The Annual Migrant Trail

The Tucson weekly has an interesting article about the annual Migrant Trail in which many Christian walk 75 miles through the scorching desert at the beginning of "death season" in memory of those who have died trying to get into the United States.

The 40 or 50 walkers are Christians: "two Franciscan friars are marching in long, brown robes--and conceive of the trip in religious terms.

"As a Christian, I'm called to be a welcomer who makes a place for the immigrant," says Dan Abbott, a retired social worker and Presbyterian from Tempe who's pitched his tent near Albeser's. "It's a spiritual journey, too. The desert is a theme running through the scriptures."

Friar Martín Ibarra says he himself crossed the border illegally back in 1989, when it was less dangerous. Now, as a Franciscan, he follows the "charism"--or religious mandate--of his order.

"We are on the side of the poor, the marginalized, the broken," he says, taking a rest after what he calls "four very long days."

Snip.

So far this fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, known migrant deaths number in the high 80s, but the toll typically skyrockets during the 100-degree days of summer.

Each walker wears a white cross emblazoned with the name and age of a dead migrant. (Ableser's is Mario Castillo Fernandez, age 26.) The walkers believe they can raise people's consciousness about the deaths, even if their trek is not heavily covered in the media. The can bring their stories back to their far-flung communities.

The whole illegal emmigrant issue is highly controversial - but no one, on any side of the issue, wants those deaths.

Humane Borders is one group who provides water stations for those attempting the scorching walk across the desert. 8,000 volunteers maintain 83 water stations through the Arizona border region from May to September.

In 2005, The supervisors of Pima county voted 4-1 to provide $25,000 for another year to Humane Borders, the Tucson faith-based agency whose members have provided more than 65,000 gallons of water to immigrants who have crossed into Arizona's deadly deserts over the past five years.

One reason?

It costs about $300,000 annually to recover and store the bodies of illegal immigrants who die in Pima County, Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry said.

Between October 1, 2004 and September 30, 2005, 279 people died tried to illegally cross the Arizona/Mexican border. Humane Borders distributes these posters along the Mexican side of the border, trying to head trekkers off. Every red dot represents a place where someone died.

( In English, the poster reads Don't Do It! It's Hard! There's Not Enough Water!)