At the end of the 2.2-mile dirt road (the fence runs approximately two miles the other direction as well), we stopped and got out to look at the end of the wall, which ceased abruptly as it entered more hilly terrain. I laughed to find immediately at the end of the wall a bumper sticker attached to one of the wall bars that read 'No Border Wall,' and a large, well-worn path used by migrants. The path was akin to many I've hiked in large US National Parks, except that it was strewn with empty water bottles. The presence of the path less than five feet from the end of the wall underscores the futility of the wall.
"It makes them [politicians, BP, etc.] feel warm and fuzzy and safe," mocked Rodriguez. "I wouldn't say this increases BP's chances of catching people. I bring people here because it's so obvious what this is. It's a joke."
We climbed back into her truck and started driving back on the bumpy road, as Rodriguez continued, "I don't see things getting better. The Obama administration is listening to previous advisers on this. This policy has been a complete failure."
A BP agent pulled us over when we were on our way back to Tucson and asked us where we were from. After hearing our accents and profiling us, he let us go without asking to see our IDs, and Rodriguez kept talking.
"I think there are some things you can't un-witness and unlearn," she said. "So for me not to do this work, I don't think I could live with myself. And I also think about how much worse it would be if I did not do this."
She admitted that sometimes rewards for her work only come in grim form. "Every so often we ID a body and give a family closure," she said in a lowered voice as we neared Tucson. "I've had to be the one to tell somebody their loved one is dead. I have heard the hope literally be breathed out of their body when they heard that their person is dead."
Rodriguez told Truthout that since the border policies were implemented in the 1990's, there have been more than 5,000 recovered remains found, and "who knows how many more are out there?"
Rodriguez explained that 52 percent of all the migrants from Mexico use this corridor in south-central Arizona. "So this is ground zero," she said. "1,000-1,500 immigrants a day are processed through the Federal Court in Tucson."
Operation "Streamline Taxpayer Money Into the Private Prison Industry"
The $67 million edifice that is the Evo DeConcini (former Arizona Attorney General) Federal Courthouse in Tucson stands as a monument to corruption.
Every weekday at 1 p.m., around 75 undocumented immigrants, freshly caught by the BP, are paraded into a cavernous courtroom on the third floor. The clinking from their manacles and leg irons echoes around the room while they are led to their seats, all of them wearing the same dirty clothes they were wearing in the desert when they were picked up by BP. More clinking as each stands when their name was called, as they each answered "presente." Then clinking again as they were taken, five at a time, to stand in front of the Judge Tom Ferraro to plead guilty, in a simultaneous "Si," for entering the country illegally.
Thus is immigration criminalized by a vulgar display of inhumanity.
The maximum sentences, as explained by the judge, are six months in jail and a $5,000 fine. After more information is imparted to them by the judge, five at a time, the migrants are asked if they signed their plea agreements, to which they all answer "Si" simultaneously. To this Judge Ferraro replies, "All plead guilty." Any who incurred legal infractions during previous stays are given more time in jail.
There is a short period after this when each of their lawyers (who are paid between $6,000 and $12,000 of US taxpayers' money per day), standing behind their immigrant "clients," make brief requests from the judge for their clients. A husband and wife asked to be sent to the same jail so that when they are released they will be together. Another asked if he could be held in Tucson so he can be near his three daughters who live there.
To these Judge Ferraro responded that he would make a recommendation towards this, but the final decision would be up to the prison. After this, he announced, "That's all gentlemen. Thank you and good luck to you."
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
