognitive understandings of the material conditions of the border by grassroots
directaid humanitarian movements have been instrumental to the evolution of these
groups. A developing spatial knowledge has allowed for more effective approaches to
humanitarian aid and in responding to efforts to limit or interdict this aid by law
enforcement and land management agencies. This has resulted in the production of new
spaces and places within the borderlands in efforts to enact counternarratives and
countergeographies within existing territories. However, these spaces remain contested
and are often transitional, overlapping, and frequently coterminous, rather than neatly
defined and clearly visible.
8.2.1 Spatial knowledge
The connection between cognitive and material outcomes produced by state and civil
society in the borderlands showed how spatial knowledge was developed by aid and law
enforcement groups, and led to the production of specific spaces and places. Explicit
efforts to gain detailed spatial understandings of migration, law enforcement, and
militarization within the borderlands have led to unique practices by contemporary direct
aid humanitarian groups, as well as by other agents present within this conflicted
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landscape. Time has been an integral factor in the development of these spatial
understandings. Since the inception of sustained directaid practices within the Tucson
sector in 2000, volunteers have created an exceptionally detailed understanding of the
spaces in which they operate, allowing more efficient practices of aid provision to be
developed from year to year. The use of direct action practices by humanitarian aid
groups has necessarily entailed a direct engagement, on an everyday basis, with the desert
landscape of the Tucson sector, a key site of crossing for undocumented migration. These
uniquely embodied experiences, developed by groups through the hiking of trails,
engaging with a diverse array of actors, and claiming legitimacy for their presence within
highly controlled spaces, have been essential in creating such a critically informed
understanding surrounding migration and efforts to interdict such movement.
In the face of increased funding and a rapidly expanding law enforcement presence,
particularly since the inception of the DHS in 2003, grassroots social movements relying
upon donations and volunteer time have developed a formidable body of spatial
knowledge and awareness. This intimate knowledge has resulted in volunteers frequently
possessing more and better knowledge than most other actors present. Long term
volunteers would often recount stories of helping USBP agents to find their way back to a
trail, or to a vehicle left behind while tracking migrant groups. Millions of dollars of
hightech equipment was at times trumped by the meticulous local knowledge of the
Sonoran desert by grassroots volunteer groups.
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Mapping has been central to the production of spatial knowledge by humanitarian aid
groups. While both short and longterm volunteers have been involved in the production
of mappings, volunteer groups have also drawn upon other resources to inform their
practices. For instance, Humane Borders developed a collaborative relationship with the
Center for Applied Spatial Analysis (CASA) at the University of Arizona in Tucson,
allowing the production of several maps that have been simultaneously used to inform
their operations and as a political organizing tool (Chamblee et al., 2006). GIS mapping
of migrant deaths, water station locations, and cell phone reception, amongst other
information, has allowed the group to speak and operate in a spatially informed manner.
Several years later, retired Geosciences professor Ed McCullough began to train No More
Deaths and Samaritans volunteers in the use of GPS units, in order to produce maps used
when patrolling trails. Unlike the Sanctuary movement that preceded contemporary
directaid groups, who often operated on hunches and word of mouth information to
conduct ‘border runs’ and other practices, these movements have evolved through an
ongoing development of a critical spatial awareness. While not all volunteers are equally
involved in producing and disseminating this spatial information, the sharing of such
knowledge to inform practices of humanitarian aid has spread throughout the entirety of
the movement.
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Directaid humanitarian groups are not the only actors present within the borderlands
with a highly informed spatial awareness. Undoubtedly, the USBP and other units of the
DHS, have extensive information regarding the geography of the borderlands. Although
volunteers, including those primarily involved in the production of maps, speculated
about exactly how much these state agencies knew, it was well understood that they
possessed significant resources and abilities to meticulously map out the dynamic spaces
of migration within the borderlands. Assuredly, USBP and humanitarian aid groups do
however share a similar understanding of the spaces in which they both operate. Some
information is also more valuable to one group than another. As volunteers frequently
noted, it was rare that they would encounter a USBP agent deep on a trail within the
desert. Because these agents knew where trails eventually crossed roads, they often
preferred to instead wait where possible, rather than hike in and then hike out with those
they had apprehended. Volunteers also recognized that USBP agents whom they
encountered on a daily basis typically had little knowledge of the space in which they
were operating. This was in part due to the significant growth in USBP agents since 2003,
and particularly with the addition of 6000 agents to the border between 2006 and the
close of 2008, resulting in a significant number of new agents who had never previously
experienced or lived in the borderlands. Added to this was a USBP policy of relocating
agents frequently, in order to reduce the likelihood of corruption through agent
collaboration with coyotes.
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In sum, spatial knowledge possessed by differing actors within the borderlands, was
produced through diverse means, and often with divergent purposes. This knowledge
developed over time as these actors adapted to migration routes that have shifted in
response to USBP presence and border militarization efforts. Although not a specific
focus of this research, these shifts in migration paths reflect also the developing spatial
knowledges of coyotes and other smugglers operating in the borderlands. These evolving
knowledges therefore inform practices, and consequently shape the differing spaces
produced and reproduced by involved agents.
8.2.2 Spatial outcomes
Throughout my time conducting fieldwork and volunteering with the humanitarian aid
groups, I developed a taxonomy of spaces within this region of intensive law enforcement
and control. Initially, I perceived a dialectic juxtaposition of spaces created within the
borderlands by a diverse set of actors. These dialectic spaces could be seen as those
constructed by law enforcement and land management agencies (state), and those by
humanitarian aid groups (civil society); or alternatively what I term ‘spaces of constraint’
and ‘enabling spaces’.
Spaces of Constraint (state)
• Spaces of interdiction
• Spaces of exclusion/enclosure
• Spaces of surveillance
• Spaces of detention
• Spaces of repatriation
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‘Spaces of constraint’ are those that limit mobility within the borderlands for actors who
did not belong within the border landscape. These spaces of constraint were aimed at
containment, and created and reproduced predominantly by agents of the state. They
consist of the five differing components of space listed above. Some of these are visible
within the Sonoran desert landscape, even though they may be experienced differently by
the diverse agents that pass through them. Spaces of interdiction, for example, include
ports of entry and USBPoperated internal checkpoints. They are relatively fixed and
visible spaces, navigated with relative ease by those with correct documentation; those
without documentation must seek to circumvent or transgress these spaces. Other kinds of
place, while concretely located within localities, may remain relatively invisible, such as
spaces of detention, which include detention centers and prisons, to those who are not
incarcerated within them. Meanwhile, USBP vehicles and privatelyrun buses used for
transporting detainees mark the desert landscape, operating as momentary and transitory
spaces of detention.
In contrast to these relatively fixed spaces, other spaces of containment are less visible
within the border landscape. These include spaces of exclusion/enclosure, surveillance,
and repatriation. Spaces of exclusion and enclosure, while not necessarily providing
complete spatial control, were observed most notably on federallymanaged land, such as
wildlife refuges or the Tohono O’odham reservation, often serving the dual function of
both exclusion and enclosure. While border militarization and law enforcement presence
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was used to funnel migrants in to certain spaces, these spaces often also operate to
exclude certain groups entirely. Humanitarian aid workers, for example, were commonly
excluded, or at risk of being excluded, from intensive spaces of migration, thus frustrating
their efforts to provide aid to undocumented migrants.
Spaces of containment remove mobility through differing practices and are employed by
other nonstate actors in the borderlands. Local community members, including private
land owners and ranchers, are wellknown for their aggression towards migrants and
humanitarian aid volunteers crossing their land. Exclusion and enclosure were reinforced
by vigilante border patrol groups, consisting of local and nonlocal actors, who patrolled
the desert and set up surveillance posts, predominantly on private property. While
unsanctioned in their operations, these actors were at times supported by the State, and
led to further interdiction of migrant groups in transit.
Spaces of surveillance include USBP agent observation, mobile watchtowers, surveillance
towers, ground sensors, and the use of aerial surveillance such as helicopters and light
aircraft, amongst other resources. These typically operate in a supportive role with other
practices of border militarization, to produce spaces of exclusion, funneling migration
paths into more remote desert corridors and away from urban areas and major roads used
to transport migrant groups. Temporary USBP camps and surveillance posts were also
seen in differing locations, used as a deterrent to border crossers and drug smugglers, and
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at times to observe humanitarian aid operations. In contrast, spaces of repatriation
operated on a different scale as extraterritorial practices of spatial exclusion, removing
undocumented persons interdicted within the desert to neighboring borderstates by bus,
laterally, or by ‘deep repatriation’, through the offering of voluntary flights to southern
Mexico.
In contrast to spaces of containment, counterresponses, typically conducted by
humanitarian aid groups and other social movement actors and individuals, produce
‘enabling spaces’. These countergeographies are concerned with promoting and enabling
mobility through the space of the borderlands, and as an effort to protect migrants’ rights
and wellbeing. These predominantly informal spaces are relatively new additions to the
landscape, produced and maintained largely by nonstate actors, or through pressure upon
the State from these actors to create such spaces.
Enabling Spaces (civil society)
• Spaces of respite
• Spaces of resistance
• ‘Deathfree’ zones
• Spaces of mobility
Perhaps most importantly, these enabling spaces consist of sites of ‘respite’. Directaid
humanitarian groups – often referred to as ‘water projects’ – situated within southern
Arizona since 2000, have taken as a primary task the provision of water throughout the
desert landscape. As several members of these groups stated during my involvement
volunteering with them, their goal was to – almost literally – “flood the desert.” Spaces
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and places of respite, sometimes concretely located, other times dynamic in nature, shift
in response to transitory migrant paths. They include; permanent water stations, as
maintained by Humane Borders and some members of the O’odham Nation; caches of
water placed on migrant trails, along with food, clean socks, and other items, by No More
Deaths; and patrol vehicles equipped with water, medical aid, food, and satellite phones
to call emergency services, driven by Samaritans volunteers. Base camps, such as No
More Deaths’ ‘Arc of the Covenant’ camp, also operate as temporary spaces of respite
within the borderlands. These sites were further supported and replicated through the
operation of migrant aid shelters within northern Mexico, typically located closeby to
official ports of entry. These aid stations in Mexico acted as longer term spaces of respite
that provided medical aid, albeit limited to volunteers’ capabilities and resources, along
with the ability for migrants to rest and recuperate. Over the past several years of
operation by directaid groups, these spaces have slowly proliferated throughout the
southern Arizona and northern Sonora landscape. These spaces of respite were also often
located at a distance from migrant trails that traversed the desert landscape. As in the days
of Sanctuary, churches have also become sites of respite, albeit much less frequently after
the arrests of volunteers in 2006. Where possible, transit to hospitals or other sites of
medical aid also operated in this manner.
Spaces of resistance are another essential production aimed at actively enabling mobility
and promoting human rights within the borderlands. These spaces are less concretely
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observable but are produced through a variety of means by humanitarian aid groups,
constructed predominantly through their presence within this highly controlled landscape.
As Pile (1997) notes:
Resistance involves the spatialities of location and boundary formation, but it is
also constituted through the idea of movement – a change from one place on the
map to another, or possibly many others. More often than not, it is mobility that
has been seen as radical and transformative (p.29).
Practices and spaces created by directaid groups, and those concerned with supporting
migrant rights, may not always be seen as outright resistance, and may be difficult to
identify and locate. However, the presence of these groups within the border landscape,
and at other sites related to interdiction and incarceration of migrants, are forms of
contestation that often produce spaces of resistance. Direct acts of resistance by directaid
groups were contrasted also with subtler practices aimed at providing pressure upon the
State to act in a manner more responsible in protecting migrants’ lives and health.
Efforts by humanitarian aid groups also sought to create death free zones, in efforts to
“remove death from the equation” of undocumented migration. While these spaces are
currently perhaps more notional than material they are an intended longterm goal of the
movement throughout the borderlands. The presence of humanitarian aid and the
continual provision of water have worked towards this goal, leading to the production of
safer spaces within routes of migration and transit. While difficult to quantify,
humanitarian aid groups were adamant that their efforts were successful in mitigating
migrant deaths within their spaces of operation. In producing ‘death free zones’, direct
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aid groups saw as essential the promotion of mobility in response to efforts by the USBP
and other law enforcement agencies to restrict movement. This removal of freedom of
movement, volunteers asserted, was a central reasoning behind migrant deaths. Through
their presence and provision of aid in various forms, whether a gallon of water or safe
transit to a hospital, directaid groups sought to promote what they saw as the right to free
movement for undocumented migrants.
8.2.3 The production of coterminous spaces within the militarized border landscape
The spaces discussed above are highly contested, due largely to the fact that they are
frequently coterminous in nature. That is, spaces of constraint and enablement, often
share the same or similar boundaries, at times overlapping or pressing up against one
another. They carry differing purposes and meanings, producing contested narratives. A
central concern of directaid humanitarian groups has been to produce counternarratives
and countergeographies in contrast to the established and statesanctioned control of
space within the borderlands. I view the (at times) divergent geographies of these spaces
as being highly entangled (Pratt, 2008; Routledge and Cumbers, 2009). These entangled
geographies inevitably bring together diverse actors and claims to legitimacy over space.
Over the past several years, townships such as Arivaca, for example, have seen a
confluence of exogenous actors arrive in efforts to maintain or contest existing narratives
within this corridor of migration, interdiction, and death.
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Such entangled geographies also produce different readings of coterminous spaces. This
is further complicated by the frequently shifting roles of actors within these spaces, and
the deployment of particular discursive practices in efforts to legitimate their presence
within them. The USBP and other law enforcement agencies, as well as vigilante groups,
often framed their work as humanitarian in nature, concerned with the welfare of those
they sought to interdict. These practices were contested by humanitarian aid volunteers,
who saw such efforts as largely ineffective afterthoughts by groups who had created the
very situation that led to the need for lifesaving aid. Other sites, such as rescue beacons
located throughout the Sonoran desert, served a dual function of surveillance and respite.
Placed by the DHS and USBP within corridors known for highdeath tolls due largely to
their significant distance from other sites of assistance, often from pressure created by
humanitarian aid and migrant rights groups to do so, they operated both as a means to
rescue and interdict persons. Similarly, repatriation efforts by the USBP were framed
within the media as being a predominantly humanitarianbased response to loss of life
within the borderlands. This extraterritorial practice that sought to remove
undocumented migrants from the sovereign space of the United States was read by
differing actors as both a space of respite as well as one of spatial denial, serving as one
of many examples of such contradictory spaces.
The case study of Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge provided a particularly
poignant example of the contested and coterminous production of space within the
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borderlands region. While U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents and the Department of
the Interior collaborated with USBP and DHS to create a space of interdiction, in
response to the significant number of undocumented migrants and drug smugglers
passing through the remote Refuge’s boundaries, they also presented the Refuge as a
space of respite, arguing that sufficient water sites and rescue beacons had been provided
to ensure the safety of migrants. Meanwhile, FWS officers and other law enforcement
agents have made efforts to exclude humanitarian aid workers from the space of the
Refuge, who argued that there was insufficient aid present. Through the mapping of
migrant deaths on the Refuge, and of the relatively few sites of available water,
humanitarians made claims to maintain their presence within what they saw as a
particularly deadly space.
Spatial knowledge, developed by the diverse actors present within the borderlands,
allowed effective responses and counterresponses to be created. Though humanitarian
groups were becoming increasingly excluded from spaces such as the Refuge, their
intimate knowledge of this place and surrounding areas allowed their continued
contestation over dominant narratives and practices of interdiction. In response, FWS
agents located on the Refuge began to understand more clearly how these ‘water groups’
operated and evolved, and so were effective at times in interdicting their efforts.
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The coterminous and contested nature of many of the spaces produced by law
enforcement and humanitarian aid groups within the borderlands, also led to varying
practices of transgression, often for differing purposes. This included such practices as
the surveillance and raiding of the No More Deaths desert campsite on private property
nearby to the town of Arivaca by USBP agents. While volunteers with No More Deaths
had made efforts to present the campsite as a space of safety, the presence of USBP
agents within this space challenged such notions. Alternatively, humanitarian volunteers
were known to transgress spaces such as BANWR and private property, in their efforts to
ensure necessary aid reached those who required it. These transgressions of space work to
unsettle fixed narratives of these spaces, creating contestation. Such transgressions may
be seen as responses or counterresponses by one group in relation to another, while at
other times they may reflect the difficulties in navigating shifting legal, social, and
physical boundaries in this highly dynamic landscape.
Ultimately, these spaces of constraint and enablement, often coterminous or transitory in
nature, map out across the space of the borderlands, particularly at the local scale.
Divergent actors encounter one another, presenting their claims to legitimacy for being
present within these spaces. These productions of space ensure that the borderlands
remain contested, though certain narratives may dominate over others. These spaces also
expand and connect beyond the borderlands and the desert landscape of southern
Arizona. Courtrooms, and detention sites, as well as Mexican aid stations, or sanctuary
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churches located throughout the U.S. interior, continue these narratives of constraint and
enablement long after migrants have trekked through the borderlands. Other sites, south
of the U.S. border, such as water stations in the Sonoran Desert, and aid shelters in the
towns of Benjamin Hill and Altar, can be read as preventative spaces, where migrants are
provided with clothing, water, and information regarding their rights, before they make
the journey across the line into the United States.
A critical understanding of these cognitive and material outcomes of spatial production
can only be developed through a direct engagement with such actors within these highly
dynamic, and frequently coterminous, spaces. Such spaces of constraint and enablement
are entangled in increasingly complex ways, as counternarratives and counter
geographies continue to develop and evolve. The presence of humanitarian aid groups
within the space of the borderlands, demonstrates a unique way of contesting these
existing practices of spatial control.
8.3 Contesting and supporting nationstate sovereignty
I have sought to understand the ways in which directaid humanitarian groups promoted
freedom of movement, either implicitly or explicitly, through their practices of providing
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aid. What I found was a complex set of responses and beliefs regarding a person’s right to
free movement, nationstate sovereignty, and border militarization practices. In part, this
reflected the diversity found within and between the direct aid organizations, a diversity
that was often not identified by previous academic writing and media accounts. I want to
address some of these differing, and often shifting views on freedom of movement and
nationstate sovereignty, in an effort to understand how the daytoday practices of
providing directaid within the U.S.Mexico borderlands, while not always explicitly
stated, may (or may not) challenge such concepts.
The group Humane Borders most explicitly demonstrated its desire to converse and
cooperate with government officials where possible, believing this would lead to the most
informed and productive means of aid provision. They situated themselves “in a unique
nexus between the secular and the religious along the border and between the activists
and representatives of the government” (Hoover, 2005, p.14). The hierarchical
organization, led by the Rev. Robin Hoover, explicitly sought a nonadversarial approach,
believing this would allow their work to continue most effectively. The siting of Humane
Borders’ permanent water stations on local and federalmanaged lands also required a
close relation with various organizations, including the Pima County Board of
Supervisors, the Bureau of Land Management, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
While Humane Borders, and the organization’s leader Robin Hoover, have repeatedly
stated that their primary concern is with mitigating migrant deaths, their desire to act in a
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nonadversarial manner that does not explicitly challenge the U.S. government’s efforts to
control and militarize their borders was clear. As Hoover stated in his 2005 discussion of
Humane Borders:
Our organization is called Humane Borders, not open borders, or no borders, or
something else like that. While there may be a time when the US moves further
toward a European Union approach to borders with neighbors, borders can, and do,
mean something. They have to do with authority and jurisdiction, thus they are
primarily political (p.8).
Expanding upon this particular understanding of borders and spatial control, Hoover
continues:
We [Humane Borders] agree that as a sovereign nation, the US has the right to
control the border, who crosses it, when, where, and under what circumstances.
What we disagree on is how border control is achieved and at what human toll
(p.10).
Hoover’s statements ignore the ongoing operation of migration controls within the EU,
particularly at its exterior boundaries, creating what many refer to as a ‘Fortress Europe’
condition (Leitner, 1997; Lahav, 1998; Lahav and Guiraudon, 2000). However, most
enlightening to the beliefs of Humane Borders, is his argument that the U.S. government
maintains the right to control the border and who may cross it. Only six months after
Hoover provided his statement on Humane Borders, Joseph Nevins gave a speech at a No
More Deaths fundraiser – following the arrests of Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss for
their transporting of migrants to a hospital – addressing the issue of the right to freedom
of movement (see Nevins, 2005b). Nevins made the explicit connection that “any
boundary enforcement regime that allows systematic denial of freedom of movement will
result in migrant deaths,” and that by “systematically denying the underlying legitimacy
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and logic of what U.S. authorities do in bringing about the deaths, we actually aid their
cause” (see also Nevins, 2003). In contrast to Nevins’ call to No More Deaths and their
supporters to recognize the impacts of border militarization and immigration controls,
acknowledging that it may be a difficult and controversial stance to take even for the most
openminded of migrant rights advocates, Humane Borders, at least officially, has not
drawn this conclusion in regards to U.S. territorial sovereignty and freedom of movement.
While Humane Borders understands clearly that border militarization in its current form
has pushed migration paths into perilous desert corridors, leading to a significant spike in
deaths since the early 1990s, they maintain that the U.S. should retain its ability to control
movement as it chooses, albeit in a more humane manner.
Directaid humanitarian groups recognize that their work in the deserts of the U.S.
Mexico borderlands will not solve the many issues surrounding undocumented migration
and the attendant abuses and deaths of those crossing without the explicit consent of the
State. Longterm volunteers, many of whom were previously involved in the Sanctuary
movement in the 1980s, noted that providing humanitarian aid is a bandaid solution,
albeit a necessary one at this present moment. No amount of water placed in the desert
will eliminate the deaths, or keep people from being incarcerated for increasingly lengthy
periods of time. Yet the continued presence of volunteers within this militarized
landscape, year after year, has ensured that many thousands of migrants have been
provided with some level of assistance and solidarity that they would otherwise not have
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received. Direct aid groups working within the Sonoran desert have also made the explicit
recognition that a much wider set of socioeconomic, political, and environmental
conditions have led to the presentday situation of deaths in the borderlands. As No More
Deaths has stated in its various press releases, media interviews, and other
documentation:
No More Deaths acknowledges the complexities of border issues – but recognizes
