Hi friends, it's good to connect with you again!
First, I want to bring a quick fundraising note to your attention. Every YAV is asked to raise $3000 to to contribute to their year of service, and each YAV site is asked to raise an additional $3000 per YAV (AKA $9000 between Heather, Amy Beth, and myself). The wonderful news is that the three of us Tucson YAVs have already met all our individual goals! In my case, my home church of St. Luke Presbyterian blew me away by fundraising for the Tucson YAV program through their Change for Change effort in the month of June, and many friends and family contributed as well through St. Luke. I am forever grateful to all who helped make my journey here possible through countless ways, including blowing the individual fundraising goal out of the water!
And here's another piece of exciting news that we learned today: three months into our YAV year, we are only $500 away from meeting our collective house goal! We would love to meet our house goal by the end of the year so that our site can stay financially afloat, make it possible to recruit more YAVs for next year, and keep deepening our connections with the Tucson community.
So if you are so moved, please consider supporting our social justice ministries on the border by helping us meet our Tucson YAV site house goal! You can do that by clicking the "donate" button on the upper left side of my blog site, or here: Tucson/Borderlands YAV Site
Whether or not you can give/have given financially, thank you for your love and support!
Thanks from the Tucson YAVs! Under our Día de los Muertos face paint, that's me, Heather, and Amy Beth. Without your support, we would not have been able to experience this Mexican/Central American cultural tradition Tucson-style!
Switching gears to the actual work on the ground...
A few weeks ago, I received an email from a young man who grew up in my home church who I had not connected with much over the years, but now he is a freshman in college! How life flies. Anyways, he told me he had to do a speech about border control and immigration, and as he knew I was down here working on the border, he wanted to ask me a few questions. As if I'm some sort of expert - I certainly do not feel like an expert, but I am very flattered!
The legal framework surrounding immigration policy is the second most complicated body of law in the United States, second only to our tax code. In my short time here, I can now definitively say immigration law is not a career path I intend to venture into, and I'm even more grateful to those who do dedicate their lives to it! All I can do is give some thoughts on my experience and point him
towards some more resources and questions to research, but I took a bit
of time to answer as comprehensively as I could (while
boiling down the main points, and I'm sure oversimplifying an
unimaginably complex issue), and I felt like sharing what I wrote with
you all in case you are wondering about some of the things that are
going on in my head these days within the broader national picture on
immigration.
As for the three questions this young mind asked me to cover, here's a summary: what I'm doing at BorderLinks, three points to focus on in the speech, and why people want more or less control on the border. You may have seen or thought about some of these topics or points of view before, but here's everything in the neatest package I could tie up for you. Here goes!
At BorderLinks, I say that I am part social media master, part Program Organizer. I am in charge of maintaining our Facebook, blog, and website, as well as helping with some event planning, hosting workshops, and community outreach. On the Program Organizer side, in mid-November I will start leading delegations to show people the reality of the Borderlands by having groups meet with various community partners as well as cross the border to Mexico if they can do that. Our main goal is to create space for people to learn and reflect about the border and migration, and then hopefully inspire people to use their knowledge when they go back home.
Just a note, I approach this
subject purely from a U.S.-Mexico border standpoint and primarily
looking at migration from our neighbors to the south. However, there are
other people as well that are coming from other countries, through our
southern border or other ways, perhaps even on a temporary visa and then
overstaying that visa to effectively become undocumented in the U.S.
