Thread: {SOB} Watching the Border

Watching the Border

New America Media, Commentary, Ray Ybarra, Posted: Apr 17, 2007

Editor’s Note: For two years, NAM contributor Ray Ybarra filmed and monitored the U.S.-Mexico border, an experience that he says transformed his life. Ybarra is a third-year law student at Stanford University.

DOUGLAS, AZ -- It used to be a game in Douglas, Ariz. My two older brothers would take turns running through one of the many holes in the chain link fence that stood as the lone barrier between the United States and Mexico. It was the same height as the chain link fence around the perimeter of my kindergarten. The only difference was that the fence my brothers were running through had many more openings.

Standing on the U.S. side of the fence, the kids would take turns to see who could duck through one of the holes, run over to Mexico and touch a building. Each kid would try to touch a further spot than the one before him.

I was always too afraid to do so. My brothers were not. So I simply watched as they and their friends played with the international divide the same way other kids played with a jump rope.

We moved away and I grew up. Now, I no longer see the border as a game. As someone who monitored and filmed the border for two years, I see it as a symbol of hatred, fear, xenophobia, racism, and misunderstanding. I see the border as a barrier to compassion and love.

Recently, I returned to Douglas while taking two years off from law school to work as an Ira Glasser Racial Justice Fellow for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). When I told my mother about the fellowship, she said, “What? They couldn’t find anyone else who wanted to live in Douglas?”

I explained that the ACLU put out a call for proposals for any work related to racial justice and I wrote my proposal about the vigilantes, or Minutemen patrolling the border. I was extremely lucky to be funded for two years. She was worried that I was postponing law school and probably a little confused that I was returning to the town from which she and my father struggled to get us out of.

One aspect of my work involved coordinating legal observers during the Minuteman Project. Originally dubbed Vigilante Watch, legal observing involved training individuals to follow the Minutemen with video cameras, two-way radios, and cell phones. The idea was to deter abuses by our presence, document illegal activity, and highlight the human rights tragedy occurring on the U.S.-Mexico border.



I originally thought it would just be me and my cousin, but legal observing, it turned out, was done by more than 500 people in the four states along the U.S.-Mexico border, as well as in the state of Washington.

The memories that constantly reappear in my mind from those days are the interactions with migrants. I see the soft, brown cheeks of a crying baby who had been carried on his mother’s back for three days through the burning desert. I see the bleeding purple mass on a man’s face where once there were lips. He walked towards me, carrying a jug filled with his own urine he was forced to drink to stave off death.

And these were the lucky ones. While traveling to the interior of Mexico to develop a lawsuit against one of the vigilantes, I met a mother whose son is one of the more than 4,000 bodies that has been discovered on the U.S.-Mexico border.

I do not mean to paint the picture of migrants simply as victims. On the same trip to the interior of Mexico, I met individuals who were willing to demand recognition of their human rights. I was also fortunate to have many conversations while volunteering at a migrant center on the Mexican side of the border, making food, cleaning rooms, and helping with the laundry. I eventually worked my way up into facilitating human rights discussions with the migrants.

I enjoyed meeting migrants and activists (not mutually exclusive groups) while traveling around the country speaking about border issues and showing the documentary I co-wrote and co-produced. I look forward to returning to the border upon graduation from law school in May.

The other day someone asked how, given what I’ve seen and knowing that every day the anti-immigrant sentiment continues to grow, I can keep from being depressed. I tell them I’ve met too many courageous migrants who are willing to move forward, despite the vast amount of obstacles in front of them, to be discouraged. In their words and actions I am reminded of the sacrifices and resilience of my parents, and I know that where there is love, there is hope.

The border as a concept is filled with holes, and we have to keep running through them. But I am no longer afraid.






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User Comments


DDyer on Apr 18, 2007 at 12:00:09 said:

Would changing the label from "undocumented workers" to "economic refugees" change your attitude? How about calling them "$1.50 Head of Lettuce workers" work? The fact is that, like the tax code, the immigration laws of the country respond to the conditions of an outdated circumstance. Immigration reform is urgent! And Labor Law reform should come with it!


will shure on Apr 17, 2007 at 19:25:15 said:

What part of illegal do you not understand??? What give these people south of the border special privileges as compared to the rest of the people in the world who wants to come here?? Is it too much to ask for these people to come here legally?? You may think I am down on immigrants, my wife is an immigrant, but she is here LEAGALLY, all I ask is for them to do the same legal steps my wife and I had to do. Is that TOO MUCH TROUBLE?? I hate to be heartless, but if these people are going to break our laws and come here illegally, then they deserve whatever fate the desert deals them!!!

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New America Media is a project of Pacific News Service | Copyright © Pacific News Service
http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_art ... c996c08ab7

Just posted my comment.