that migration is driven largely by trade and economic disparities between the
United States and other Latin American countries. Combined with a border
enforcement strategy that uses the harsh, remote Sonoran desert as a deterrent, the
results are the thousands of deaths that have occurred since 1994 when current
strategies were implemented (No More Deaths, 2009b).
Yet while No More Deaths, as well as Humane Borders and the Samaritans – who
announced their initial presence through a letter to the USBP stating their intention to
challenge current practices of immigration enforcement – make these connections, they
do not explicitly call for open borders. They do however present demands for the U.S.
government and law enforcement agencies to recognize the “basic human right of
mobility” for all persons (see No More Deaths, 2007a), arguing that this is the only way
in which deaths will end in the borderlands.
While a variety of opinions and political stances were demonstrated regarding sovereign
control of borders and the wider impacts of border militarization, it was generally
recognized that the work of providing humanitarian aid in the borderlands alone was not
likely to establish rights for noncitizens to move freely. As Volunteer A expressed:
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I think that we can feel really strongly about people’s right to do that [migrate] and
their right to go where they want, and I think that that is absolutely a human right.
But I think, in the same way that, I don’t think that putting out water necessarily
helps establish that right for people. I mean I think it’s really helpful for saving
people’s lives, but I think in the long term it doesn’t necessarily do anything to
establish that right for people, what it does is keep people from dying who have to
clandestinely do what they should have the right to do freely.
In a similar sense, Volunteer C discussed the influence of the diverse makeup of
volunteers upon the effectiveness of directaid humanitarian work, and in its efforts to
challenge the U.S. government and law enforcement agencies’ approach to interdicting
undocumented migration (see p.249250). Directaid groups active in southern Arizona
represent a significantly diverse makeup of political standpoints, both within and
between each group. The desire to more actively challenge the U.S. government’s
proclaimed right to control its sovereign borders was demonstrated by many volunteers,
while others as Volunteer C mentioned, provided resistance within the groups to such
practices. Almost universal recognition was found however, within and between the
humanitarian groups, that the ‘root causes’ of migration and disparities between the U.S.
and Latin America were not addressed through provision of humanitarian aid. The
diversity of practices beyond aid provision by all three groups – for example in their
documentation of abuses in shortterm detention, in migrant rights advocacy in Tucson
and other urban areas, witnessing during Streamline trials, and binational collaboration
with organizations in Mexico, amongst many others – demonstrated this recognition of a
need to address the wider impacts and pushpull factors of transnational migration. Over
time, as these groups have acquired more resources and volunteers, their ability to provide
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much needed aid within the desert while conducting advocacy related work, addressing
the wider causes of migration and uneven development, has therefore been able to
develop.
Van Ham’s (2006) research regarding the role of civil religion within Humane Borders
and Samaritans, as well as Derechos Humanos, suggests that these groups do not reject
the nationstate, but instead see their work as “consistent with their responsibilities as
citizens,” noting that the nationstate is “forever subordinate to a higher good that law
may only approximate.” Similarly, Cunningham (2004) explains that the work of Humane
Borders and Samaritans advocates that “global responsibility to individual persons
supersedes the interests of nationstates or multinational corporations” (p.344). Van Ham
continues:
It follows from these principles that in the main, immigrant advocates do not reject
legislation and other levers of power commanded by the nationstate as viable
means to their desired ends, nor do they prophesy or wish for the imminent passing
of the nationstate as political entity (p.163).
Van Ham therefore situates the work of these groups as being concerned with, and framed
through, the concept of human universality, in the belief that human rights transcend
nationstate boundaries and controls. While my research broadly confirms Van Ham’s
findings, many volunteers were also more critical of current nationstate formations, and
the U.S. government’s efforts to curtail freedom of movement. Though immigrant
advocates may rely upon legislation and “other levers of power,” as Van Ham notes, many
recognized these as the means presently available in improving migrant rights, but not as
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the only desirable avenues of change. Ultimately, whether seeking to refashion or abolish
the nationstate, those within the directaid groups sought to promote full human rights to
all persons, regardless of their legal positioning within the nationstate boundaries of the
U.S. or elsewhere, recognizing that presently, the U.S. does not provide these universal
human rights for undocumented migrants.
The presence of directaid humanitarian groups within the Sonoran desert was therefore
largely found to be in response to a perceived failure of the U.S. government, and the
various law enforcement and land management agencies now involved with interdicting
migration, to protect persons rights within this deadly landscape. While antiillegal
immigration groups, such as the Minutemen, and many who were unsympathetic to the
directaid groups’ work, framed them as ‘open borders’ organizations bent on abolishing
the nationstate, this was typically an inaccurate description of the groups’ reasoning or
desired outcomes for their work.
Yet the actions of these directaid groups work in implicit ways to undermine the
sovereignty of the State over its territorial borders and of the efforts to police the space of
the borderlands. While providing water within the desert landscape through
“unconditional acts of hospitality” (Doty, 2006), challenges the ethicality of sovereign
border controls, citizenship, and legality, the limitations of these practices and subsequent
efforts to contest these must be addressed. I therefore wish to address how these groups
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have attempted to challenge such restrictive measures within the space of the Sonoran
desert, considering the outcomes and impacts upon the various communities and faces of
power that they interact with.
8.4 Spatialities of resistance/communities in resistance
The various dynamic practices of directaid humanitarian groups demonstrate how their
presence shaped the space of the Sonoran desert in specific ways. Further, the unique
landscape of the U.S.Mexico borderlands in turn shaped the work of the humanitarian
groups, reflecting the importance of space upon the effectiveness of their work. As
Houston and Pulido (2002) noted in their study of the use of performance as resistance by
food service workers at the University of Southern California, “These events [of
resistance] do not occur just anywhere; they are located in particular geographies that can
make all the difference in the world” (p.420). The landscape of the Sonoran desert along
with the many actors present within the landscape, and the subsequent confluence of
differing power relations, directly impacted the methods in which humanitarian
volunteers could provide aid and solidarity with undocumented migrants crossing in this
region. As one volunteer described in an interview, the efforts of these groups were aimed
at creating a “death free zone” within the desert landscape, in direct contestation to the
situation that had been created by the USBP and other law enforcement and land
management agencies. Their daytoday practices of providing humanitarian aid then,
carried the potential to disrupt normative geographies (Houston and Pulido, 2002),
providing an alternative narrative than had been previously applied to this space by the
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DHS and USBP in their active militarization of the borderlands.
Humanitarian aid volunteers, through placing permanent water stations and gallon jugs of
water in the desert, hiking and mapping trails traveled by migrants, providing medical
assistance and initiating evacuations, and operating camp sites that functioned also as
sites of respite, amongst other practices, sought to imbue the Altar Valley, and the wider
Sonoran desert, with a differing meaning to that of law enforcement agencies, in an effort
to alter the deadly geography of this region. While at times their practice of providing aid
was respected, or at least tolerated, and even supported at times, sustained efforts were
also made to criminalize the humanitarian groups for their efforts to “remove death from
the equation” in these spaces (Chamblee et al., 2006, p.1), when the state, in its various
forms, saw the groups as having overstepped the boundaries of acceptable aid provision.
Yet the practices of these groups may not always be seen as outright contestation or
resistance, as the work of Humane Borders demonstrated through its efforts to work with
the government, or for example with volunteers who saw their role in providing aid as
nonadversarial.
The criminalization of humanitarian aid in the U.S.Mexico borderlands has resulted in
the need for creative responses from groups in order to continue providing aid. While
efforts to criminalize this aid often led to difficulties in maintaining previously
established and effective practices such as medical evacuations, often putting an end to
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them, it was also found that such restrictive measures typically resulted in new, and often
more effective practices of providing aid being developed. Over time, as humanitarian
groups came to understand the landscape and sociopolitical environment in which they
were working, they were able to develop these strategies further. While these were often
effective in maintaining the ability to distribute various forms of aid to those in need,
more frequently they were viewed – at least partly – as compromises, as was seen in the
creation of aid stations on the Mexican side of the border, or leaving jugs of water on
trails, rather than conducting medical evacuations. At times these new strategies also
placed volunteers on uncertain legal ground, or in a role that may have supported the
Border Patrol’s effort to deny access and free movement of persons within the United
States, as was considered when volunteers decided to drive people south to selfdeport at
the border.
In creating and maintaining these spatial forms of resistance, the groups considered in
this research also demonstrated an ability to shift or ‘jump’ scales (Smith, 1992;
Glassman, 2001), moving from the local scale of the Altar Valley within the Sonoran
desert. The directaid groups, for example, conducted solidarity and migrant advocacy
work within urban locations of southern Arizona, supported migrant aid centers in
Sonora, Mexico, and collaborated on binational efforts to promote migrant safety,
drawing their work out of the explicit location of the desert. Campaigns such as
“Humanitarian Aid is Never a Crime,” and the surrounding court cases, as well as efforts
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to maintain a voice within the media, allowed greater awareness of the reasoning for the
groups’ work be developed by a wider audience. Yet as Herod (1996) notes, social
movements do not inevitably progress from one scale to another in efforts to expand
geographically their struggle, through the existence of “premade scales between which
actors can jump” (p.163). While at times the directaid humanitarian groups made active
choices to bring their actions to differing scales and locations, in part due to their
privilege and ability to move across scales and national borders, this was often out of a
response from efforts to criminalize their work by the USBP and other law enforcement
agencies. The results of these efforts have been varied in their outcomes, as was seen for
example when Humane Borders were unable to distribute maps within Mexico, but have
also created the potential for the groups’ work to reach beyond southern Arizona.
Practices of resistance, at times explicit in nature, though more often implicit, have
resulted in a specific relationship to the space of the Sonoran desert. The vast space of the
desert, encompassed largely by the USBP Tucson sector, presents certain opportunities to
act in solidarity with undocumented migrants crossing through this harsh terrain. This
sparsely populated region of the borderlands however, also exposes the presence of
groups who may be contesting the dominant spatial narratives and enforcement of
mobility by law enforcement agencies and other private actors. The presence of
humanitarian aid groups though, unsettles these geographies of exclusion and
containment, contesting the legitimacy of certain actors to be situated within such spaces.
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While groups such as Humane Borders seek to ‘passively assist’ migrants in avoiding
serious bodily injury or death, through working with and pressuring formal institutions to
act more humanely, others such as No More Deaths have recently designated themselves
as “communities in resistance,” recognizing their largely adversarial role in conducting
the work that they see the U.S. government as having failed in doing.
In constructing these practices of resistance spatially, the use of mapping and
development of spatial knowledge was found to be essential in creating such responses to
the changing forms of power and criminalization in the borderlands. As groups developed
their mapping skills and disseminated their knowledge of the spaces in which they were
working with others, directaid activists were able to respond through spatially informed
practices of providing aid that circumvented efforts by the state and localbased actors
who aimed to inhibit them. These practices of spatial resistance however, were dynamic,
responding to new forms of law enforcement and practices of interdicting undocumented
migration.
8.5 New faces of power
Much contemporary work within academia, including within Geography, has argued that
it is necessary to look beyond the border to the interior of the United States (as well as
Mexico), where differing agencies are becoming involved with immigration policing,
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recognizing that interdiction takes place not only in the borderlands (Coleman, 2007a, b;
Ridgley, 2008; Varsanyi, 2008). While there is most certainly a need to critically analyze
this proliferation of law enforcement engaged with policing migration in the interior,
which has been rapidly expanding since the late 1990s (see Parenti, 2008), this research
has argued that there has also been a devolution of scale to local law enforcement
agencies within the borderlands. This has been seen along with the inception of other
federal (but highly localized in their operation) and private agencies, all of whom were
not previously tasked with interdicting migration, but are now concerned with policing
migrants in transit. These agencies, which have been working in collaboration with the
USBP and DHS, are also involved in the heightened criminalization of humanitarian aid.
The result of this has been the further denial of much needed aid to migrants that had
already been denied to them by funneling migration paths through harsh desert corridors,
or through practices of incarceration after having been apprehended in ‘zero tolerance
zones’ that insured more punitive repercussions.
These subtle practices have often evaded many analyses, but have been brought to light
particularly through the operation of humanitarian aid groups who directly engage with
many, if not all, of the actors currently involved with undocumented migration in this
region. While it is important to consider both immigration policing at the heavily
militarized border, and in the interior, it is necessary also to understand the roles of non
immigration related agencies working in collaboration with existing agencies in
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interdicting migrants, and how this impacts both migrant safety and rights, as well as
efforts to provide humanitarian aid. Further it is necessary to understand how such
policing also leads to a criminalization of humanitarian aid that has been operating in
response to the perceived failure of the government to actively provide care to those in
transit, as a means to disorganize such solidarity work.
My case studies of humanitarian aid within southern Arizona and the Sonoran desert took
as their focus a specific concern with the local reproduction of boundary enforcement,
through the proliferation of these law enforcement and land management agencies now
involved in migrant interdiction. I have sought to demonstrate the way that these actors,
who “operate in the specific social, economic and cultural setting of the border”
(Heyman, 1999, p.622), have become involved in not only interdicting undocumented
migration but also humanitarian aid. While Heyman was concerned with the INS and the
USBP, and more recent research has focused upon the devolution to local agencies, such
as local police forces, within the interior, the focus of this research, while also concerned
with the role of USPB and DHS agents, was upon the recent involvement of government
agencies such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service, and Bureau of
Land Management; local and indigenous police forces; county governments such as Pima
County; private corporations such as Wackenhut; and nonstate actors such as the
Minutemen Civil Defense Corps, ranchers, and local members of border communities,
amongst others.
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An explicit discussion of the effects of the various faces of power engaged with
interdicting undocumented migration within the Sonoran desert highlighted the impacts
upon the provision of humanitarian directaid. This included the practices of the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service, local police forces, and others, to deny access to humanitarian
workers while simultaneously containing undocumented migrants within this deadly
space in which few lifesaving resources can be accessed. Through increased
collaboration with the USBP and DHS, FWS agents, as well as U.S. Forest Service and
BLM agents, have come to play the role of de facto border patrol. The criminalization of
humanitarian aid workers, through recent practices such as citing volunteers for littering
when placing gallon jugs of water on trails, has sought also to exclude aid from this
space, creating significant difficulties for these groups. Yet as Volunteer A argued, many
within the humanitarian groups do not see such practices as an end to aid provision, but
rather as a call upon these groups to further reassert the need for their presence in such
spaces:
I think that closure to humanitarian aid groups specifically, I think are things that
absolutely establish that where we are working in is a contested space, and it is
something that we absolutely have to confront every single time it happens. So I do
not anticipate, and I would be greatly disturbed, if the response of No More Deaths
was to stop going on the Refuge, or to stop going to Brown Canyon, or to stop
going to wherever it is they say we can’t go…[ ] And so I think this is just another
example of a place where we have to assert our right to do this. And not only our
right, but our responsibility too. I think it’s really important first of all because we
know that people are going through those areas that they are trying to limit our
access to. So it’s really important that we are there from a humanitarian
perspective. And also it’s really important that we send a message, whether it’s the
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Refuge, or whoever it is, that we are going to continue to do this work (my
emphasis) [Volunteer A].
In response to the pressures of various law enforcement and land management agencies,
directaid groups have taken differing strategies to ensure their access remains to such
spaces, and that aid is still provided. This has included lobbying agencies at various
scales, from the local to the federal; in placing water at strategic locations through the use
of spatial knowledge derived from mapping practices; in creating new ways of deploying
aid and maintaining a presence; and through resistance to mandates that have requested
an end to their aid.
Though the Tucson sector and the Sonoran desert has seen a proliferation of actors
involved with interdicting migration over the past decade, and particularly since the
formation of the DHS in 2003, alongside the rapid growth of humanitarian aid groups, I
caution that these actors typically inhabit contradictory and dynamic positionalities.
These multifaceted power relations and roles were seen through various examples in the
case studies conducted within this research; with USBP agents and private detention
company agents who would allow humanitarian volunteers to administer and provide aid
against orders from their superiors; with Tohono O’odham Nation members who would
provide or deny water on the reservation; with land management agents acting as de facto
Border Patrol agents; with ranchers and land owners in the borderlands who had succumb
to DHS pressure to stop assisting undocumented migrants; with civilian border patrol and
vigilante groups who provided aid to migrants they were attempting to detain; and with
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humanitarian aid workers who collaborated with government officials, or provided
assistance only through a sense of responsibility to ‘save lives’ and ‘feel good’; amongst
many other examples.
The borderlands, and the increasing amount of actors involved with undocumented
migration, therefore consist of a dynamic and oftentimes contradictory set of
relationships, leading to complex contestations over legitimacy to control space and the
ability to provide humanitarian aid. While this research has sought to demonstrate some
of these complexities found within the space of the Tucson sector and the Sonoran desert,
“where the social structures and relations of power, domination and resistance are
interwoven” (Sharp et al., 2000, p.26), it is inevitable that many of these complexities
remain unaddressed. It is certain however, that these complex relationships and
contestations over space will continue as efforts to militarize the border and interdict and
criminalize migration persist, and while differing forms of state power are replicated
through the involvement of diverse actors within the borderlands.
8.6 Mobilities and geographies of direct aid
I want now to consider the mobility of humanitarian aid in this region, in its effort to
provide assistance to those crossing the border, and in creating countergeographies in
contrast to efforts by law enforcement agencies to control movement in this region. How
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do humanitarian groups operating in the southern Arizona borderlands view their ability
to move throughout this region? How are they constrained in their mobility, and how do
they contest this? What has been the response of local communities to the presence of
these groups, who typically comprise of volunteers from Tucson and from much further
abroad, rather than from the communities in which they specifically operate?
8.6.1 Community response to the presence of humanitarian aid groups
In 2009, No More Deaths began its sixth summer of operation out of its base camp
nearby to Arivaca, with several thousand volunteers from across the U.S. and the globe
having passed through for a week or longer since 2004. Many longterm volunteers
residing in Tucson and Phoenix had returned each summer, as well as taking part in
patrols throughout the nonsummer months. Meanwhile Samaritans and Humane Borders
patrol vehicles pass through Arivaca almost daily. In conducting interviews with several
longterm volunteers, I asked how they felt the community’s response was to their
presence, and if it had changed over time. Most acknowledged the tenuous relationship
and efforts that had been made to become part of the Arivaca community. As Volunteer C
stated in regards to this relationship between humanitarians and the community:
That’s changed a lot over the years. I think the longer that we have been there, and
have been working out in the desert, the more comfortable people have gotten with
us, and I think a lot of that has to do with the relationships that we have developed
with the people…[ ] and the fact that we have shown that our intention is to stay in
the community and support the community and not just be like tourists down there
[Volunteer C].
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Though volunteers and locals within the community generally agreed with this, others
noted the unique position that No More Deaths and other groups maintained in the space
of Arivaca and its surrounds:
I struggle a lot with the fact that we live in Tucson, and yet all of our work takes
place outside of Tucson, and we bring in people who are not even from Arizona, to
do work not even in Tucson!...[ ] And we claim southern Arizona as the space that
we occupy, and yet the reality is that we are going in to communities where none of
us live for the most part. We certainly have allies that we work with, and really
generous supporters who do live in those places, but that’s not our community
[Volunteer A].
The notable disjuncture between Tucson, over an hour drive away and consisting of more
than one million people, with Arivaca, a town of approximately 1000 people (there is no
census data for Arivaca as it is unincorporated), and only several miles from the border,
was apparent to many volunteering with directaid groups. Further, as Volunteer A
mentioned, the large majority of volunteers are not from the region, let alone Arizona,
and typically volunteered for only one or two weeks. Others however, noted that the
proximity to the border and the ongoing struggles surrounding undocumented
immigration in this region led to Arivaca residents being more understanding of the
humanitarian aid groups’ presence, as opposed to Tucson and Phoenix residents who were
often vocal about their opposition to the groups and their actions. As Volunteer B
recalled:
I really have not encountered hardly any hostility…[ ] they are usually pretty
sympathetic, but that’s Arivaca.
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While it is certain that there is still a level of mistrust and dislike by some residents
regarding the presence of humanitarian aid groups in Arivaca and other border
communities, it appears that in general there has been a growing recognition of their
value. Other longterm volunteers have also speculated that as the presence of the USBP
and private companies has become more prominent, and as militarization efforts have
expanded, the community has begun to regret their presence more, recognizing the failed
outcomes of such approaches to stopping undocumented migration. Some specific
encounters with disgruntled residents early in to No More Deaths’ operation did however
lead to particular safety measures and certain practices being adopted:
Actually the first summer there was a group of volunteers who were actually
ambushed by a rancher out there. They were called to someone’s property that we
had never been to before at night. They said, “we have people [migrants] here and
they need help.” And they [volunteers] went out, followed the directions, and went
to their house. They got in to this ranch, and as soon as they arrived there, a pick
up truck came in behind them and tried to cut them off, and then someone started
firing a shotgun in their direction. And they turned around and peeled out of there.
And that’s the reason why we don’t go out at night. But nothing like that has
happened since that first summer [Volunteer C].
No More Deaths, Samaritans, and Humane Borders have also implemented specific
outreach measures with the community since their arrival in Arivaca. This has involved
conducting trash pickups, particularly on the Buenos Aires Wildlife Refuge, which
borders the town, as well as sponsoring roadside trash collections; attending community
meetings with the USBP and DHS to provide support; and weekly gatherings at the local
café on Friday evenings to meet with locals and play music. As Volunteer B continued to
note in his interview, “Being part of the community has been sort of outreach, to say that,
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“hey we’re here,” and get people to be cool with us.” Difficulties also had initially arisen
with the volunteerrun Arivaca fire department. Already overwhelmed by the rapid rise in
migrant related emergencies, No More Deaths and other aid groups were now providing
them with additional work as they brought migrants in need of evacuation to the
firehouse, or called for their assistance along a roadside in the desert. There was also
mistrust of the group by the fire department and the local community that the
