Thread: Volunteers Walk to Show Immigrant Struggle

http://www.kold.com/Global/story.asp?S= ... v=14RTaSYE


Volunteers Walk to Show Immigrant Struggle
by Mark Poepsel, KOLD News-13 Reporter
posted May 30, 2005

Immigrant rights advocates are braving the desert heat to protest U.S. border policy.

Monday afternoon volunteers began a 75-mile walk from the border at Sasabe to Tucson.

They hope to cover ten to fifteen miles a day, camp at night and reach Tucson Sunday with support cars carrying water and food.

Close to 100 immigrants rights supporters joined the walk on Memorial Day.

Those 100 represent about half the number of immigrants who died in the desert last year.

Hector Suarez of the group "No More Deaths" said, "So much human suffering's going on right here right in our back yard. People don't see it, don't realize how vast it is."

But from as far away as Seattle, Washington, volunteers came to walk and make their point.

Laura Davis, a student at Whitman College said, "The militarization of the border and number of deaths that's causing by forcing people over the desert doesn't make sense from a humanitarian perspective."

As their feet burn and their mouths dry up walkers are filled with questions.

Aaron Bobrow-Strain also from Whitman said, "What kind of political and economic system puts people where they're forced to go through a wicked desert and possibly never see their kids again?"

Activists want broad change in America's border policy, but they agree blame belongs on both sides of the border.

Tucsonan Hector Suarez told us what he would say to Mexico's president, Vicente Fox.

Suarez said, "Sending people to send money back home isn't a permanent solution to Mexico's problems. The suffering that goes on every day is immense."

But despite the heat, dehydration and long miles, walkers agree they're only getting a piece of the suffering the real immigrants feel.

"It can't begin to compare to the situation of migrants as they cross," said Suarez. "Their lives are on the line. We have support vehicles, water, food, all they have is themselves."

I have said it before, walking through the desert in the summer to protest folks dieing from walking through the desert in the summer takes a special kind of STUPID.