Please consider the following information carefully. As you do, remember that these were just the bodies from May-we haven't even gotten to the hottest part of the summer yet.
Immigrant Deaths, Fiscal Year 2005
State Deaths, Fiscal Year 2005
California 20
Arizona 86
New Mexico 7
Texas 38
2-May Crossed border 10 days earlier - ended up in no man's land, Lechuguilla Mountains. Jose Ortiz, his wife & 4 others.Exposure to the elements. Used cell phone to call help -didn't know location - still can't find bodies azcentral.com
4-May Chiricahua Mountains near Portal, AZ. Body was on a blanket under a tree Hispanic male 30-40 Dehydration and exposure. Dead for days: wearing jeans, black belt, white socks, black loafer-type shoes, next to 2 water jugs.
Jump, it's important.
5-May Near Wellton at County 14th St. and Ave. 29E, AZ. Male.Unknown. Exposure to the elements None given. Arizona Daily Star
7-May AZ Female Unknown Unknown Died in BP custody; FBI investigation pending Loredo Morning Times
11-May Tohono O'odham Indian Nation near Ajo, AZ Juan de Jesus Rivera 16 years old. Shot by Border Patrol agent. Driver of Dodge pickup truck carrying other immigrants; failed to stop for patrol Arizona Daily Star
17-May Near riverbanks and Palo Blanco Rd, TX Hispanic male, 34.Drowning. Body found floating in Rio Grande at 11:30 am, badly decomposed. Loredo Morning Times
21-May 25 miles North of Sasabe on AZ 286 Mexican Woman. Unknown. Heat exposure. Found at 5:30 pm Arizona Daily Star
21-May 25 miles North of Sasabe on AZ 286 Male. Unknown. Heat exposure. Found at 10:00:00 PM Arizona Daily Star
21-May Empirita Rd and Interstate 10 Mexican national. Unknown. Heat exposure. None given Arizona Daily Star
21-May Barry M. Goldwater Range, 3.5 miles east of Port of Entry San Luis, AZ. Viridiana Herrera Aguilar, 18. Heat exposure. Traveling w/husband and 8 others, all of whom were rescued Yuma Sun
22-May 4 miles NE of Bisbee off Double Adobe Rd, AZ. Mexican man, 19. Heat related injuries. Found surrounded by water bottles, dead for 4 hrs. before discovery-Arizona Daily Star
22-May 25 miles North of Sasabe on AZ 286 body found. Heat related injuries. Found at 10:00:00 PM Arizona Daily Star
22-May West of Ave. 2E and County 24th st. entered-12 miles E of San Luis Port, AZ Marcela Cruz-Gonzalez, pregnant, 24. Dehydration. Husband left her to find help, when he returned, she was dead.-New York Times and Yuma, AZ Sun
23-May Hermans Road on the Tohono O'odham Indian Nation, AZ, 2 bodies found. Unknown. Heat related injuries. Found at 4:45 am. Arizona Daily Star
23-May 14 miles South of Tacna, AZ. Mexican woman 22. Heat related injuries. Found with 3 other females all suffering heat related injuries. Yuma Sun
23-May Tohono O'odham Indian Nation near Ajo, AZ Man 30-40. None given. Found decomposing in an abandoned house- didn't die in latest heat wave Arizona Daily Star
23-May Tohono O'odham Indian Nation, AZ Nicolas Francisco Jose 15 Hypothermia. None given.-Mexico Week in Review and Pima County Medical Examiner's Office
25-May El Paso Canal, TX. Woman Unknown. Drowning. Woman rescued from canal near loop 375, dies; trapped under water too long-Loredo Morning Times
25-May Rio grande, TX 4 male immigrants Unknown. Drowning. BP surveillance video show men slipping 1x1 into 10 ft. deep swirl, S of wall near Del Rio-Loredo Morning Times
25-May Near Milepost 5 on Arivaca Rd. Man mid to late 40's. Heat related injuries. Dead for several days. Arizona Daily Star
26-May Off of Sierrita Mountain Rd. E. of Three Points, AZ. Man. Unknown. Heat related injuries. None given.-Arizona Daily Star
26-May-7 miles into desert from Milepost 28 on Arizona 286. Man. Unknown. Heat related injuries Carried no identification. Arizona Daily Star
26-May Near Milepost 31 on Arizona 286 Body. Unknown. Heat related injuries. None given- Arizona Daily Star
For more information on border deaths in Arizona, go to:
http://www.derechoshumanosaz.net/deaths.htm or
http://regulus.azstarnet.com/borderdeaths/search.php
http://www.samaritanpatrol.org
If you live in other parts of the country, you are probably only aware of unusual deaths here in the desert-you don't deal with the continuous daily onslaught of death and horror like we do here in Southern AZ.