humanitarian group was encouraging undocumented migrants to cross. As Volunteer C
explained during an interview, however, the decision by No More Deaths to provide
funding to the Arivaca fire department helped to develop a relationship between the two
groups, and to demonstrate recognition of the exceptional work load they were under,
with over 50 percent of their calls now related to migrants in distress.
Communities throughout the borderlands are under exceptional pressures from the
confluence of differing actors who have descended upon them, as efforts to ‘secure the
border’ have become more enhanced, and led to a proliferation of law enforcement
presence. The global processes of transnational migration and interdiction efforts often
coalesce at this highly localized scale, typically changing the socioeconomic and
political makeup of the communities. While there are a myriad of examples relating to
resistance by border communities to militarization practices by the USBP and DHS (see
for example the work of Alianza Indígena and O’odham Voice Against the Wall; see also
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Dunn, 2003; Tillman, 2008), little has been written regarding the response of
communities to humanitarian aid workers’ presence within such spaces.
8.6.2 The communities of Arivaca and the Tohono O’odham Nation
Since their inception, issues have arisen within the Arivaca community, as well as on the
Tohono O’odham Nation to the west of the Altar Valley, surrounding the perceived
privilege of humanitarian groups’ freedom of mobility within these spaces. No More
Deaths and Samaritans volunteers who patrol the Altar Valley and elsewhere often find
that migrant trails cross through private property, requiring volunteers to climb over
fences in order to follow the trails. Ranchers and private property owners, already under
duress from migrant groups damaging fencing and leaving gates open, often allowing
livestock to escape, expressed frustration with volunteers who would cross on to their
property. Regarding this perceived privilege of volunteers, and belief in the necessity to
provide aid, Volunteer A discussed the operation of humanitarian groups within Arivaca
and elsewhere:
No one said this, but it was just sort of this understood entitlement to get to go
wherever you want: “we get to go here, and we get to put out water, and we get to
do this.” And I think that again that is one of the pieces that gets lost, because in
the crisis mode for people who do humanitarian aid it’s always about the aid. And
things like having a relationship with the community in which you are working,
and really sitting down and talking about…[ ] what does it mean for us to be doing
our work in this manner?...[ ] And all of those things are things that are really
important, but in this crisis mentality become secondary automatically, when in
reality I think those are, if not equal, I think first priorities from the longterm
movement perspective.
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Several miles west of Arivaca, the main reservation of the Tohono O’odham Nation,
bounded by the U.S.Mexico border to its south, comprises nearly 4500 square miles,
with a population of less than 10 000 people. This sparsely populated large expanse of
land has been referred to as the most deadly space of the borderlands, claiming many
lives each year of those who have crossed through the reservation undocumented (Doty,
2006). In recent years the reservation has also become a major conduit for drug
smuggling, taking a significant toll on the community, many of whom have become
involved in transporting narcotics across the reservation (McCombs, 2009f). In turn, a
significant USBP presence has developed on the reservation, often collaborating with the
O’odham police force (Madsen, 2007). The tribal government has maintained that it does
not want humanitarian aid on the reservation, believing that it will attract even greater
amounts of migrants and nonO’odham community on to the reservation. Mike Wilson, a
member of the Nation, is currently the only person able to deploy aid through the support
of Humane Borders, often bringing guests with him to assist in placing water in the
desert. In 2008 however, the O’odham government made a decree that water stations
could no longer be placed on their land, and requested several humanitarian workers, who
were accompanied by Wilson, to leave the reservation, later being banned for life for
having entered without appropriate permission (McCombs, 2008g).
This incident, in which longterm humanitarian aid workers were banned from the
reservation such as John Fife, who has maintained a relationship with the Nation over
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many years, are rare but reflect a problematic history between aid groups and the Tohono
O’odham (Taylor, 2007). In more direct criticisms of the O’odham, Humane Borders has
made repeated demands to the Nation to accept the placement of their water stations. At
times they congratulated the USBP patrolling on the reservation for their humanitarian
efforts while condemning the O’odham’s actions within the same press release. In one
example Humane Borders stated that:
In our judgment, no political status, no legal posture, no moral tradition, and no
social ethic can absolve the Tohono O'odham Nation for not proactively providing
water or allowing others to help (Humane Borders, 2003).
Kenneth Madsen, who has worked with and researched the Tohono O’odham Nation over
several years (see Madsen, 2005), spoke with O’odham members about the significant
social and environmental impacts of migration across their land, as well as the pressure
from humanitarian aid groups in their desire to provide water on the reservation. In an
interview with one member of the Nation, they responded to Madsen (2007, p.291):
We’ve asked them not to come. And I get very angry when I see them. Because
part of what they are doing is, I guess, to me they are like missionaries in the olden
days, where they know better than you do, and they have better answers than you
do… it’s another invasion.
Further, it is known that volunteers with directaid groups have transgressed the Nation’s
boundaries on several occasions without permission or accompaniment to conduct
patrols, or in the recovery of a deceased migrant. Though the provision of possibly life
saving aid to undocumented persons crossing through the Sonoran desert is at times
essential, as the earlier quote by Volunteer A acknowledged, the ‘crisis mentality’ of
providing aid can lead to practices that do not respect certain communities, and can
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ultimately lead to the banning of aid altogether within particular spaces, along with the
loss of potential allies.
8.6.3 Aid stations in Mexico
As discussed earlier in this research, since 2006 No More Deaths along with support from
other directaid organizations have maintained migrant aid shelters in Northern Sonora,
just inside the international boundary in Mexico. These aid stations were started in part as
a response to the inability to conduct medical evacuations within the Sonoran desert on
the U.S. side of the border, but also through recognition that many persons detained by
the USBP were deported without receiving necessary medical attention. The stations
were also collaboratively run with church, government, and nonprofit organizations
based in border towns on the U.S. side and in Mexico, including local volunteers. The
involvement of U.S.based volunteers within the Mexican border communities often led
to difficulties regarding their presence, many of who were there on a shortterm basis,
being replaced within a matter of days or weeks. As Volunteer C reflected upon during
the initial days of starting and coordinating the aid station in Agua Prieta in collaboration
with local organizers:
Pretty quickly there developed some animosity between local organizers and No
More Deaths people, who they felt were being culturally inappropriate or
insensitive…[ ] I mean it wasn’t just U.S. and Mexico, that kind of intercultural
interaction, but there was also the dynamics between folks who were fairly socially
conservative and religious, and No More Deaths volunteers, some of whom came
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from that culture, but many of whom were not, young kids and punks and stuff,
and there was just this kind of cultural clash that happened there too [Volunteer C].
In the case of Agua Prieta, due to difficulties and accusations against certain organizers,
No More Deaths eventually withdrew from the project. This allowed the local organizers
and church groups to take direct responsibility for the center and to run it autonomously,
allowing U.S.based volunteers to later return in a much more reciprocal relationship.
Meanwhile, the Nogalesbased aid station remained to be run and maintained
predominantly by No More Deaths and Samaritans volunteers, later gaining support from
the Mexican State Commission. Unlike the Agua Prieta aid station, where No More
Deaths provided supplemental energy and resources to the border communities that had
already planned for the aid stations, the Nogales station was initially an entirely U.S.led
project. Volunteer F reflected upon some of the problems in having taken this approach,
in light of the immediacy of the situation:
With Nogales, we were starting on a blank page, and we went in with this surge,
“we are going to come in and do this no matter what, whether the community
wants it or not, or whether the community is going to join us or not.” There wasn’t
really the time to community organize first, we work in a sense of urgency
[laughs]!
While binational organizing efforts presented difficulties within Nogales as well,
volunteers also struggled to maintain the safety of the space, with coyotes and drug
smugglers frequently breaching the space in efforts to recruit recently deported migrants
typically not from northern Sonora, and so vulnerable to these groups. As Volunteer F,
who was central in organizing the Nogales aid station, described:
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[I try to explain to people] how intense the space is. Picture the National Guard, the
wall, U.S. customs, the trafficking, customs taking bribes on both sides right next
to you, coyotes on the hills, federales and the police driving around with the big
guns talking to coyotes, and you are in that little space…[ ] you also have people
going under and over the wall at all times.
While volunteers initially had difficulty in transporting donated food and clothing items
across the border due to Mexican customs restrictions (though this was later resolved
through a binational agreement, see Arizona Daily Star, 2006), they were able to move
with relative freedom between the U.S. and Mexico in relation to those they were
providing aid to. Though the aid stations were seen as a largely successful response to
providing humanitarian aid to recent deportees, many who required immediate
hospitalization that had been denied by U.S. authorities, these extraterritorial spaces of
aid brought a new set of constraints upon volunteers, and a need to quickly learn the
differing social and political relationships they would have to navigate.
Volunteers found that their predominantly Anglo ethnicity and status as nonlocal marked
them in certain ways, allowing their presence to be deployed as a resource while also
acting at times as a deterrent. Though volunteers were also drawn from the local
community, and occasionally from those who had been deported from the U.S. and were
waiting to make a return trip, the vast majority were from the U.S., typically speaking
Spanish as a second language. During their documentation of abuse conducted at the
Nogales aid station, where volunteers would interview deportees about their treatment in
shortterm detention, the volunteers found that many deportees questioned their presence
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and their intentions, especially during interviews. Volunteer F reflected upon the initial
days of conducting the abuse documentation:
It’s hard to say; being that white presence is helpful in some situations, in others
it’s not. In one situation, we were just starting to realize that “wow we’ve got to do
a lot of documentation, people are really abused”…[ ] I started asking this group of
guys a series of questions…[ ] and they kind of looked at me and said “Why should
we tell you? That could have been your dad back there that just beat us up.”
At other times however, volunteers were reminded of some of the ways that their presence
could be used productively. Often, recently deported migrants who had been separated
from their group and their coyote, unsure of who could be trusted, saw the volunteers as
the only actors present in Nogales that could be approached for help, under the
assumption that they were not there to exploit the migrants, working neither with the
government or with the coyotes. Although at times U.S.based aid groups found
difficulties in maintaining their presence, it was evident that if they were to leave the
vulnerability of recently deported migrants would increase significantly.
8.6.4 Access across a patchwork of land ownership
Mobility of humanitarian aid was also restricted due to the patchwork of land ownership
throughout the Tucson sector, and the varied responses by local community members and
federal land management agencies. Efforts by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to
exclude humanitarian groups from access to the Buenos Aires Refuge, along with closure
of certain spaces within the refuge to the wider public, resulted in spaces of increased
vulnerability for undocumented crossers should they require aid or medical assistance.
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Disgruntled private ranchers also provided difficulty for directaid groups’ mobility
within strategic spaces, known for their heavy traffic and subsequently their numerous
deaths:
There are ranches that are hostile to us…[ ] where our access is denied, such as
Anvil Ranch on 286, that one is a really strategic bummer for us, because the Anvil
Ranch has access to all these roads…[ ] maybe approaching 100 square miles of
area that is pretty much all accessed by them through their ranch and they don’t let
us in…[ ] and people die in there a lot. That was where Lucrecia died in 2005…
(my emphasis) [Volunteer B].
Although humanitarian volunteers typically avoided conflict with vigilante groups and
unsympathetic ranchers, Volunteer B’s reflection above demonstrates some of the subtle
ways in which hostility to humanitarianism can interrupt their effectiveness in providing
aid. The Anvil Ranch, long known for its support of vigilante groups, represents such
exclusionary geographies to aid, while also acting as a space of containment, where
people perish with little knowledge from the wider public. Lucrecia Dominguez Luna, to
whom Volunteer B refers above, was found on the desolate ranch only after a lengthy
three week search by her father, along with the Border Patrol, media, and volunteer
groups including No More Deaths (for a detailed account of this search and those
involved see Marosi, 2005b; Magaña, 2008). Those within the directaid movements see
such deaths as largely avoidable through the placing of water throughout the desert
landscape, and so are frequently frustrated in response to denial of access to integral
spaces of migration such as the Anvil Ranch land.
8.6.5 Abuse and criminalization of aid workers
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While Cunningham (2004) noted that humanitarianism was often an effective practice in
creating a means of access to certain spaces for these groups, this was found to not always
be the case within this research. Often designating oneself as a humanitarian worker led
to increased surveillance of presence within particular spaces and communities, as well as
a certain level of risk from aggression by other actors or criminalization by law
enforcement agencies.
Mobility of volunteers, and the ability to provide aid effectively were severely curtailed
by surveillance of the aid groups, at times around the clock as demonstrated by the
Border Patrol agents posted to monitor the No More Deaths base camp in 2006, and
through practices by Pima County police officers who would ‘light up’ and pull over
patrol vehicles, amongst many other examples; places such as the camp, which were
intended as safe spaces for those in need of assistance, were therefore often breached by
various law enforcement agents. Small acts of intimidation, such as defacing No More
Deaths signs that helped people to locate the camp, and through vandalism of water
supplies, including the slashing of water jugs, and dismantling or shooting of permanent
water stations, also worked to inhibit the effectiveness of aid provision by volunteers.
Occasionally, directaid volunteers would also receive largely unexplained aggression
from law enforcement agents, seemingly intended to intimidate them from continuing to
do their work. In January of 2008, a longterm volunteer with the Samaritans, Kathryn
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Ferguson, while organizing a patrol with several other volunteers, was approached by a
plainclothed agent who refused to identify himself. After Ferguson decided to record the
license plate of the unmarked vehicle, she was shoved against a vehicle and then
handcuffed for 90 minutes. The agent, who was later found to be from the Bureau of Land
Management, cited her for being a nuisance. It was uncertain why the BLM agent was
traveling through Arivaca, many miles from the agency’s San Pedro River preserve,
however a No More Deaths lawyer speculated that he may have been involved with the
High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, “a cooperative effort between local, state
and federal agencies” to disrupt drug smuggling operations in key areas of traffic
(Vanderpool, 2008a). Nine months later, on the night before the trial for Ferguson was to
take place, the U.S. Attorney’s office dropped the charges. In a followup interview with
the Tucson Weekly, Bart Fitzgerald, BLM special agent in charge for Arizona, stated that
Ferguson was detained as she was in a “highrisk area” and that she was acting
suspicious, but offered little other explanation, including why the area was ‘highrisk’
(Vanderpool, 2008b).
This example of harassment of directaid volunteers by an agent not directly involved with
immigration enforcement, while uncommon, is not entirely unique. It reflects upon an
increasingly busy region, and time, within the borderlands, in which various law
enforcement and land management agencies have become involved with interdicting
migration – and as this research has argued – with criminalizing humanitarian aid. These
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practices of intimidation work to exclude certain actors from strategic spaces within the
U.S.Mexico borderlands, and ultimately serve to disorganize efforts to provide solidarity
within such dangerous and oftentimes deadly spaces.
8.7 Two distinct but related geographies
Activists working with directaid humanitarian groups, who are present within the
landscape of the Sonoran desert, as well as other regions of the U.S.Mexico borderlands,
expose themselves to particular vulnerabilities that are often made visible or are
magnified within specific spaces. Moving throughout the same corridors that
undocumented migrants traverse, these aid volunteers are also frequently criminalized, or
treated with suspicion, for their active presence that challenges established and official
narratives of these spaces.
While volunteers within the movement are typically U.S. citizens, or posses the correct
documentation to be in the U.S. legally, their presence within the space of the
borderlands, and with the intent to provide aid to those who are deemed as being illegal
within the same space, places them also in a position of vulnerability. Although the
implications are typically less severe for the largely white, U.S. citizen volunteers, in
relation to undocumented migrants who face deportation and a growing likelihood of
incarceration, along with the many other effects of being denied access to the U.S., the
recent efforts of the U.S. government to criminalize humanitarian workers have
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highlighted these vulnerabilities. Therefore, although volunteers with directaid groups
possess certain privileges that they are often able to deploy in order to provide solidarity
with undocumented border crossers, their mobility within this landscape is often seen as
threatening to the established spatial order that seeks to stringently control movement.
Given the messy nature of solidarity activism and directaid, and the continuing operation
of this work, as well as the ongoing contestation of the spaces in which they operate, the
practices and goals of the movement can be seen as diverse and dynamic. As Bibler
Coutin (1993) notes in her study of the earlier Sanctuary movement:
The difficulty of identifying movement goals makes evaluating the outcomes of
social movements even more problematic. Whose goals must be achieved for a
movement to be considered successful? And to what degree?... Yet, even if clear
cut goals could be established and outcomes evaluated, protest does not just seek to
achieve predetermined objectives. In addition, protestors create practices,
institutions, relationships, and systems of meaning – in short, movements – that
enact their understanding of truth and their notion of justice (p.175).
Since the inception of these directaid groups into the highly contested landscape of the
borderlands within the Tucson sector, and in conjunction with USBPimplemented
humanitarian policies, there has been little change in the annual death tolls of border
crossers, while militarization of the border steams ahead. Although deaths in relation to
previous years had decreased in 2008, many speculated this was due to fewer crossings
taking place that year, while others noted that proportionately deaths in relation to
crossings remained similar if not higher than previous years. The directaid groups had
also extended their efforts to documenting abuses in short term detention, and of policies
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such as Operation Streamline that were incarcerating many thousands of people,
recognizing the widespread systemic and institutional abuse of undocumented migrants
that was occurring at varying sites and at the hands of differing enforcement agencies,
both public and private.
One would be hard pressed to argue that the situation for undocumented migrants in the
U.S.Mexico borderlands, or elsewhere for that matter, had improved since Humane
Borders began placing their water stations in the Sonoran desert in 2001. Yet longterm
volunteers continue to do their work, while each year more and more new volunteers
arrive to support the directaid movement, maintaining their presence within the highly
controlled landscape of the borderlands. Meanwhile, volunteers have received frequent
reports from people living throughout the U.S., or traveling in Central America, who
would relay their encounter with a migrant, or their family, who had found water in the
desert placed by humanitarian volunteers that they believed had saved their lives. Further,
many people have been found suffering from severe heatrelated illness within remote
desert corridors since the humanitarian groups began their operations, where volunteers
initiated urgent medical evacuations that undoubtedly prevented another death within the
borderlands. All the while, water provided by directaid volunteers is consumed daily by
those unprepared for the grueling hike north; the work of humanitarian aid has been
essential in mitigating deaths, even if only a bandaid solution to the wider structural
issues that lead to those perishing in the Sonoran desert.
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Chapter 9: CounterGeographies and the Criminalization of
Humanitarian Aid in the Southern Arizona Borderlands
9.1 Producing and contesting space within the southern Arizona
borderlands
This research has sought to understand how the practices of humanitarian aid workers
contest established spatial orders and normative geographies, and in what manner their
presence and operation within spaces of migration might afford or advocate for certain
rights of mobility to noncitizens. At this highly localized scale in which humanitarian
groups conduct the majority of their work providing aid to migrants in transit, this space –
and movement throughout it – are highly controlled by law enforcement agencies,
providing few openings for contestation of these processes of militarization and
criminalization. As Timothy Dunn (2003, p.220) noted in his study of community
resistance to border militarization in the 1990s nearby to El Paso, Texas, “[S]uch
influence by local democratic expression is rare in dealings with the INS and the Border
Patrol.” The methods in which contemporary directaid humanitarian groups have sought
to influence those that control and monitor the spaces of migration within the U.S.
Mexico borderlands, and in turn create a differing narrative for such frequently deadly
spaces, have demonstrated some of the ways in which these openings have been explored.
The situation in 2001, when Humane Borders first began to implement water stations in
the landscape of the Sonoran Desert – and where the USBP commended their
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humanitarian efforts – appears to be long gone. I argue however, that this supposed
understanding relationship never really existed. This research aimed to understand the
impact that the collaboration of USBP agents with various local state actors – including
government, non government, and private actors – had upon the provision of
humanitarian aid, through practices of criminalization and spatial denial or containment.
The presence of these various actors, alongside the continually expanding U.S. Border
Patrol, has led to a rapidly changing environment for directaid groups who must now
contend with several law enforcement and land management agencies, coupled also with
citizen border patrols, now involved in the interdiction of undocumented migration.
My theoretical framing of this subject conceived of the relationship between immigration
enforcement and humanitarian groups as a dialectic of spatial knowledge (cognition) and
spatial practice (material outcomes) – as shown in figure 3.1. These agents combined
through their actions to produce the observable outcomes within the space of the southern
Arizona borderlands. The dissertation was primarily concerned with the actions and
counteractions of these actors as they negotiated and produced spaces of the borderlands.
Also of primary interest was the way in which the various agents framed their actions in
the ongoing territorial negotiations. Especially noteworthy was the cooptation of the
rhetoric of humanitarianism by otherwise fundamentally antagonistic groups (e.g. the
USBP and Minutemen; see figure 3.2). In this summary, I wish to draw attention to the
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major findings of my research, as they pertain to the evolving situation of humanitarian
aid in the Sonoran desert.
9.1.1 New agents and the growing proximity of divergent actors
The inception of directaid humanitarian groups at the beginning of the century, and
following the close of the Sanctuary movement, came at a time when the USBP was the
predominant law enforcement agent in the borderlands region. While the USBP has
grown significantly, and remains most visible, since the formation of the DHS in 2003 the
situation within the borderlands has changed rapidly. Over the past several years,
humanitarian groups have moved from solely discussing their strategies in relation to the
USBP, to include differing law enforcement and land management agencies, along with
private contractors who play a growing role in the process of migrant interdiction,
incarceration, and deportation. However, as differing agencies become engrained within
this role, through incentives by the DHS and otherwise, the likelihood of various agencies
being sufficiently trained to deal with undocumented migration in its various facets
decreases, placing migrants at greater risk.
It is almost certain that this situation will continue within the borderlands for some time
to come. As border militarization efforts shift migrants to differing corridors, and as the
DHS comes to rely upon other agencies to sustain their efforts, the engagement of various
law enforcement and land management agencies will become more prominent within this
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landscape. This engagement will continue to provide difficulties for humanitarian aid
groups present within the southern Arizona borderlands and elsewhere, as they are forced
to navigate several agents with differing mandates, requiring a more critical
understanding of the sociopolitical environment in which they are situated.
9.1.2 Evolution of aid groups, spatial knowledge, and the production of space
The evolution of directaid humanitarianism within the southern Arizona borderlands, has
demonstrated the means by which this social movement has developed in response to the
shifting social, political, and geographic boundaries of migration and enforcement. Of
particular importance for the ethnographic research conducted, was to understand how
these groups have developed a critical spatial knowledge and awareness of the
environment in which they operate.

