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Border Patrol's Crackdown on Aid Camp in Arizona Desert Will Result in Deaths for Migrants and Refugees |
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Thursday, 29 June 2017 08:37 |
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Wasserman writes: "Southern Arizona is experiencing record temperatures. Last week, it reached a high of 115 degrees for three days in a row. Despite this heat, every day hundreds of people fleeing poverty and violence in Central America and Mexico begin a long, treacherous journey across the US-Mexico border."
No More Deaths humanitarian aid camp near the US border of Mexico. (photo: Josh Haner/New York Times)
Border Patrol's Crackdown on Aid Camp in Arizona Desert Will Result in Deaths for Migrants and Refugees
By Anika Wasserman, The Boston Globe
29 June 17
 outhern Arizona is experiencing record temperatures. Last week, it reached a high of 115 degrees for three days in a row. Despite this heat, every day hundreds of people fleeing poverty and violence in Central America and Mexico begin a long, treacherous journey across the US-Mexico border. Aside from the ruthless terrain, with its scorpions, rattlesnakes, razor-sharp cacti, and flash floods, the merciless Sonoran Desert is lethal all on its own. Last month, I volunteered at the only permanent humanitarian aid camp based in Southern Arizona and witnessed how the US government wields the desert as a weapon.
No More Deaths is a volunteer-based ministry of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson that operates a base camp offering medical care, food, water, and shade to those crossing the border. There I met many young men, primarily from Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, who had left their native countries in search of jobs, family, and safety. Women and children, young and old, cross as well, but less frequently. I have found tattered children’s shoes abandoned along paths. It is hard to fully process the fact that children are crossing the Sonoran Desert before they graduate from Velcro to laces. It is virtually impossible to generalize migrants’ stories. Their levels of education, political beliefs, and motives are distinct and complex. However, in my work with migrant communities on both the US-Mexico border and the Guatemala-Mexico border, migrants repeatedly told me that they see crossing not as a choice but as a necessity for survival. Since the year 2000, more than 6,000 migrants have died in their desperate attempts to cross the desert.
No More Deaths (No Más Muertes) works from a camp on the outskirts of Arivaca, Ariz., a small township a few miles north of Nogales, Mexico. I spent my time there hiking well-traveled migration routes with other volunteers, dropping gallons of water and cans of beans at strategically determined water drop sites, often passing sun-bleached backpacks and threadbare camo. US Border Patrol has established immigration checkpoints along main roads from Nogales to Tucson, thereby funneling migrants into the perilous heart of the desert. This technique is called prevention by deterrence, but the actual effect is often deterrence by death. Volunteers find human remains, on average, every three days.
Once, as we descended the side of a canyon to our next drop site, we found a migrant separated from his group. He had been walking for over a week, drinking water from a local cattle tank and chewing on prickly pears. After offering him water, food, and medical care, we decided he needed continued treatment. Someone who is dehydrated and alone in the desert is at a high risk of getting lost, confused, and ultimately disappearing, like thousands of others who have crossed before. Border Patrol helicopters often scatter groups, increasing chances that migrants will end up on their own.
Under the Trump administration, Border Patrol has increased militarized surveillance of the No More Deaths base camp. Their visible presence dissuades migrants from seeking necessary medical care and terrorizes patients already receiving it. This has been an ongoing issue for many weeks, but the growing tension between desert aid workers and Border Patrol peaked on June 15.
For the first time in 13 years, Tucson Sector Border Patrol violated longstanding agreements with No More Deaths not to interfere with their humanitarian aid work. After tracking a group of four men for 18 miles, 30 armed border patrol agents, 15 vehicles, and a helicopter surrounded the camp, obtained a warrant, raided the clinic, and arrested the four men receiving medical care. Border Patrol tracked this group for hours before strategically detaining them at the camp.
This raid set a new precedent and risks rendering the organization’s services ineffective by deterring migrants from seeking humanitarian aid. It sends the message that people crossing the desert are unworthy of medical care, food, and water: unworthy of life. Tougher border policy is not just political rhetoric — it is death by dehydration, without a funeral.
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Border Patrol's Crackdown on Aid Camp in Arizona Desert Will Result in Deaths for Migrants and Refugees |
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Thursday, 29 June 2017 08:37 |
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Wasserman writes: "Southern Arizona is experiencing record temperatures. Last week, it reached a high of 115 degrees for three days in a row. Despite this heat, every day hundreds of people fleeing poverty and violence in Central America and Mexico begin a long, treacherous journey across the US-Mexico border."
No More Deaths humanitarian aid camp near the US border of Mexico. (photo: Josh Haner/New York Times)
Border Patrol's Crackdown on Aid Camp in Arizona Desert Will Result in Deaths for Migrants and Refugees
By Anika Wasserman, The Boston Globe
29 June 17
outhern Arizona is experiencing record temperatures. Last week, it reached a high of 115 degrees for three days in a row. Despite this heat, every day hundreds of people fleeing poverty and violence in Central America and Mexico begin a long, treacherous journey across the US-Mexico border. Aside from the ruthless terrain, with its scorpions, rattlesnakes, razor-sharp cacti, and flash floods, the merciless Sonoran Desert is lethal all on its own. Last month, I volunteered at the only permanent humanitarian aid camp based in Southern Arizona and witnessed how the US government wields the desert as a weapon.
