If you have attended Ruta del Jefe or read the Sky Islands Odyssey route guide, you know that not everything down in the borderlands where I live is about frolicking pronghorn in a beautiful grassland landscape. Beneath the surface is the reality that the U.S. immigration policy, Prevention Through Deterrence, deters migrant refugee traffic to more hostile terrain that is less suited for crossing and better suited for enforcement. As a result of this strategy, hundreds of undocumented migrants suffer or die from dehydration, starvation, and the extreme journey through the desert each year within the borderlands.
I am reminded of this reality daily while living on the AWRR throughout the constant drone traffic overhead and surrounding border patrol check points. The other day, however, I was riding around the ranch and came across a deserted backpack by one of the cienegas, which was a harsh reminder that even in five inches of snow and ice, refugees are still passing through the desert. No More Deaths, a humanitarian aid organization that provides water and food along migrant routes, just came out with a new report as the third installment of their series: Disappeared: How U.S. Border Enforcement Agencies are Fueling a Missing Person's Crisis. The report, Left to Die: Border Patrol, Search and Rescue, and the Crisis of Disappearance, written along with La Coalición de Derechos Humanos, finds that Border Patrol systematically ignores and mishandles search and rescue emergencies in the borderlands.
I encourage you to read the report, view this short video of the findings, and donate to No More Deaths for their essential work in bringing light to these issues.