Such critical spatial knowledge produced by these groups resulted in their almost
unsurpassed understanding of the region in which they operated. Central to this
understanding was the practice and production of mapping, typically through the use of
GIS. This mapping not only allowed an unprecedented knowledge to develop, but also
allowed the groups to advocate more effectively for migrant rights, and to contest USBP
and other law enforcement practices. The development of a critical spatial awareness has
resulted in the evolution of these groups to provide aid in an effective manner, often in
response from efforts to disrupt this work. This application of spatial knowledge has been
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a unique development in the work of migrant rights and solidarity organizing within the
U.S.Mexico borderlands.

A detailed knowledge of socio and geopolitical boundaries within the borderlands region
has also allowed the group to jump scales in their practices. At times this was done in a
proactive manner, while at others it was done in reaction to efforts to deny the provision
of aid by other agents. Over time then, directaid groups, recognizing the limited
possibilities of providing aid through particular practices, have developed a series of
methods in advocating for migrant rights. Yet it was often found by aid groups that their
presence within spaces of migration, interdiction, and incarceration was integral to
ensuring the rights of migrants were protected, at least in the immediate context. Their
presence, practices of witnessing, and advocacy work, provided a means to mitigate
violence conducted upon migrants, and allowed them to be situated as an alternative actor
within the borderlands for those who required assistance.

