Border Patrol Agents Destroy Supplies Left for Migrants in Arizona Desert
Border Patrol Agents Destroy Supplies Left for Migrants in Arizona Desert
By: Steve Williams
Humanitarian groups report that United States Border Patrol agents have been observed vandalizing supplies left for migrants in the Arizona desert – an act that could literally cost people their lives.
The accusations come in an extensive report published this month and titled “The Disappeared Report.” Authored by two Tucson-based groups, La Coalicion de Derechos Humanos and No More Deaths, the report focuses on the activities of Border Patrol agents and the increasing but under-reported deaths and missing persons in the expanse between the U.S. and Mexico border.
The report includes three distinct sections: “Deadly Apprehension Methods,” “Destruction of and Interference with Humanitarian Aid” and “Emergency Nonresponse.” The first part was released last year, and the second part is now available.
DESTRUCTION OF AND INTERFERENCE WITH HUMANITARIAN AID
This second section of the report examines the alarming frequency of damage to the groups’ aid drops.
Border Patrol officials have often pinned such destruction on hunters, contending that they tamper with food and water during hunting season. However, the report analyzed vandalism rates across different time periods and came to a different conclusion:
Water gallons were vandalized 415 times, or on average more than twice a week, during the three years of recorded data. Overall 3,586 gallons of water were vandalized. We compared vandalism rates across seasons (hunting vs. non-hunting) and land jurisdictions in our attempts to identify who is responsible. We found that although vandalism of our water-drop sites increased slightly during hunting season–to a vandalism event rate of 9.3%–there remained a baseline vandalism rate of 6.6% during non-hunting season, demonstrating that hunters are not responsible for the majority of the destruction.
Border Patrol Agents Destroy Supplies Left for Migrants in Arizona ...