Abuse Documentation Interviews in Nogales

Today in Nogales were the first abuse documentation interviews I did, and I will continue to do them when I return from our travel seminar in April. No More Deaths, the organization where I am doing an internship, is conducting these interviews as part of a campaign to change custody standards for migrants. We send the interviews to the Department of Homeland Security, with hopes of changing these stories of abuse. Stories so commonly heard.

My eyes are wet with tears, but they seem stuck, unable to flow freely. They’ve been held there for hours now. Perhaps a result of the complete exhaustion I felt earlier, too withdrawn to cry or to express any other emotion that might have relieved all the questions (some so clear now and others still unknown) in my mind. I came back from Nogales, Sonora Mexico feeling an exhaustion that was not like that felt after a long run, or that felt after a seemingly never ending portage when you use every piece of your body to reach the next lake. This exhaustion was new. I didn’t know how to escape, so when I arrived home to South Tucson I said “Hola” to the painters and others in the front room, and lay down on my bed. In the midst of the conversation in the front hall, the music playing from the TV, and the noise of everyday life in the middle of the day, I slept. In all of my clothes, without pulling back the blanket, I slept for an hour without moving, and without waking even for a moment. I slept off my exhaustion, which was an exhaustion at the thought of how much suffering the migrants I interviewed had lived through---an exhaustion that comes from being present with someone, truly listening, in hopes of perhaps understanding their journey, and the abuses they suffered from the border patrol, with a small hope of changing these patterns.

Each story deserves many more hours than I had to listen, and many more pages than I will write, but a small understanding is a beginning at the larger problems our country faces in dealing with the border. The story of the 16 year old boy from Guatemala who while crossing into the U.S for the first time was beaten and kicked by border patrol, hit in the back of the head with a flashlight, denied water, and taunted with food----but perhaps worst of all were the words he was greeted with in this country of ours---those who found him called him a dog, and treated him like a “juguete”, as he said, tossing him around as if he were nothing more than a plastic ball. Or the 17 year old from Honduras, who had not yet crossed, but planned to later today---feet completely raw --- still needing to transport his body many miles to reach any sort of “safety.” And, the 52 year old who had lived in the U.S for over 25 years, whose children and family were all U.S citizens---he had no one to return to in Mexico, but his documents and money were taken as he was sent from California, to Texas, to New Mexico, and then to Ciudad Juarez. The U.S government has taken to sending migrants to places far from where they were found in hopes of keeping people away from family connections. It was these stories that brought about an exhaustion I couldn’t have imagined. An exhaustion at the injustice, and the brutality that human beings are capable of inflicting upon another fellow “brother”. From this exhaustion, I slept through the noise of the day, and I will sleep again, since the tears are still stuck, and I don’t know how else to escape.