High School BorderLinks - Day 3
Wednesday the 27th - Adventures in Crossin the Border
by Hannah Samson
Wednesday began with a nice and early trip to the Day Labor Center in Tucson by way of our newly christened van, Carmen the Heatwagon. The Day Labor Center was started by volunteers at Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson to organize the migrant workers who were already using the streets surrounding the church to connect with employers. But this part of Tucson is frequented by drug dealers and prostitutes, so the migrants were constantly under suspicion by the police even though they were not involved in any of these activities. With the formation of the Day Labor Center, the migrants are now able to meet in the parking lot of Southside Pres. while waiting for a day’s worth of employment.
To be part of the Labor Center, the workers pay only one dollar to receive an I.D. and therefore commit to following the rules of the organization. These rules include following the lottery system that starts anew each day. The workers must also arrange their own pay, though it cannot be less than eight dollars an hour. This sounds like a decent wage, but as the workers are only able to work about two days a week, they are still not able to make a decent living. The workers also often lose chances to work by other migrants not belonging to the labor center agreeing to work for about half the wage. But still, it was reiterated by many migrants the improvement of work through the Day Labor Center as opposed to work in Mexico or non-unionized work in the United States.
Since we left our Borderlinks home before six o’clock, we returned to eat breakfast and then had a talk with Mike Wilson, who can be found in the documentary Crossing Arizona, which we had watched the day before. Mike Wilson is a member of the Tohono O'odham Nation who puts out water stations along the 50 miles of desert that the migrants walk through within the Nation's boundaries. He does this in connection with the organization Humane Borders which places water stations throughout other parts of the desert. Humane Borders attempted to place the water stations throughout the reservation themselves, but the Nation denied them the privilege to do so. But Mike Wilson is optimistic that the Nation may be changing its mind. Both the executive branch and the council that governs the Nation have gone through reelection and have new members that MW believes may be more in favor of assisting the migrants.
We then ate lunch and left to cross the border. This was a very special experience, as Taylor was a bit unprepared for this portion of the trip. It turns out she forgot her original birth certificate at home, which one supposedly needs to cross the border. But as it turns out, if you don't even mention that there may be an unprepared person traveling with you and you just allow them to wait in the van, it'll all be okay. None the less, the ten of us who crossed the border that day can now proclaim that we have participated in human smuggling, if ever we are asked.
We spent Wednesday night at CCAMYN in Altar (about two hours south of Nogales), a center which provides housing and food to migrants who will meet up with a Coyote the next day to take them up to the border. We ate with the migrants that night and learned some of their stories. Many of them were only a few years older than the teenagers on the trip, an idea really hard to grasp. I cannot even imagine having the need to make such an enormous and dangerous decision at the age of 18. Then that night we stayed on the floor at CCAMYN and woke up to speak to further migrants at the plaza in Altar.
by Hannah Samson
Wednesday began with a nice and early trip to the Day Labor Center in Tucson by way of our newly christened van, Carmen the Heatwagon. The Day Labor Center was started by volunteers at Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson to organize the migrant workers who were already using the streets surrounding the church to connect with employers. But this part of Tucson is frequented by drug dealers and prostitutes, so the migrants were constantly under suspicion by the police even though they were not involved in any of these activities. With the formation of the Day Labor Center, the migrants are now able to meet in the parking lot of Southside Pres. while waiting for a day’s worth of employment.
To be part of the Labor Center, the workers pay only one dollar to receive an I.D. and therefore commit to following the rules of the organization. These rules include following the lottery system that starts anew each day. The workers must also arrange their own pay, though it cannot be less than eight dollars an hour. This sounds like a decent wage, but as the workers are only able to work about two days a week, they are still not able to make a decent living. The workers also often lose chances to work by other migrants not belonging to the labor center agreeing to work for about half the wage. But still, it was reiterated by many migrants the improvement of work through the Day Labor Center as opposed to work in Mexico or non-unionized work in the United States.
Since we left our Borderlinks home before six o’clock, we returned to eat breakfast and then had a talk with Mike Wilson, who can be found in the documentary Crossing Arizona, which we had watched the day before. Mike Wilson is a member of the Tohono O'odham Nation who puts out water stations along the 50 miles of desert that the migrants walk through within the Nation's boundaries. He does this in connection with the organization Humane Borders which places water stations throughout other parts of the desert. Humane Borders attempted to place the water stations throughout the reservation themselves, but the Nation denied them the privilege to do so. But Mike Wilson is optimistic that the Nation may be changing its mind. Both the executive branch and the council that governs the Nation have gone through reelection and have new members that MW believes may be more in favor of assisting the migrants.
We then ate lunch and left to cross the border. This was a very special experience, as Taylor was a bit unprepared for this portion of the trip. It turns out she forgot her original birth certificate at home, which one supposedly needs to cross the border. But as it turns out, if you don't even mention that there may be an unprepared person traveling with you and you just allow them to wait in the van, it'll all be okay. None the less, the ten of us who crossed the border that day can now proclaim that we have participated in human smuggling, if ever we are asked.
We spent Wednesday night at CCAMYN in Altar (about two hours south of Nogales), a center which provides housing and food to migrants who will meet up with a Coyote the next day to take them up to the border. We ate with the migrants that night and learned some of their stories. Many of them were only a few years older than the teenagers on the trip, an idea really hard to grasp. I cannot even imagine having the need to make such an enormous and dangerous decision at the age of 18. Then that night we stayed on the floor at CCAMYN and woke up to speak to further migrants at the plaza in Altar.
