Activists say: "Bring down the wall"

by Susan Thorpe

Kicking off a campaign to "Bring down the wall" on the border with Mexico, 
a broad-based coalition of community organisations and individuals held a 
teach-in here May 31. Organisers of the teach-in, which included 
environmentalists, human rights activists and indigenous people, are 
determined to reverse US Border Patrol plans that would expand the existing 
15-foot-high solid metal wall and physically seal off three-quarters of the 
state of Arizona from Mexico.

Sean Garcia from the Washington, DC-based Latin American Working Group 
displayed a graph prepared by the US Border Patrol, "Apprehensions of 
Undocumented Migrants by Sector, 1993-2003," that dramatically depicted 
both the undiminished numbers and the shift in migration patterns resulting 
from Border Patrol policies over the last decade.

No wall or fence will stop the migration of people desperate for work, he 
said. Sealing off areas has never diminished, let alone stopped, the flow 
north, but only funnels traffic to even harsher terrain, causing yet more 
deaths, he added.

Participants said current plans to expand the wall will further force 
migrant crossers into the most inhospitable, mountainous, and dangerous 
terrain of the Sonoran Desert in the western quarter of Arizona and through 
vast isolated stretches of the uninhabited Chihuahuan desert of New Mexico 
where the fence would end.

The Border Patrol's plan would plunder the desert with over 255 additional 
miles of solid 15-foot-high wall, 880 more miles of border roads, 145 
remote surveillance cameras, and 410 stadium-style lights with generators, 
according to documents distributed to participants.

The Border Patrol has yet to reveal what types of materials will be used to 
build the massive structure, its exact location, or its actual cost. 
Estimates range up to US$1 million per mile (a total of US$255 million) for 
the wall alone. At an average estimated cost of US$150,000 for each 
fixture, lighting would come to an additional US$22 million.

There are no estimated figures for the remote cameras, helicopters, 
vehicles, maintenance, agents, or the road construction that will run 
through seven environmentally-sensitive areas including the San Pedro 
Riparian National Conservation Area, the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife 
Refuge and the San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge.

The conferees expressed outrage at Republican Arizona Congressman Jim 
Kolbe, a big booster of the wall policy, comparing him to Republican Rep. 
Duncan Hunter (California) who supported the building of a wall through his 
district between San Diego and Tijuana.

According to figures from Rep. Hunter's office, this 14-mile double fence 
with cameras, lights and roads cost US$3 million per mile. Lauren Altes, 
speaking for San Diego's Safe Border Coalition, reported, "The wall did not 
slow migration, it only shifted it to Arizona, and the deaths soared."

Arizona human rights activists charge that US immigration policy and Border 
Patrol actions have resulted in over 2000 migrants' deaths recorded since 
1996.

Already this year, people are dying in the desert around Tucson at a rate 
of one every other day and summer has not even begun.

"This area has become a vast killing field for migrants," said Isabel 
Garcia, spokesperson for Derechos Humanos of Tucson. "Last year, 145 died 
in Arizona alone," Garcia continued, "and who knows how many more whose 
bodies were never found in this remote vast oven where the desert floor 
reaches temperatures of 175 degrees it is impossible to know. Bring down 
the wall!"

Note: In next week's World, correspondent Susan Thorpe's report continues 
with an analysis of the environmental impact of the wall.

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The author can be reached at Susan@SusanThorpe.com
People's Weekly World