 Walt Staton is a volunteer with No More Deaths, the southern Arizona humanitarian aid group. For putting gallon jugs of water out in the desert for migrants who cross the border on foot, he was given a littering citation in December, 2008. Staton ended up in federal court because he fought the ticket. He was convicted by a jury and awaits sentencing in August.
Staton began volunteering with No More Deaths in 2004, after graduating from the University of Arizona with a BS in Geography and Regional Development. He visited one of their desert camps as an independent journalist, while wring a story about their project. What he found was an extraordinary group of people that ended up bringing him into the work about a year later. To support himself, he works at a print shop as a graphic designer and is also involved in book publishing.
How did No More Deaths begin and what is their mission?
The mission is to end the death and suffering in the desert of migrants who are crossing the US-Mexico border. When the United States entered NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), they recognized that it would probably cause instability in Mexico’s economy. At the same time, a new set of border policies went into effect. The new border enforcement strategy was based on the idea of deterrence. What the US government did was that it singled out the areas that where easiest for people to cross the border, which were urban areas—Tijuana, San Diego, El Paso, Juarez and Nogales in Arizona. They built walls in these areas and started pushing people out further into the desert, because the entire border is pretty desolate. The intention was to funnel people into Arizona because that is the harshest desert. It worked really well. They knew more people would begin crossing because of the economic instability (that would occur in Mexico because of NAFTA,) and they wanted to prevent people from trying to cross by using the environment as an actual deterrent.
Starting in about 2000, we first began seeing deaths in the Arizona desert. Two other humanitarian groups actually formed in a response to that before No More Deaths came on the scene. The first on was called Humane Borders . What they do is put out big tanks of water, like 55-gallon drums of water. They’re all over the place. At the time, they thought that was really radical. The government said it would arrest them for doing this, for aiding and abetting, etc. But it turned out that none of that happened and the death toll continued to go up. So, not long after Humane Borders started, a group called the Tucson Samaritans formed and they would actually drive out and look for people who were in distress. The death toll continued to go up, so in 2004, No More Deaths was created. The idea was to actually have camps in the middle of the desert, in really remote areas and see what we could do. We’ve come a long ways since then but that was the basic idea.
Are these permanent or semi-permanent camps?
Unfortunately, they’ve become pretty permanent. The idea at the beginning was that the US would change its policy after the [seeing] death toll, but as we know, the policy has continued. So the camps, which are not designed as permanent camps, are there pretty much all the time now. They’re primitive. At the main camp we have, there’s no running water, no electricity and we use a five-gallon bucket for a toilet. So even after five years, it’s still a very primitive setting.
What is a typical day like for volunteers? How did you come up with your system of distributing water?
It’s evolved over the years. When we first started the camps, we didn’t know where we were. The idea was to leave camp every day, drive to different areas and walk around to see if you could find people that needed help. What we discovered was that the migrants came out on what was a pretty well established network of trails. So, we started mapping those trails. Now we have a really clear idea of where people are crossing and where we’re most likely to find people who need help. That’s what started our program of putting out water jugs. Once we knew where these trails were, we could be really systematic about where we put our resources.
Now, on a typical day at the camp, we get up before the sun comes up—it’s really hot otherwise—drive out and start hiking. We identify a set of trails we want to cover and leave jugs of water at specific points, go back to camp, have lunch and do the same thing in the afternoon. Over the course of the week, we check up on all the places we left water. By counting how many jugs were taken we get a sense of how many people are coming through.
How many volunteers are at these camps and how long do you stay?
From week to week there are anywhere from 10-20 people at the camp. We have a lot of in-town core volunteers that help coordinate things. We go out as much as we can to provide leadership. Then we have lots of out-of-town volunteers that come to Tucson just to do this work. They really help boost our numbers. They go through a training the weekend before they go out and generally commit to anywhere from a one to four weeks.
Where are the migrants headed and from where have they come?
That’s also changed. Five years ago, before the border was really well enforced, people could walk for a few days and get to a point where they would have a ride waiting for them. It was a pretty quick journey to get across the border by foot and not too dangerous. The way the border enforcement changed it all was that it kept funneling people further and further into more remote areas. So now people have to walk more—three days would be the bare minimum. Usually people need to walk five or six days to get to a location far enough inside the US where they can then be picked up and taken, most often, to Phoenix. From there, they go all over the place.