Spaces of respite, safety, and resistance were constructed by the humanitarian aid groups
in their efforts to maintain “death free zones” in the face of significant adversity
demonstrated by various formations of power. Yet these spaces are temporary and in flux,
and were frequently breached by the USBP and other enforcement agencies, as well as
vigilante groups and local residents who were unsympathetic or antagonistic to the work
of aid groups. These spaces proved difficult to maintain, demonstrating the contested and
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fluid nature of the borderlands in particularly evident ways. Further difficulties also arose
in operating in a manner that respected and supported local communities, at times
resulting in their exclusion from certain spaces. Directaid groups were therefore forced to
respond through specific spatial strategies that allowed humanitarian aid and solidarity to
be provided to those who required it. These strategies and productions of space were
possible through the development of critical spatial knowledge and awareness, formulated
through direct engagement in the borderland environment on a daytoday basis over
several years.
9.1.3 Rhetoric and the deployment of humanitarianism
The concept of humanitarianism deployed by several actors present within the Sonoran
desert was applied as a means of claiming legitimacy to the control of space and people’s
mobility. Both the USBP, along with civilian border patrol groups such as the
Minutemen, have promoted a humanitarian role within their practices, at times using this
discourse to discredit the work of directaid humanitarian groups active in this region, and
to maintain existing narratives of such spaces. Further complications in the provision of
humanitarian aid by these grassroots groups also arose due to the presence of private
actors such as Wackenhut who denied aid to those migrants in their custody.