Also, I am focusing more on actual trends of immigration and border
militarization than what's going on in the U.S. once people are here
undocumented. If you want me to go into that, I can :-)
Three things I would recommend focusing on:
1)
Strategy of deterrence. President Clinton politically needed to "get
tough on immigration," so he was advised to expand the wall that started
under Pres. H. W. Bush. First, the wall covered urban areas because
they were the easiest to sneak through and blend into the crowd, and
then people started going around, so the wall kept growing. The point
was to make it so tough for people to cross that they would tell people
back home, and fewer people would cross. But people kept going around
the wall, and eventually the trend is that the wall is most lax around
the Arizona desert, but people kept coming, and then they started dying
in the desert. The government's intent was to make it so hard for people
to cross that they wouldn't try anymore, but since people are still
coming, in 2011 they started criminalizing immigration violations and
detaining people for months instead of simply deporting them. This
program called Operation Streamline exists in several cities, and at
least in the Tucson sector, 70 people are arbitrarily chosen to get
streamlined and criminally processed every single day within a span of a
half hour to 1.5 hours. Sentences range from 30 days to 6 months in detention. The point is to look at the strategy of deterrence and
how effective it is.
2) Along those lines, with our current border enforcement strategy,
are we really keeping out or punishing the people we want to keep out
or punish with our criminal justice system? The Obama administration
said they would target people who are considered "threats to society"
for detention and deportation, but is that what has really happened?
(Check out articles below)
3) In my mind, our approach to border security and immigration policy needs to address the root causes of immigration. What factors lead people to leave their homelands to face life or death, extortion, sexual violence, etc. countless times perhaps on top of trains from Central America, throughout migration routes in Mexico, across the border with a smuggler, and days of walking in the desert?
More control:
People
are being smuggled across the border, drugs are being smuggled across
the border, cartel violence south of our border affects the borderlands
and spills over the border. And it is indeed a threat to national
security to not know who all is living in your country. There are many
economic arguments as well, such as undocumented immigrants are a drain
on our social services and undercut our labor system by being willing to
work in poorer conditions for less wages. Because people, drugs, and
other things we don't want in our country keep coming across the border,
the argument is to step up enforcement and pour more resources to stop
these things from coming across. It would be helpful to research
arguments around immigration and reform in general to know why people
want to step up enforcement.
Less control:
I would
perhaps think of this as more effective use of resources. When we look
at the root causes of migration, we could instead try to work with
sending countries to provide more economic opportunities and peaceful
conditions so people wouldn't flee their homelands. Also, if we stopped
targeting people who's only offense was crossing the border, we could
shift resources from apprehending and deporting those people and also
from paying detention centers to catching and prosecuting people who
actually have committed crimes such as rape, murder, extortion,
smuggling, etc.
One worrisome trend is the collaboration
between local police and federal immigration authorities, which gets
labeled "polimigra," police-migra (or border authorities) through the
federal Secure Communities program. Especially in Arizona, state law SB
1070 makes it legal for local authorities to ask for documentation under
reasonable suspicion, but police are in fact not required to either ask
for documentation or call border patrol. However, the law is often
abused, and people are pulled over for routine traffic stops and asked
for their documentation, and if they are discovered to be undocumented,
border patrol is called, people are held for longer than it is actually
legal, and they are often deported. Many deportations happen as a result
of routine traffic violations, and further, the trend is that people
who are undocumented do not want to report an accident or crime for fear
of being asked their status and then being deported.
Another aspect to think about is the
environmental impacts. The wall not only tries to stop people, but it
actively prevents many birds, plants, and animals from their natural
roaming patterns. Additionally, the wall's construction disturbs the
environment around it, and Border Patrol vehicles often go off-road and
destroy the habitat in the process. Here's the Sierra Club Borderlands
page if that helps: http://www.sierraclub.org/
I would also like to point you
towards a few good articles I've come across that could help, and since
we're an educational organization, I have plenty more - just ask if you
want more!
Here is a comprehensive look at Congress' "Bed mandate" that perpetuates the system of criminalization and incarceration:
Here is another good look at militarization of the border
- Todd Miller writes for Witness for Peace and also is on our
BorderLinks board, which is a cool connection since I also used to work
for Witness for Peace and am still involved as well.
http://www.witnessforpeace.
Hope that is helpful and all makes sense! If you have more thoughts
or questions or want more resources, please do not hesitate to let me
know. I am happy to help!
All the best,
Kathryn
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