They come from the far south of Mexico or Central America where the climate is completely different. They really have no idea what this desert is and what it means. Their guides, the ‘coyotes’ that smuggle them across, don’t really prepare them. If anything, they’ll lie and tell them it’s just a three-hour walk to Tucson from the border—it’s more like a week. So they’re just not prepared. Even if they could prepare, I don’t think they could physically carry enough water and food to make that journey safe.
How hot is it in the desert and how many people are known to have died there?
In the past couple weeks it’s been between 105-110 F. I’ve seen it up to 115. It’s really hot. From October 1 to the end of June there have been 124 bodies discovered. That’s just in AZ and just the bodies that have been found. We know from experience and missing persons reports that for every one body that is found there are 5 to10 more that are not. There is no accurate number for the total number of deaths. The total number of known deaths is about 5,000 for the past 12-15 years, which could mean anywhere from 25-50,000 people total have died (on the entire border) and we just don’t know it. These deaths are environmental— from dehydration and exposure. It could just be that you twisted an ankle and couldn’t walk anymore. If you sit out for five or six more days it’s exposure that will eventually get you.
It’s such a small area that your group can cover. Do you think the water jugs are really making a dent?
The water is incredibly important. We don’t cover the entire border, obviously, but we’ve isolated an area that historically has had a lot of deaths and it’s an area we have access to. There’re other areas, like an Indian reservation that’s close by, that also has a lot of deaths, but we just aren’t allowed to be on that land. We do the best we can to cover the area we’re in, but we’re definitely limited by resources. Still, we hear stories all the time of people who found our water just when they needed it the most. So we know it’s a very effective program. We also find people themselves who—whether they’ve twisted an ankle, gotten really bad blisters or become sick—if we hadn’t found them, I don’t think anyone would have. All of us, who are long-term volunteers, have at least wilderness first responder level certification. It’s like a back-country EMT. We work with doctors and nurses and find people we can call to see what kind of treatment we can offer. We provide respite for people. We provide food. We figure, as long as we’re just helping someone rest up and regain their health, that’s about the best we can do.
Do you have a sense of who the migrants are?
Right now, it’s everyone that’s crossing. It used to just be young men coming across for seasonal work. That’s how it was for a long time. Now what we see are more women with their children coming to reunite with a husband or someone who has stayed in the US for a few years. Something really new is that people who have been picked up in these interior [immigration] raids and deported back to Mexico are trying to come back to their families. You read about these people who have lived in the US for 20 or 30 years and then get deported. They’re not going to stay in Mexico. Their whole life, everything, is in the United States. So they’re trying to cross back in. We’re seeing a lot more of those folks and that’s people of all ages.
You hear their stories and it’s heartbreaking. We came in touch with a guy the other day that had lived in the US a long, long time. He volunteered at a homeless shelter, working with people recovering from drug and alcohol addiction, in Ventura, CA. He got picked up one night at a random sobriety check-point. They asked for his ID, found out he wasn’t a citizen and just deported him. The guy was just coming home from work and they deported him. So he’s trying to come back to his life. We’re seeing all kinds of people, all kinds of stories. It’s not necessarily just poor people. It’s middle class people, it’s people in Mexico that were police officers and teachers and journalists. They can’t survive anymore and maintain enough of a living to have a dignified life, so they’re coming over. There is no one general person. It’s literally everyone that is affected by the economic situation.
Can you tell us about the littering charges in the Buenos Aires Wildlife Refuge earlier in the month?
That was when 13 people were cited for littering. Basically, the border is 2000 miles long, so all along the border are different kinds of land ownership. Some of it is federal land, some is state-owned and some is privately owned land. No More Deaths works mainly on land that’s national forest service, bureau of land management, this wildlife refuge and some private land, as well. We put water out everywhere because we know migrants are everywhere. We don’t really pay attention to all the different land jurisdictions.