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The use of discursive practices by law enforcement and land management agents, as well
as civilian border patrol groups, were an effective strategy in producing and contesting
space within the borderlands. This presented an additional challenge to directaid groups,
being further pushed to assert their legitimacy and need for their presence within spaces
of migration and interdiction. The deployment of humanitarianism by such actors, not
only provided an additional practice that aid groups were forced to navigate, but also
worked inadvertently to criminalize their work, often discrediting their efforts. Such
practices by these actors were used to suggest that the State provided sufficient protection
for those who required assistance within the southern Arizona borderlands.

Directaid humanitarian groups – in their involvement with various actors present in the
borderlands on a daily facetoface basis – found that these individual agents inhabited
complex and often contradictory roles. Experiences for directaid volunteers were
dependent upon individual agents, and did not typically reflect official policy that the
USPB or other agencies promoted in the media or elsewhere. This at times presented
openings for aid volunteers, while at other times unsympathetic agents would close
opportunities to advocate effectively for migrants.
9.1.4 Border militarization as spatial denial and containment
The U.S. Border Patrol’s control of space, through their presence and surveillance within
the desert landscape, and particularly through the implementation of temporary and
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permanent internal checkpoints, has constrained the movement of humanitarian aid
workers and their ability to provide aid effectively, such as through medical evacuations.
Arrests of volunteers, surveillance of their campsites and during their daytoday
operations, along with other forms of monitoring and intimidation, resulted in aid groups
developing new strategies to ensure their solidarity work could continue effectively. At
times this required extraterritorial strategies such as creating aid stations within Mexico,
transporting people back to the international boundary, or through strategies of delayed
aid provision, such as leaving water on trails for migrants to collect at a later point.