No More Deaths is a volunteer-based ministry of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson that operates a base camp offering medical care, food, water, and shade to those crossing the border. There I met many young men, primarily from Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, who had left their native countries in search of jobs, family, and safety. Women and children, young and old, cross as well, but less frequently. I have found tattered children’s shoes abandoned along paths. It is hard to fully process the fact that children are crossing the Sonoran Desert before they graduate from Velcro to laces. It is virtually impossible to generalize migrants’ stories. Their levels of education, political beliefs, and motives are distinct and complex. However, in my work with migrant communities on both the US-Mexico border and the Guatemala-Mexico border, migrants repeatedly told me that they see crossing not as a choice but as a necessity for survival. Since the year 2000, more than 6,000 migrants have died in their desperate attempts to cross the desert.
No More Deaths (No Más Muertes) works from a camp on the outskirts of Arivaca, Ariz., a small township a few miles north of Nogales, Mexico. I spent my time there hiking well-traveled migration routes with other volunteers, dropping gallons of water and cans of beans at strategically determined water drop sites, often passing sun-bleached backpacks and threadbare camo. US Border Patrol has established immigration checkpoints along main roads from Nogales to Tucson, thereby funneling migrants into the perilous heart of the desert. This technique is called prevention by deterrence, but the actual effect is often deterrence by death. Volunteers find human remains, on average, every three days.
Once, as we descended the side of a canyon to our next drop site, we found a migrant separated from his group. He had been walking for over a week, drinking water from a local cattle tank and chewing on prickly pears. After offering him water, food, and medical care, we decided he needed continued treatment. Someone who is dehydrated and alone in the desert is at a high risk of getting lost, confused, and ultimately disappearing, like thousands of others who have crossed before. Border Patrol helicopters often scatter groups, increasing chances that migrants will end up on their own.
Under the Trump administration, Border Patrol has increased militarized surveillance of the No More Deaths base camp. Their visible presence dissuades migrants from seeking necessary medical care and terrorizes patients already receiving it. This has been an ongoing issue for many weeks, but the growing tension between desert aid workers and Border Patrol peaked on June 15.
For the first time in 13 years, Tucson Sector Border Patrol violated longstanding agreements with No More Deaths not to interfere with their humanitarian aid work. After tracking a group of four men for 18 miles, 30 armed border patrol agents, 15 vehicles, and a helicopter surrounded the camp, obtained a warrant, raided the clinic, and arrested the four men receiving medical care. Border Patrol tracked this group for hours before strategically detaining them at the camp.
This raid set a new precedent and risks rendering the organization’s services ineffective by deterring migrants from seeking humanitarian aid. It sends the message that people crossing the desert are unworthy of medical care, food, and water: unworthy of life. Tougher border policy is not just political rhetoric — it is death by dehydration, without a funeral.
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All of Donald Trump's Lies |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=15946"><span class="small">Bill Moyers, Moyers & Company</span></a>
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Wednesday, 28 June 2017 14:45 |
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Moyers writes: "This weekend, The New York Times performed a noble public service by publishing nearly every lie Donald Trump has told since taking the oath of office (just four months and a few days ago, but it seems like an eternity, no?). The op-ed chart of tiny but readable font fills the entire page, until at one point, in the mind's eye, they appear to morph into termites burrowing deep into the foundation of democracy, leaving sawdust in their wake."
Bill Moyers. (photo: PBS)
All of Donald Trump's Lies
By Bill Moyers, Moyers & Company
28 June 17
The New York Times has printed every lie Donald Trump has told since taking office. The effort deserves the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.
 his weekend, The New York Times performed a noble public service by publishing nearly every lie Donald Trump has told since taking the oath of office (just four months and a few days ago, but it seems like an eternity, no?). The op-ed chart of tiny but readable font fills the entire page, until at one point, in the mind’s eye, they appear to morph into termites burrowing deep into the foundation of democracy, leaving sawdust in their wake.
One subtitle reads: “Trump Told Public Lies or Falsehoods Every Day for His First 40 Days.” Another reminds us: “Trump’s Lies Repeat — and Shift With Repetition.” David Leonhardt and Stuart A. Thompson, the journalists in charge of the project, wrote:
“We are using the word ‘lie’ deliberately. Not every falsehood is deliberate on Trump’s part. But it would be the height of naivete to imagine he is merely making honest mistakes. He is lying.”
Their effort deserves the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. We also hope that once they finished the task, they rushed right home to a long and cleansing shower.
Meanwhile, you may want to remind yourselves of the Big Lie that Donald Trump rode to power — the Birther Lie. It was never true when the right wing media — talk radio, internet trolls and Fox News — began to spread the story that Barack Obama was not born in the United States and was therefore an illegitimate president.
