Thread: Advocates pay homage to fallen migrants

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepubli ... rch09.html

Advocates pay homage to fallen migrants

Daniel González
The Arizona Republic
Feb. 9, 2006 12:00 AM

In a little while, Enrique Morones would plant the white cross into the ground, a symbolic gesture in memory of the estimated 4,000 migrants who have died crossing the U.S.-Mexican border in the past 12 years.

But for the moment, Morones leaned on the cross like it was a cane, already looking weary though his cross-country journey had just begun.

The burly man stood Wednesday on the stage in Patriots Square Park in downtown Phoenix, speaking Spanish to a crowd of about 100 supporters.

"We don't want one more death," Morones boomed.

Morones is president of Border Angels, a group from San Diego that places water stations near the border to prevent migrant deaths. Since last Thursday, he and a dozen immigrant advocates have been traveling across the country. Morones said the March for Migrants pays homage to those who have died crossing the border since 1994, when the United States began fortifying the border in an attempt to stem illegal immigration.

Last fiscal year, 472 bodies were recovered along the border; a record 267 of those were in Arizona, according to U.S. Border Patrol statistics.

"The militarization of the border," Morones said, "is causing death and destruction."

Morones said the caravan was sparked by the death of Guillermo Martinez Rodriguez, an 18-year-old undocumented immigrant shot Dec. 30 by a Border Patrol agent in California.

On Wednesday, Morones called his death an "assassination," pointing out that the unarmed man was shot in the back. The Border Patrol, however, has said the agent acted in self-defense during a rock attack.

The caravan will travel to Washington, D.C. At the nation's capitol, the group plans to meet with lawmakers to denounce an immigration bill passed by the House in December that would build a wall along 700 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Morones believes that under the bill, people who offer humanitarian aid to undocumented immigrants could be prosecuted. His group supports a bipartisan bill by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass, which seeks to stem illegal immigration by creating more ways for workers to enter legally.


Following other speeches, Morones, with the help of supporters, pushed the white cross into the hard, rain-starved earth.

Then, someone started chanting, "No más muertos. (No more deaths.)" The crowd joined in.

IF they stayed home, they wouldn't die in the desert!

Has anyone forced an illegal here?