Humanitarians headed to D.C. to lobby for migrant safety
Border BoletÃ*n: Humanitarians headed to D.C. to lobby for migrant safety
Brady McCombs, Arizona Daily Star
Posted: Monday, September 27, 2010 8:30 am
Rev. Robin Hoover, the founder of Humane Borders, is headed to Washington D.C. along with other humanitarian officials to lobby the federal government to do more to keep illegal immigrants from dying.
As you likely know by now, the bodies of nearly 2,000 illegal border crossers have been found along Arizona's stretch of U.S.-Mexico border since 2001, with no end in sight. This year could be the worst yet.
The Arizona Daily Star tracks the border deaths in this database. And I recently wrote a special report about the work done by the Pima County Medical Examiner's Office in handling the bodies.
Hoover will be joined by representatives from the Border Network for Human Rights in El Paso, American Friends Service Committee in San Diego, the ACLU in New Mexico and the National Immigration Lawyers. Tohono O'odham tribabl member Mike Wilson will also be going. Wilson sets out water on the Tohono O'odham Nation, putting him at odds with tribal officials.
They have meetings at the White House with Customs and Border Protection on Monday and with Senate and House officials Tuesday, Hoover said.
Hoover said the principal goal will be "put more pressure on folks to do something about migrant safety." He said officials from federal and county government have committed to a meeting in Tucson in October to dicuss some ideas.
Hoover's suggestions to improve safety for illegal border crossers include:
• Deploy 911 cell phone technology
• Deploy more Border Patrol rescue beacons
• Work with Tohono O'odham Nation officials to provide humanitarian groups with more access to put water out.
• Stop building and repairing fences, so agents can be freed up to apprehend illegal immigrants and cut down on the average length of trips for illegal immigrants.
• Increase the size of the Office of the Inspector General to cut down on Border Patrol abuses of illegal immigrants.
• Stop dusting illegal border crossers with helicopters. This activity, especially at night, can result in people being separated from smugglers, and putting them at greater risk of getting lost in the desert.
• Pre-approve certain non-government organizations with experience in search and rescue to be able to conduct searches on public lands.
• Stop night-time deportations of vulnerable populations.
• Reduce night-time operations by the Border Patrol. Night time patrols lead to more illegal border crossers being separated from guides, increasing deaths.
I asked him how optimistic he was this time around. He wrote:
"I'm in the hope business, but not always optimistic. I do think, however, that we're taking these conversations to a new and better level and thus have a higher expectation that something might actually happen. Talking to the local Border Patrol staff is useless. We have to talk it higher up and across other departments and branches."
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