Finally the media and Washington are looking at Arizona and their border issues. They didn't pay any attention to the increase in migrant deaths but they are now concerned that the state has passed a new racist state law(SB 1070) that tells the police to stop anyone who may look undocumented even without cause. Anybody with someone undocumented is also a criminal including family members. The group NO MORE DEATHS, the real heroes of the area, has been giving daily humanitarian aid to migrants found in the Arizona desert and migrants deported back to Mexico. But most Americans do not seem to notice, including those in Tucson where this is happening right outside the city. Except for a few reporters like Tucson Margaret Regan, the media does not even report the deaths. There have been exceptions like when Josseline, a 14 year old died trying to take her brother to their mom and her transporter left her behind because she was ill. A couple days later the man who found her body was arrested by the Border Patrol for littering because he was leaving water for migrants on the desert trails. The signs stating that "Humanitarian Aid is not a Crime" went up all over Tucson.

But that interest is not maintained even though the deaths continue. Deaths caused by the US policy of deterrence. In 1994, around the time NAFTA was passed, the US walled off the border cities and left open over 200 miles of rough terrain in the Arizona desert with the idea that migrants would die crossing and then border crossings would stop. This is the quote from Doris Meissner, commissioner of immigration and naturalization under Bill Clinton, "We did believe that geography would be an ally to us. It was our sense that the number of people crossing the border through Arizona would go down to a trickle." She later testified to congress that they did think border crossings would increase under NAFTA. So the government passed a law that would increase migrant crossings at the same time they put in a policy of deterrence that they thought would cause deaths doing so. What I do not think they understood is that the men who used to work in the US for awhile and then return to their homes would now find it difficult to keep crossing the border and so the wives and children started to cross to live in the US with them. Now large numbers of women and children are dying in the desert.

And now the deportations are increasing and there is a wall between them and their families in the US. More than 400,000 deportations have happened under the Obama administration. Many were here legally with green cards but did not want to be deported after the crackdown after 911 and immigration placed under Homeland Security. Migrants were not coming here on vacation. How far would someone walk to feed their family or how far would someone walk to be reunited with their family?

The American Public Health Association has recently published a paper that states that "the Border Patrol's policy of 'prevention through deterrence' has resulted in the purposeful displacement and diversion of migrants into more treacherous and dangerous zones to cross such as deserts, rivers, canals, and rugged terrain, which from 1993 to 2008 resulted in more than 5,000 deaths along the US/Mexico border, ....despite a Border Patrol funding increase of 867% and an increase in agent staffing levels by 354% between 1993 and 2008, there has been no decrease in attempted migrant border crossings".

SB 1070 is a wake up call for Washington and the Media and the fact that immigration reform is needed now. NO MORE DEATHS has interviewed over 500,000 migrants while giving humanitarian aid. Heard many of the same stories of how the migrants did not receive badly needed medical care and often not even water or food even though they have been without it for days. There are no short term custody standards for Border Patrol to use and many migrants detained are sent to holding detention center run by corporations. There are 22 states in the US that now have centers for migrants run by large corporations. Migrants are found guilty in a process called "Operation Streamline" where 70 migrants are found guilty in less than an hour each day. Immigration reform must stop this operation streamline and put in place humane custody standards for medical care and food and water needs.

Make the migrants legal! The same Republican's who run Arizona want laws like SB 1070 because they do not want anybody in the US who are not a legal citizen, also fight any attempt to legalize the millions who want to become citizens. The US didn't have any problem finding ways to transport goods and services across the border so they should be able to find a way to have people, our neighbors cross the border. Is it because they are dark skinned and speak Spanish. What if over 5000 Canadians had died in the northern woods trying to come to the US cities, would anyone notice? What have we become that our southern neighbors are treated this way. Dark history is repeating itself and Arizona has become the Mississippi where no browns need apply and watch your back.         Submitted by Mary Somers