Some people of good conscience here have taken matters into their own hands. They have formed various organizations to address the many facets of this situation. Medical people tend to belong to Samaritan Patrols, as I do. Samaritans hike in the deserts at the border looking for people who might be sick or injured. Each team of Samaritans includes a medical type and an interpreter. There are other wonderful groups like Humane Borders, Derechos Humanos, No More Deaths, Borderlinks. Each has its own perspective and function. We all work together.
Stories of the bodies of children found dead of exposure drive me into the desert on patrol on a regular basis these days, and I can often be found in the desert off of AZ 286, or Arivaca Rd. at the above mentioned mileposts, searching the desert, teamed up with some of the most wonderful people in the world.
Yes, I have found sick people. Yes, I have found a child in diapers with her 15 year old mother in the desert. They had been abandoned because they could not keep up with their group. What would have happened to them had our team not found them? Honestly, if I allow myself to think about it too much, I won't be able to sleep tonight.
The situation here between the new chief of the Tucson sector of the Border Patrol and local aid organizations has become very tense. There are right-wing vigilante groups feeding garbage into this situation. And I have to say it sometime, so it might as well be here-the core of Samaritan Patrols is the same group who founded Sanctuary-a group that has a long history with the
Border Patrol.
The Border Patrol chief here says that he is going to have us arrested:
Stanton: Divergent duo's work won't stop desert deaths
BILLIE STANTON
Tucson Citizen
Did you hear the one about the Presbyterian pastor and the Border Patrol chief? Me either.
To Chief Michael Nicley, it's no joke. And to hear him talk, it's no more Mr. Nice Guy.
Nicley cites "good, solid information" that volunteers, mostly from Tucson-area churches and synagogues, were picking up people in the desert and taking them to aid stations.
"They feed them, give them water and let them loose," Nicley says. "They believe that's a humanitarian effort. I believe that turns into a rescue for me later on."
Until Nicley's promotion last year, the Border Patrol here had a hands-off attitude toward people working to save illegal immigrants' lives in the Sonoran Desert.
Today, Nicley says, "They're not going to have a free zone in the Tucson area. If their true effort is to provide emergent medical care, then having a Border Patrol agent there is the best thing."
The volunteers, including the Rev. John Fife of Southside Presbyterian Church, say immigrants would avoid their water stations and medical camps if they believed la migra (immigration officials) were there.
"That's malarkey," Nicley counters. "The people who we give medical aid to, they seek us out. They set signal fires. They don't avoid us."
The chief notes that he has about 2,500 agents "sworn to uphold the law. I'm just not going to have an area where illegal aliens are and the Border Patrol can't go there."
Still, Nicley adds, "If I were looking at thwarting them, why not have Border Patrol agents follow their vehicles around?"
That hasn't happened, for which Fife and others are grateful. But Nicley isn't saying it couldn't.
Indeed, in an interview last week, he expressed hope that Fife is warning "those college kids" that if they're observed driving people north for medical care, they'll be arrested and their vehicles will be seized.
"Sealing the border is No. 1," Nicley says. "The people down here are pissed off. These border groups are people who want this to stop.
"I need (immigrants) out of that desert. I need them knowing it's very treacherous and they can't be there."
But they are there. And nothing seems to stop them.
U.S. border enforcement doesn't stop them. While the budget for that work has nearly tripled over the past 12 years, the flow of illegal immigrants has skyrocketed.
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.php?page=opinion&story_id=062105b5_stanton
This has become a very serious situation, one that I see coming to a head this summer. I'm going to be posting on this situation on a regular basis, because I'm on the ground here and I see things in the first person.