The methods in which immigration policing and border militarization is conducted more
stringently within specific spaces of the borderlands further illuminated the unevenness of
immigration enforcement. The recent inception of Operation Streamline to the Tucson
sector demonstrated how this uneven spatiality of enforcement in the borderlands led to a
heightened criminalization for undocumented crossers in this region. It also revealed the
impacts this had upon migrant health and safety within the desert landscape. Such
policies of criminalization often removed existing openings for volunteers to provide aid,
further risking people’s health as migrant trails shifted to more remote terrain to avoid
apprehension.

Combined with this was the (un)intended impact upon the ability to provide effective aid
to those crossing within these spaces of ‘zero tolerance’ due to the exceptional
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surveillance of the directaid groups’ work. Differing spatial strategies were adopted by
the aid groups in efforts to keep those vulnerable to incarceration from being
apprehended by the various law enforcement agencies concerned with denying their
movement in this region. Yet aid groups also recognized their previous mistakes in
allowing the USBP and other agencies to reclaim and further militarize space. Earlier
concessions of territory, along with the inception of barriers to mobility such as
temporary checkpoints, affected the efficiency and effectiveness of humanitarian aid
significantly.

Humanitarian aid groups responded proactively through advocacy and awareness raising,
and more specifically through practices in the field which circumvented barriers placed
by other agents, using spatial knowledge produced through mapping and other means to
allow aid to continue to be provided. These efforts have however been frustrated by the
collaboration of other law enforcement and land management agencies who have sought
to exclude humanitarian aid. The example of the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge,
along with other federal land, demonstrated the practices of these agents in acting as de
facto Border Patrol, and in constraining the provision of aid through methods of spatial
denial and exclusion.
9.1.5 Criminalization of aid
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Like many social movements, directaid humanitarians tread a fine line in regards to
legality. The groups occupy a unique space between undocumented migrants with whom
they aim to work in solidarity, and law enforcement agents who may at times accept the
presence of these groups but also maintain a constant surveillance of their operations,
interjecting whenever they feel the humanitarian workers have transgressed certain
boundaries. Criminalization of aid groups has placed additional pressure on volunteers to
move away from the practice of transparency and civil initiative, resulting in the need to
conduct their work, as one volunteer phrased, “under the radar.” This has resulted in a
further vulnerability of directaid volunteers, who in efforts to provide aid efficiently,
must take additional measures that place them at risk both physically in the desert
environment, and from arrest by law enforcement agencies. Volunteers also face increased
uncertainty, as often efforts to criminalize their work happened in an adhoc manner,
typically with little explanation of the changing responses to their presence.

Although directaid volunteers have to date escaped any serious punishment, legal trials
and other forms of criminalization have impacted the provision of aid. Further, volunteers
are often no longer able to claim ignorance of certain laws or Border Patrol mandates in
regards to humanitarian aid provision. Most important, as volunteers relayed, efforts to
criminalize humanitarian aid over the past several years have resulted in the concession of
ground to the USBP and other agents.

376
The removal of the ability to conduct medical evacuations from the desert is perhaps the
strongest example of this concession of ground that has significantly increased the
vulnerability of migrants and the effectiveness of humanitarian aid. Volunteers are no
longer able to immediately evacuate persons in need of medical aid, resulting in further
vulnerability as time to aid grows. Longterm volunteers expressed concern due to the
policies they must now follow and the detailed conversations required before someone
can now be evacuated. The often lengthy wait for USBP assistance, and the at times
apathetic response of individual Border Patrol agents, resulted in additional risk to the
health of migrants in need of immediate medical attention that cannot be provided within
the space of the desert.

Criminalization of volunteers therefore works to disrupt the effectiveness of much needed
humanitarian aid within the U.S.Mexico borderlands. While individual volunteers often
feel the brunt of such targeting, the effect is to stymie the work of the wider movement.
This results in the further replication of border enforcement, and the maintaining of
existing narratives of control and interdiction in the space of the borderlands, as nonstate
actors concerned with migrant welfare are excluded from this region. Unlike at the time
of the arrests of volunteers in 2005 however, humanitarian aid groups are now under the
purview of several different law enforcement and land management agencies, operating in
the role, at least partially, of immigration enforcement. The continued presence and
operation of humanitarian aid groups, and the development of their strategies, at the risk
377
of repercussions from the State, has ensured however that such processes of spatial
control and denial remain contested. Similar to the Sanctuary movement that preceded
them, directaid humanitarian groups have typically responded to strategies of
criminalization by the State with renewed vigor rather than putting an end to their
operations.
9.1.6 Continuing contestation of space
Given such trends in this region, it appears the ability to provide and receive necessary
and at times lifesaving aid will continue to be highly contested. However, humanitarian
aid groups active in the southern Arizona borderlands, where the majority of migrant
deaths have occurred since the late 1990s, have demonstrated resiliency and a critical
approach to maintaining the ability to provide assistance. Through an exceptionally well
informed understanding of the space of the Altar Valley and other spaces of the Sonoran
desert, and through differing practices of advocating for migrant rights from the scale of
the local to the transnational, these groups have responded to the dynamic nature of
migration and law enforcement within the U.S.Mexico borderlands in efforts to mitigate
deaths and abuse.

Yet as critiques of these groups, both internally and externally, have shown, conducting
direct humanitarian aid in these spaces of migration is in general a bandaid solution. It
may also at times actually bolster the work of the State and various law enforcement
378
agencies in restricting freedom of movement to those attempting to cross the U.S.Mexico
border. Many within the movement have questioned the effectiveness of their work, and at
times the lack of resistance to the State’s efforts to further control space and ‘close the
border’, in part through the criminalization of humanitarian aid. However, when directaid
groups go beyond what is deemed as acceptable by the State, they are typically met with
repression for their acts. There remains then a need for a critical approach to providing
aid and contesting space, if groups are to remain in operation and provide solidarity
effectively. Overall, spatial strategies must aim towards proactive rather than continually
reactive measures, in order to rewrite existing narratives of space within the borderlands.
9.2 Reflections and potential avenues of future research
9.2.1 Community actors
This research, while having taken as its central focus the operation of several directaid
humanitarian aid groups, has not considered them in isolation from the diverse array of
actors that are engaged in the surrounding sociopolitical landscape. These actors were
seen as complexly entwined with each other, often inhabiting spaces simultaneously, as
well as frequently shifting between contradictory roles. My decision to research and
volunteer directly with humanitarian groups was in part a response to the increasingly
closed nature of the borderlands, for example when attempting to talk with USBP agents
or private contractors. Aid groups engage with these actors and transcend spaces in
unique ways that allow insightful interactions that are not achievable through, for
379
example, conversing with Border Patrol hired spokespersons, reading official policy
reports, or entering local communities purely as a researcher, in the hopes of gaining
detailed information regarding the intricate political situation of this region.
Upon reflection however, while it was illuminating to engage with these diverse actors
through the lens of humanitarian aid, more significant time with local communities,
including land owners and ranchers, as well as local law enforcement and land
management groups, would have allowed the voices and other critical opinions of these
actors more space within this research. While I have included the responses of these
diverse actors in regards to border militarization, undocumented migration and deaths, as
well as humanitarian aid, further ethnographic research with these actors would have
allowed alternative opinions and criticisms to be brought to light.

Further, my enquiry in to the operation of directaid humanitarianism in response to the
outcomes of border militarization and criminalization of undocumented populations has
remained U.S.centric in its focus. There are many actors, within the northern Mexican
borderlands, and throughout Mexico – both government and nonstate – concerned with
the wellbeing of undocumented migrants attempting to cross the border through the
deadly Sonoran desert landscape. Government organizations such as Grupo Beta who are
tasked with arresting coyotes, and attempting to persuade migrants not to cross during
dangerous conditions such as extreme heat, play a largely humanitarian role, albeit a
380
difficult and problematic one. Currently, there has been little exploration of the role of
this group in preventing migrant abuses and deaths, particularly in relation to the
supposed humanitarian policies of the U.S. Border Patrol. Further, U.S.based
humanitarian aid groups often operated in collaboration with Mexican organizations,
some of which were mentioned in this research (local aid shelters, CRREDA/Agua Para la
Vida, the Mexican State Commission). Research involving these groups could help to
draw out the complexities of providing aid within Mexico, along with a more critical
understanding of the practices of U.S.based groups in a transnational, though still highly
localized, context.
9.2.2 Comparative studies of humanitarian aid
A comparative analysis of directaid humanitarianism in the unique context of the
southern Arizona borderlands with other social movements could provide further
important insights and lessons for the groups considered in this research. As I have
mentioned, there are a small handful of groups that were, or still are conducting similar
work in the U.S.Mexico borderlands, in efforts to get water to migrants in harsh desert
terrain. A comparative study with other water projects, which typically are not in
conversation with each other may allow further insight in to the productive means of
effectively deploying water, working with(in) local communities, and navigating law
enforcement. Southern Arizona groups remain the most active however, and have received
381
the most attention from federal government and local law enforcement agencies,
reflecting upon the sustained and highly contested nature of this territory.

To date, there has been little work regarding indigenous communities present within the
borderlands and their response to border militarization and the humanitarian crisis of
migrant deaths. As discussed in this research, there has been an uneasy relationship
between humanitarian aid groups and the Tohono O’odham Nation. The O’odham
response to contemporary border militarization and undocumented migration requires
then a greater level of analysis than I have been able to present here. Recently the Alianza
Indígena Sin Fronteras, which developed out of the Tucson migrant rights organization
Derechos Humanos, has made efforts to create dialogue with the DHS surrounding the
impacts of border militarization regarding their rights within the borderlands. A study of
this organization and others would provide a more critical analysis of indigenous
responses to such processes within this region (see for example Matus, 2009).

Jennifer Hyndman’s (2000) study of transnational humanitarian aid work with refugees in
Somalia and Kenya has provided important insight from a critical geographic and
feminist perspective in understanding the politics of humanitarian aid. Her work
considers a different form and practice of humanitarian aid, concerned with refugee and
asylum related work, in contrast to the research conducted here. Considering not only the
transnational scale but also the scale of the local and personal, she notes importantly that
382
the mobility of humanitarian aid is juxtaposed with the relative immobility of migrants,
“generating two distinct but related geographies” (p.30).

More recently, in research on international accompaniment (in which international
volunteers accompany persons at risk of violence in their home country), Geraldine Pratt
(2008) has discussed the entangled geographies of Canadian observers located within the
Philippines, who operate in solidarity with those who have become targets of state
violence. She discusses the notably embodied nature of “peopletopeople” solidarity
work, through the practice of witnessing and accompaniment, in which the various actors
typically inhabit the same space(s). These entangled and unstable geographies, Pratt
notes, resulted in the observers at times losing their assumed privilege that maintained
their safety. Although Pratt’s observers were often able to draw upon their privilege as
international outsiders who were much less likely to be a target of state violence, their
presence within particular landscapes deemed them dangerous in the eyes of the State,
and so this presumed ‘hospitality’ was removed. As Pratt noted, their “White privilege,
Canadian citizenship, and spatial distance were, however, not only problems but
resources” (p.772), allowing them access in to certain communities/spaces, and the ability
to operate as accompaniers.