Starting in February 2008, one of our volunteers was given a littering ticket on the Buenos Aires Refuge for putting out these jugs of water. Then I got a littering ticket last December. In the beginning of July, 13 more volunteers, [from our group and others] got ticketed. I don’t understand the rationale. We hear from the Wildlife Refuge that they’re concerned about the wildlife and we are too. We always go back and check on the places where we put water and pick up the empty jugs. The very first day I volunteered with No More Deaths in 2004, I went out and picked up trash on the Wildlife Refuge. So, I don’t think it has much to do with the actual impact on the environment. Behind all that too, there is Border Patrol. They have ATVs, 4-wheel drive trucks and helicopters. They’ve built camera towers and built a wall across the Refuge. These things have much more impact on wildlife than the water jugs we put out. We’re responding to a major humanitarian crisis and we know the water we put out is a very effective way to help people survive out in the desert. So we’ve definitely felt targeted by these littering tickets. All of us [at No More Deaths] are environmentalists. We’re not trying to trash anything. I think we’re very responsible with our humanitarian work.
Spokesmen for the refuge say that they have more than 30 water sites. Why do you need to make more water available?
There is water all over the desert. They’re counting cattle tanks that wildlife drink out of but the water is not always clean. Honestly, the way we put the water out—one-gallon jugs right on the trails—the migrants find it and use it. We see the empty jugs, so we know. There are some other water sources that have a spigot, so people could go and drink from them, but they can’t carry it with them. A lot of people walk at night so they’re just not going to find a well or water tank if it’s off the trails. The water we put out for them is right where people are going to find it and it’s extremely effective in that way. We’re hoping to put ourselves out of business. We don’t want to be putting jugs of water out on the Wildlife Refuge or any of this land another 15 years. There’s a bigger political change we hope to see and then we’ll go home. We’ll go pick up all the jugs and we’ll go home.
What could the maximum sentence be for a littering ticket?
It’s just a ticket, so yes, you could pay the fine—it’s $175—and then walk away from it. But we’re trying to challenge that, as well. You know, this isn’t something we’re just going to admit guilt to, “Yeah, I was littering.” We really want to challenge what the government is trying to say by giving us these tickets. All of us have been fighting them but so far we haven’t been that successful. The two of us that fought the tickets have already been convicted. If you don’t pay the original fine [and lose], it will be much higher. Now, I face up to a $100,000 fine and a year in prison. The stakes are definitely higher when you fight it but a lot of us feel that we can’t let this go. The sentencing will happen in a few weeks.
Do you feel that there is local support for what you’re doing?
I think that, in general, we have a lot of support. Even people who don’t agree on the immigration issue don’t want to see people dying. Literally, ever since it got over 100 degrees this past couple weeks, every other day in the newspaper you open it up and there’s another story about a few more bodies found in the desert . I think that most people see that that’s just not a good thing. So, in general, people are supportive of our work.
It’s important to remember that an actual policy of deterrence has created the situation on the border. When the US first created this policy they knew people were going to die. It’s the idea of collateral damage in a war—there will be some casualties. The Senate just passed money to build more wall. I haven’t seen anything in the last eight months that would lead me to think border enforcement policy is going to change with the Obama Administration. Now that the number of casualties has surpassed thousands, the fact that the United States has committed to continuing, funding and implementing this policy, I think it is something we really need to reflect upon and challenge as the country. Is this what we want to be know for, building a giant border that’s killing people?
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Harmit Atwal, Editor, Institute of Race Relations
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Senem Doganoglu, Attorney for Pembe Hayat (Pink Life)
Leonardo Crippa, Staff Attorney, Indian Law Resource Center
Jim Harrington, Director, Texas Civil Rights Project
Prof. Brian Levin, Director, Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism
Juliana Rotich, Program Director, Ushahidi.com
Christina Iturralde, LatinoJustice PRLDEF
Anene Ejikeme Assistant Professor, Trinity University
Alexander Verkhovsky, Director, SOVA Center for Information and Analysis (Moscow)
Innokenty Grekov, Human Rights First
Paul St. Clair, Executive Director, Roma Community Centre
Rev. Allan Ramirez, Latino Advocate
Dr. Agapito López, M.D.
Bill Habern, defense attorney
Anya Cordell, activist
Rais Bhuiyan, survivor
Allison Moore, Volunteer
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