Border Patrol, why don't you come to your senses? You been out building fences for so long now Oh, you're a hard one- I know that you think you got reasons. These things that are pleasin' you Can hurt our world somehow.
Ya- Desperado is a favorite sing-a-long at our camp. We enjoy making some variations.
This week me and Rachel went to the mobile camp to explore some new tails that haven't been in No More Deaths records yet. We found a huge dump site that must have had at least 400 backpacks. Migrants have to leave all their stuff behind before continuing their journey. When you come upon the site it's hard to not know there's a war going on. Every day I kind of feel more and more like I am in the middle of a war (but I do still feel very safe). When there's a physical wall and such rigid and harsh political boundaries and policies it's pretty understandable isn't it? Anyways on that note we had a couple encounters with border patrol this week that went smoothly and civil. I have heard many bad stories, but have yet to have a bad run in myself. They pulled us over the other night just for driving, because that can be suspicious. We've had some other conversations with agents and they seem like they're trying to be nice, good people, but are just brainwashed and stuck in some matrix that doesn't allow them to see the whole picture. When border patrol finds migrants they hold them until the Wackenhut Bus gets there, Wackenhut is a private company, not governmental. When we see migrants with BP it's okay that we go and ask them if we can give the migrants food and water, and check their health. We can ask Wackenhut too, but they have no policy about aid to the migrants. These guys are just like security guards- not border patrol, not police officials, but they still give themselves this macho authority that allows them to tell us we need to 'maintain a 50 foot perimeter in order to do their job effectively.' That is not their policy. It's hard not to explode, but exploding would just lead to something messier, it's better to take a deep breath, wave at the migrants and go away. The migrants will most likely be returned to Mexico, and start again, in ill health.
One day while we were on patrol we began to think of real practical solutions to the problem at the border. So if it were up to me, I would start by doing these things, keep in mind, there is no quick fix, it will take time and patience, like all good things: first I'd get rid of NAFTA, and other policies that hurt our neighbors. Then we'd need to come up with a practical path to citizenship for the immigrants who are here, and the ones who still may come in the future (those one's our economy and communities depend on and will continue to depend on). Then we're really going to have to legalize marijuana, for so many reasons. A big reason border patrol claims they're at the border is to stop drug runners. Make it legal and it can then be monitored rather than smuggled. Then most importantly: as much as I think it is not necessary, would would still have to have some sort of border patrol. But we could improve their training! They could learn how to read maps and use GPS. They could learn fundamental skills like the knowledge of where North South East and West are. They could have agents ride around with a partner for their own safety instead of being alone in their vehicles whenever anything comes up. They could put them through diversity trainings that would allow and encourage and humane treatment of people who still try to cross the border. They could make the training longer than two weeks.
It's still hot here, but the desert impresses me every day. I'm excited for the monsoon to come and the dirt to turn red!
Again, I hope everyone is well. Peace.
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