Thread: CSU group headed to the border of Mexico

CSU group headed to the border of Mexico
Students to spend break offering water to border crossers
BY TREVOR HUGHES • TrevorHughes @coloradoan.com • March 13, 2010

Comments(1)

While some of their classmates head to Acapulco, Cancun and Playa Del Carmen, a group of CSU students will travel to the Mexican border - to spend spring break refilling water stations for illegal immigrants crossing the Arizona desert.

The group of about 10 students is participating in Colorado State University's Alternative Spring Break. Other CSU students will do trail maintenance in national forests, volunteer at an animal shelter in Utah and help the homeless in Washington, D.C.

More than 150 CSU students will participate in the weeklong alternative breaks, which they helped create.

The group making the 15-hour drive to Tucson today will work alongside volunteers of Humane Borders, which runs and refills more than 100 free water stations in the desert north of the border. The organization, founded in 2000 by a coalition of religious groups, said it dispensed more than 25,000 gallons of water in 2008.

The group officially opposes illegal immigration and distributes posters and fliers on the Mexican side of the border warning migrants of the dangers they face. According to the U.S. Border Patrol, more than 1,100 illegal immigrants crossing the border died between Oct. 1, 1999 and Sept. 30, 2007.

The students also will meet with Border Patrol agents.
"The idea of these spring breaks is to really have a nonpartisan, nonbiased learning experience for students through immersion learning," said CSU senior Sam Bowersox-Daly, who is going to Tennessee for his alternative break.

Bowersox-Daly said students on the Arizona trip also will travel to Mexico to see the other side of the border. He said the students are paying their own way. Bowersox-Daly is the student coordinator for Alternative Spring Break at CSU.

"They'll be spending a lot of time looking at the issue of immigration from both sides of the border," he said. "A whole lot can be learned from physically crossing this big bad border we're all hearing about."
Associate Professor Ernesto Sagas, the faculty adviser for the group, said the majority of Americans have never seen either the northern or southern borders. Sagas, who teaches ethnic studies, said it's important for students to see firsthand what the Mexican border is like.
"There's nothing like being there and seeing what it is like, what the dynamics are like," Sagas said. "I want them to see the reality for themselves."

Sagas said he understood that some people might criticize the students for volunteering with Humane Borders.

"That is life. There are different opinions," he said.


http://www.coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll ... 0103130319

Bless their little hearts, that is so noble of them.

I hope that they don't run into any drug smugglers or find and rape trees while they are there.

Does the Border Patrol say that only 1100 have crossed the border between 99 and 2007 as the author of this article Trevor Hughes claims?

http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20100 ... 01/3130319

CSU group headed to the border of Mexico
Students to spend break offering water to border crossers
BY TREVOR HUGHES • TrevorHughes @coloradoan.com • March 13, 2010

While some of their classmates head to Acapulco, Cancun and Playa Del Carmen, a group of CSU students will travel to the Mexican border - to spend spring break refilling water stations for illegal immigrants crossing the Arizona desert.

The group of about 10 students is participating in Colorado State University's Alternative Spring Break. Other CSU students will do trail maintenance in national forests, volunteer at an animal shelter in Utah and help the homeless in Washington, D.C.

More than 150 CSU students will participate in the weeklong alternative breaks, which they helped create.

The group making the 15-hour drive to Tucson today will work alongside volunteers of Humane Borders, which runs and refills more than 100 free water stations in the desert north of the border. The organization, founded in 2000 by a coalition of religious groups, said it dispensed more than 25,000 gallons of water in 2008.

The group officially opposes illegal immigration and distributes posters and fliers on the Mexican side of the border warning migrants of the dangers they face. According to the U.S. Border Patrol, more than 1,100 illegal immigrants crossing the border died between Oct. 1, 1999 and Sept. 30, 2007.
The students also will meet with Border Patrol agents.

"The idea of these spring breaks is to really have a nonpartisan, nonbiased learning experience for students through immersion learning," said CSU senior Sam Bowersox-Daly, who is going to Tennessee for his alternative break.

Bowersox-Daly said students on the Arizona trip also will travel to Mexico to see the other side of the border. He said the students are paying their own way. Bowersox-Daly is the student coordinator for Alternative Spring Break at CSU.

"They'll be spending a lot of time looking at the issue of immigration from both sides of the border," he said. "A whole lot can be learned from physically crossing this big bad border we're all hearing about."

Associate Professor Ernesto Sagas, the faculty adviser for the group, said the majority of Americans have never seen either the northern or southern borders. Sagas, who teaches ethnic studies, said it's important for students to see firsthand what the Mexican border is like.

"There's nothing like being there and seeing what it is like, what the dynamics are like," Sagas said. "I want them to see the reality for themselves."

Sagas said he understood that some people might criticize the students for volunteering with Humane Borders.

"That is life. There are different opinions," he said.

Maybe they should volunteer to do something to help the victims of illegal immigration?

The idea of these spring breaks is to really have a nonpartisan, nonbiased learning experience for students through immersion learning," said CSU senior Sam Bowersox-Daly, who is going to Tennessee for his alternative break.

Nonpartisian?

What the hell are you talking about! They should be very partisian if they believe in the rule of law due to the fact that entering this country in violation of our immigration laws is....well ILLEGAL! THEY SHOULD BE BIASED if they care about this country!

What's on tap for next year...delivering ham sandwiches to death row inmates or hosting a bullet drive for gangbangers!!! Of course, it's all nonpartisian and nonbiased!

We get it.....

I doubt that they are even aware of the victims of illegal immigration, the poor illegals are the victims and can't possibly victimize other people.

When they are at the border maybe they will talk to some of the ranchers that live on the border to find out what their experience has been.