Although the observers both in Hyndman and Pratt’s work were situated within a
transnational context, the entangled and unstable geographies of this group resonate in
383
some similar ways with directaid humanitarians in the U.S.Mexico borderlands. There is
a unique distinction however with directaid humanitarian groups operating in the U.S.
Mexico borderlands in contrast with other solidarity movements. Although the movement
considered in my research operates transnationally, in that it crosses the national
boundary line to conduct such work, volunteers typically remain highly localized in their
provision of directaid. While most analyses of solidarity work, accompaniment, and
witnessing focuses upon transnational activism and its efforts to unsettle the fixed
geometries of power between the global North and South by working with those “over
there,” the work of these groups is situated primarily within the nationstate boundaries of
the United States, or at least within close proximity. Activists in various movements who
work from a point of solidarity are typically situated within differing positions of power,
but this is perhaps even more significantly designated with humanitarian aid groups
located within their own nationstate. A comparative study with explicitly transnational
humanitarian and solidarity work would be effective in helping to understand how these
unique practices, and the power relations involved within, operate at different scales and
locations.
9.2.3 Construction of racialized actors in the borderlands
This research has not focused on issues of race and racism but these remain inseparable
from issues of migration, border enforcement, and solidarity work such as humanitarian
aid provision. Though much has been written regarding the complex relations between
384
racism and immigration in the U.S.Mexico borderlands (see for example De Genova,
2002; Nevins, 2002; Ngai, 2004; Pulido, 2004; Vila, 2004; Chacón and Davis, 2006), a
study of race and humanitarianism in this context would allow an understanding of the
operation of directaid groups in relation to those they seek to provide solidarity with.
Many participants in the movement noted the particularly white and middleclass make
up of the groups they were working with, while in the summer of 2008, No More Deaths
also introduced white privilege training into their initiation programs for new volunteers.
How have such difficult issues of privilege been addressed, if at all, and with what
outcomes? Further, migrant rights organizations in Tucson such as Coalición de Derechos
Humanos often collaborated with the humanitarian groups, while aid stations were run
collaboratively with organizations from Mexico. Yet many of the same critiques of the
Sanctuary movement (see Bibler Coutin, 1993; Cunningham, 1995; Martínez, 2002)
remained in relation to the contemporary movement, which involves several key
Sanctuary activists, especially noting their often patriarchal practices. Many longterm
volunteers demonstrated a critical awareness of their privilege, and an understanding of
the positioning of the diverse actors engaged around undocumented migration in the
borderlands region. However, both groups and individuals struggled to overcome ongoing
issues of privilege and racism within the movement (see also Sundberg, 2006).
385
9.2.4 Environmental degradation and the response of humanitarian aid groups
Alongside the significant human toll that funneling migration in to desert/nonurban
corridors has had, a dramatic impact upon the environment has developed as a clear
outcome of the U.S. government’s efforts to seal the border. This has included the
inception of the Real ID Act in 2005 that allowed the overriding of any environmental
regulation in the name of homeland security, having been applied with vigor since it was
enacted. Fencing and other methods of border militarization are continuing to wreak
havoc on the desert environment, but migrants now walking for five days or more in
relatively unpopulated regions are also having untold effects upon this region.

Antiillegal immigration groups have adopted environmental issues as a central argument
to close the border, placing the blame squarely upon undocumented migrants traversing
the desert, with little to no reflection upon the structural forces that have led them to cross
in these regions. In further efforts to disqualify humanitarians’ claims to legitimacy in the
right to provide aid, land management agencies along with antiimmigrant groups have
asserted that these groups not only entice undocumented migrants to cross, but that by
leaving gallon water jugs in the desert they are further contributing to impacts upon the
desert environment. This rationale for the criminalization of directaid groups has existed
for several years, but more recently has become a primary critique, particularly since the
386
citation of volunteers for littering, and as an awareness of environmental degradation in
the borderlands has grown.

Humanitarian aid groups have both defended their actions, and responded to claims that
they are complicit in the significant impacts upon the desert environment. In October of
2008, Dan Millis of No More Deaths, who was found guilty of littering on the Buenos
Aires Refuge, became the head of the Sierra Club’s borderlands environment campaign,
which has made explicit recognition of the link between DHS and USBP militarization
strategies with migrant deaths and environmental destruction. Even with such clear ties
with environmental organizing, critiques of the aid groups surrounding impacts upon the
desert landscape continue. How have directaid groups made connections between
environmental impacts and immigration enforcement to further support their claims that
border militarization conducted by the U.S. government is having detrimental effects
upon not only migrants, but also local communities, wildlife, and the environment? How
are land management agencies responding to the significant impacts of undocumented
immigration and drug smuggling on the refuges they are tasked with protecting? What
compromises can land management and humanitarian organizations reach, to ensure both
human life and the environment are respected and protected?

Some critical attention has begun to consider the connections between border
militarization, undocumented migration, environmental degradation, and the framing of
387
these issues by diverse actors within the southern Arizona borderlands. Specifically the
authors have noted the conflation of migrants with ‘trash’ by antiillegal immigration
groups, and the oftentimesinadequate responses from migrant rights and humanitarian
aid groups, as well as the U.S. government. Though there is a substantial body of work
surrounding immigration and environmental impacts, and much recent attention on the
impacts of border fencing in the U.S.Mexico borderlands, in light of the recent ticketing
of volunteers for littering there is much to be explored and understood.
9.2.5 Scholarly activism
While I have developed a number of important relationships with those involved in the
movement, I have done my best to provide a critical analysis of their operation. Although
I commend their commitment and tenacity to seek what they regard as a socially just
environment within the borderlands, the relatively young movement has struggled on
several fronts. Further, through the methods of militant ethnography and critical
engagement, I have made efforts to discern between the wider structural forces and
policybased initiatives in contrast with everyday outcomes on the ground, involving
individual agents in the movement, law enforcement agencies, and the local community.

Throughout my research I have come to know and work closely with many volunteers
who give much of their time in efforts to mitigate unnecessary deaths and abuses in the
U.S.Mexico borderlands and beyond. Navigating the position of researcher and
388
activist/volunteer, and managing time between research both inside and outside of the
field, amongst other responsibilities, has remained a challenge. The emotional strains of
conducting such work have also presented previously unforeseen challenges; very little
could have prepared me for the many difficult situations encountered while volunteering
with the directaid groups in the Sonoran desert. Since initially meeting with volunteers
in 2006, I have worked closely within the movement, building trust that allowed access to
information and practices, which could not have occurred through research methods that
involved an indirect engagement with movement members.

The work and teachings of academics such as Laura Pulido (2006, 2008), Jeffrey Juris
(2005), and Ruthie Gilmore (1999, 2007), amongst several others, have provided
important insights to negotiating such positions for my research. In particular I have
found Paul Routledge’s exploration of critical engagement as exceptionally useful in
working through some of the difficulties I encountered. Routledge argues there is a need
for critically engaged academic activists to inhabit a position that disrupts and unsettles
the often divergent roles of academic and activist. As he continues to note, “Critical
engagement strives to work both within the academy and outside it, to live theory as a set
of practices – experimental, experiential, imaginative” (1996, p.403). Through
ethnographic research with humanitarian aid groups, I have made efforts to blur these
boundaries, working in solidarity with the groups while also remaining critical of
their/our practices. This involved also negotiating and remaining highly reflexive of my
389
positionality and ethical responsibilities to those I engaged with, in efforts not to
reproduce previous practices that had led to a mistrust of academics by humanitarian
volunteers. However, my privilege as academic researcher allowed me to enter and leave
these spaces/situations as I dictated. Though I made efforts to remain in a supportive role
while writing from Los Angeles, it was ultimately difficult to do so in a meaningful
manner. This, I recognize, is not an entirely unique position, experienced by many
involved in engaged ethnographic research, but remains important to reflect upon
critically.

Working in such a manner presented difficulties, but also opened up many avenues that I
had not envisaged or seen as possible. Such unique situations derived through a critical
engagement informed this research in several important ways that were integral to the
outcomes of this research. While geography is not the only discipline in which activist
academic work can take place, and provide critical reflections upon social movements, as
Susan Ruddick (2004, p.238) notes:
Geography brings to activism an understanding of space,
that is nuanced, complex, multilayered, entangled…our
strategies around activism must become more complex and
nuanced as a result, taking into account the multiple scales
at which our social life is constructed and the myriad ways
that we are not only torn apart, but can join together.

390
It is hoped that my work can provide useful insights for those groups focused upon in this
research, and to move forward in their efforts to promote human rights within the U.S.
Mexico borderlands and beyond.
9.3 “Humanitarian Aid Remains a Crime”: not aid but litter
Around 10am on July 9

2009, a large group of humanitarian volunteers gathered at the
Arivaca Cienega parking lot on the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. The
temperature was rapidly rising towards 110°F, and in each hand the volunteers were
carrying gallon jugs of water. This was the first time the directaid volunteers had
returned to BANWR to distribute water since the preceding winter when Walter Staton
had been cited for littering in December 2008. The day before the gathering, a press
conference was held at the Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson. In attendance were
members of No More Deaths, Samaritans, and Humane Borders, Mike Wilson from the
Tohono O’odham Nation, and numerous other supporters. During the press conference
the directaid humanitarian groups announced their intention to resume the provision of
aid on the wildlife refuge. Three weeks earlier, they had submitted a letter to the manager
of BANWR, Mike Hawkes, requesting a meeting to discuss effective strategies in which
aid could still be provided with minimal impact upon the Refuge. The humanitarians,
having received no response, decided that “the heat of summer necessitate[d] immediate
action” (No More Deaths, 2009c).

391
Over the space of the following four hours on July 9, a caravan of humanitarian aid
workers proceeded to several locations on the Refuge to place gallon jugs of water at
intermittent points along heavily traveled migrant trails, a method aid groups had used on
the Refuge since 2006. Following close behind were several U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service agents, assisted by U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management agents,
some in uniform, others plainclothed. At each location that the water was placed, FWS
agents handed out citations to those who had left the water. In total 13 citations were
issued. Other humanitarians pleaded with the agents not to remove the water, but to little
avail. Alongside the citations of a preschool teacher, a librarian, a nurse, a Presbyterian
minister, and a Franciscan priest, a further citation was handed to Ed McCullough, the
retired dean of Geosciences at the University of Arizona who coordinated the mapping of
trails for No More Deaths and Samaritans. His citation was given not for having placed
water on a trail, but instead for guiding the other volunteers to the trailheads.

Exactly four years prior to the day, on July 9 2005, Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss had
been arrested for driving three migrants in need of medical aid to a hospital in Tucson.
While the citation of volunteers for littering amounted to little more than a $175 fine, as
compared to the possible 15year prison sentence that the two No More Deaths volunteers
were faced with in 2005, the significance of the Fish and Wildlife Service agents’ efforts
was not lost on the humanitarian aid groups. The arrests of Sellz and Strauss had led to a
392
significant change in practice by the directaid groups, along with recognition of the
ground that was conceded to the USBP by ending their medical evacuations from the
desert. In 2009 humanitarian aid workers were faced with an expanded law enforcement
presence, encompassing not only the USBP and DHS. Their efforts to provide direct aid
within the desert were now under further attack and the strategic space of the Buenos
Aires Refuge was at risk of being closed, becoming a space of exclusion to humanitarian
aid.

Meanwhile, Walter Staton, who had decided to contest his earlier citation for littering,
awaited the outcome of his trial, which carried the possible sentence of a $5000 fine
and/or one year in jail. On August 11, 2009, Staton was convicted of knowingly littering, a
charge that carried a greater penalty than for the act of littering that Dan Millis had been
convicted of earlier. Staton was handed a sentence of 300 hours of trash removal on
public lands, along with a oneyear ban from the Refuge during his time of probation.
Articles and editorials were published largely condemning the ruling in the Arizona Daily
Star (Opinion, 2009), Los Angeles Times (Powers, 2009), and the New York Times
(Editorial, 2009), amongst several other articles in other media outlets across the United
States.

A week earlier, the Arizona Daily Star reported that an additional 209 USBP agents were
being deployed to the Arizona border, in efforts to “reach out to more people” to save
393
lives. Reverend Hoover of Humane Borders responded to this announcement as being
“too little too late” (McCombs, 2009d). Following this, on August 23 the Interior
Repatriation Program was reinitiated, a month later than normal, with two flights per day
until the end of September (McCombs, 2009d). Both the deployment of additional agents,
along with the reinstated repatriation program, were once again framed by the DHS and
USBP as humanitarian efforts, conducted in good faith to stem the rising death toll.
These series of events were brought in to stark contrast however, when on August 28,
2009, Derechos Humanos released a statement acknowledging that with five weeks still
remaining in the fiscal year, deaths of border crossers in southern Arizona had reached
183, surpassing the fiscal year 2008 tally (Rodriguez, 2009). The situation of deaths and
criminalization is continuing in a manner that appears unlikely to end within the near
future.

394
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