To Learn

In 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed. In that same year, construction of the wall between the US and Mexico began. NAFTA was designed to benefit the US, Mexico, and Canada economically. It was also supposed to solve immigration issues. Since 1994, six million Mexicans have left their country to come to the US. Many of them have come through Arizona.

Seventy-five of these migrants are tried each day for illegal entry in to Arizona through a mass trial known as Operation Streamline. The trial will go on their permanent record. The process costs the US government 3.5 billion dollars a year. That is more than 9 million dollars a day. The trials are meant to find and stop terrorists. An additional 800 plus migrants are returned to Mexico each day by the Border Patrol.

The Tucson Sector Border Patrol has a 70 man unit called BORSTAR dedicated to search and rescue missions in the desert. Additionally, there are a number of EMTs within the Border Patrol. Their goal is to save lives. During the Streamline trials, migrants thanked the Border Patrol for saving their lives.

Mike, a member of the Tohono O’odham Nation, places jugs of water along the deadliest migrant route in to Arizona, the Babakiri Valley. Forty-two percent of all migrant deaths that occur in the Tucson Sector occur in this valley which bisects the Nation. His bottles are punctured and emptied by Nation police.

Migrants entering the US by crossing the Arizona desert are of increasingly different ethnicities. Recently, many Chinese have been apprehended.

The above barely scrape the surface of the many faces of the immigration issue facing this country. They reflect just a few sides of an infinitely complex problem.

I have been in Arizona for a week. In that week, I have been challenged by a public defender, a lawyer, a Tohono O’odham Native American, a farmer, members of the YWCA, human rights groups, and my professors with educating and through educating, serving as a catalyst for change. And no matter where you stand on immigration—no matter where I stand—it is clear that something needs to change.

So, why am I here? I am here to learn. To learn in order to better understand. To learn in order to be able to make informed decisions regarding immigration. To learn in order to be better able to serve. But especially, to learn in order to be qualified to educate for change.

I hope that using this blog I can take what I learn here this summer and begin this process of educating both myself and others. I hope you will continue to follow this blog and those blogs of the other students with me in Arizona this summer.