Your typical liberal sympathizer for bloodsucking individuals.

ACLU...Alien Criminal Liberties Union. Loyalists to Communist/Socialist Left-wing nuts. Where is that liberal whiner when innocent American Citizens get blown away or run over by drunken illegals? I know he's behind them kissing their butts.

Got to ACLU and nausea set in.

Guess I'll have to save this one for later.

that was a really hard read! there should have been a warning about not eating anything for 8 hours before reading... i need a shower 'it' was getting deep!

Thank you for your comments. They will be forwarded to our editors.

Another example of socialist razaista speech.



Let's see if they publish my poem



***********************
***********************
Here come the illegals

Here come the murders
Here come the DUI’s
Here come the tragedies
And all the excuse making lies

Here come the rapists
Here comes the crime
Here comes the slippery
Slimy states of mind

Law officers are killed
As is a fathers precious child
The sorrows come in waves
Innocents are increasingly defiled

Families are in mourning
Tears are raining down
We are all increasingly aware
That evil is in town

And out on country roads
And over by the railroad tracks
Slipping into houses
And up behind people’s backs

Vehicular manslaughters are up
As is reckless driving and hit and runs
Somewhere some US citizen is
Suffering and or dying and all

Because of this flood of criminal scum

****
****



Neils
10:23 pm
01/11/2007
*
transcribed this time
8:20 pm
04/18/2007



N....again

I see the soft, brown cheeks of a crying baby who had been carried on his mother’s back for three days through the burning desert. I see the bleeding purple mass on a man’s face where once there were lips. He walked towards me, carrying a jug filled with his own urine he was forced to drink to stave off death.

Do these visions ever enter your dreams:

- Two illegal immigrants brutally attack a Mexia High School graduate. She was run off a rural road, raped, beaten, stabbed and left to die in a ditch.

- "Armando Lopez-Canada, an illegal alien from Mexico, illegally working in Orlando, Florida, allegedly crashed into a vehicle driven by Ronald Bishop. Lopez-Canada cowardly left Bishop and his 4-year-old nephew to die, like so many illegal aliens seem to do. Luckily, a witness followed Lopez-Canada's fleeing vehicle so police were able to arrest him and his illegal alien passengers."

- "Carlos Prieto is reportedly an illegal alien Mexican national that has been in the US for several years. Priesto allegedly killed Cheryl Ceran and two of her children after driving drunk, running a red light, and crashing into the Ceran family's vehicle. Priesto is in the Salt Lake City jail awaiting trial."

- "Jose Sosa, 16, an illegal alien from Honduras, was arrested in the murder of Adrian Roundtree and her mother Lori in April, 2006. The Roundtree's were found dead in their Nashville home. Sosa is accused of breaking into the Rountree's apartment and stabbing them to death in their sleep. Adrian Rountree was stabbed 46 times."

- "Gustavo Reyes Garcia, an illegal alien, allegedly killed Sean Wilson while fleeing police who suspected he was driving drunk. Garcia's SUV smashed into the Wilson family vehicle, killing Sean Wilson and his wife. Garcia has been charged with vehicular homicide and evading arrest. 2006."

- "August 31, 2006, Christian Javier Sanchez Rubio, 22, a suspected drunk illegal alien, allegedly crashed into the Evans family car, killing 4-year-old Tyler Evans and injuring another 2-year-old child."

- "Saul Dos Reis, an illegal alien, raped and strangled Christina Long, age 13, and then dumped her faced down in a creek. He was sentenced to 30 years for her murder."

- "Jorge Hernandez, an illegal Mexican agricultural worker, allegedly drove 100 mph on the wrong side of the highway, crashing head-on into Min Soon Chang. He is also reported to have had previous arrests for DUI and deported multiple times, only to return to the US."

- "Jordin Paulder, age 9, was murdered because he attempted to help a passing motorist. Instead, the driver or passenger (suspected illegal immigrant) got out of the car and killed him with an ax with one or more blows to the head."

- "Alcantara, an illegal foreign national was sentenced to 9 years for violently raping a 13 year old child and a 20 year old college student."

http://www.ojjpac.org/memorial.asp

Do any of these folks ever enter your dreams Mr. Ray Ybarra or do you only have compassion for criminal aliens?

Nice comeback, MW

Ugh...I don't think I should have read that article, I just got over the stomach flu, and this made me feel sick again. NAUSEATING!

MW, why don't they ever talk about the amount of anguish illegal immigration brings to Americans? Simple, it would show that there is NO reason on this earth to justify illegal immigration, and they would rather ignore it and pretend the crimes do not exist.

Funny he never ran into any Drug Cartels or illegal with weapons just all the poor helpless needy type's. Someone needs to tell "Alice" to wake up this fairytale is over.