Yet Trump shamelessly championed the lie and made it central to his campaign. “I’m starting to think that he was not born here,” he told gullible television hosts as early as 20ll. A year later he tweeted that “an extremely credible source” had called his office to inform him that Obama’s birth certificate was “a fraud.” Then he urged hackers to “please hack Obama’s college records (destroyed?) and check ‘place of birth.’”
The Big Lie worked for Trump because it had been sown in the fertile soil of slavery and segregation, and he knew that after eight years of a black president, white supremacy was ripe for harvesting. I talked about the Birther Lie with four noted historians in this video, which we posted on Jan. 20 — the day Trump was inaugurated as Barack Obama’s successor.
Watch ‘The Big Lie’
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If Republicans Lose the Healthcare Fight, It's the Beginning of the End |
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Wednesday, 28 June 2017 14:34 |
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Robin writes: "For my part, I'll be happy if the Republicans simply lose the vote. Not only will that loss protect healthcare for millions of people; it'll also be a major demoralizing blow to the conservative movement."
'The mere fact that we've come to this pass, where the bill's fate is in doubt, despite Republican control, is worth noting.' (photo: Alex Wong/Getty)
If Republicans Lose the Healthcare Fight, It's the Beginning of the End
By Corey Robin, Guardian UK
28 June 17
The right has had its spells in the wilderness, where they’ve been exiled from power. If they lose this bill, it will put them on that road to despair
 t the beginning of this week, Republican senators were planning to head home for the Fourth of July recess and celebrate the nation’s independence and freedom by enacting their idea of liberty: denying health insurance to more than 20 million people. By the middle of the week, their hopes were dashed.
On Tuesday, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell announced that the Republicans didn’t have the 50 votes they needed to gut Obamacare. After promising a vote this week – “I am closing the door” on any delays, said Senate majority whip John Cornyn – the Republican leadership confessed there wouldn’t be a vote until at least the week of 10 July, if not August.
Once again the Republicans have found themselves in the peculiar position of possessing total control of the elected branches of the federal government, yet unable to act on one of their longstanding dreams: not just slowly destroying Medicaid, a federal program that guarantees healthcare to millions of poorer people, but also forcing people to rely upon the free market for their healthcare.
One reason the Republicans are having such a hard time of it is that the public is overwhelmingly against the Senate bill. As Politico recently reported, Senate phones have been ringing off the hook – almost entirely from citizens opposed to what the Republicans are doing.
A staffer for Mississippi senator Thad Cochran claims his office received 226 constituent calls over a four-day period: two in favor of the Republican bill, 224 against. And, yes, you read that correctly. Not Massachusetts. Mississippi.
But that only begs the question: why haven’t the Republican free-market fanatics mobilized their base in support of the bill? Why aren’t they flooding the Senate with phone calls in favor of making people fend for themselves in the healthcare insurance market? Where’s the passion for the market, the hostility to the welfare state, that has so defined the conservative cause since the New Deal?
In April 1982, at the height of the worst recession since the Great Depression, with unemployment nearly at 10%, Ronald Reagan took to the radio and sunnily declared: “You know, there really is something magic about the marketplace when it’s free to operate. As the song says, ‘This could be the start of something big.’”
Even though the Democrats controlled one-half of Congress, Reagan and the Republicans used that magic of the market to ram through the massive tax cuts and retrenchment of the welfare state we are still reeling from. That’s the kind of élan, the intellectual confidence, free-market conservatives once had.
Back in March, when the Republicans failed to get a healthcare bill through the House of Representatives, the consensus was that it was the fault of Donald Trump and House speaker Paul Ryan. Ryan was an incompetent; Trump was, well, Trump.
But no one can accuse McConnell of incompetence or inconstancy, and Senate leaders have been careful to keep Trump mostly out of this one: “The White House’s strategy is to continue to let McConnell take the lead,” the Washington Post recently reported. “Trump is involved only as an encourager.”
But if the New York Times is correct – that the Senate healthcare bill is “edging toward collapse” – and the Senate ultimately fails to pass it after the recess, it will mean something profound has happened to the conservative movement and the Republican party.
If the Republicans can’t turn their trifecta of control into a conservative policy victory – and with the exception of the appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the supreme court, the Republicans under Trump, Ryan and McConnell have yet to achieve any major victory – it will mean that the movement is no longer able to translate its faith in the market into the full-spectrum dominance it once had.
The problem, in other words, may not be the personnel. It may be the principles. Unlike Reagan, today’s Republican is no longer warmed in the same way by the burning belief that anything the state does in the realm of social welfare is automatically bad.
That fire of the free market, which gave the Republicans comfort through the dark hours of the New Deal night and conviction in the cold dawn of Reagan’s America, no longer seems capable of delivering the same energy to the movement.
The Republicans may still eke out a victory. After their defeat in March, House Republicans came back in May to pass a healthcare bill, while no one was paying much attention. And no one should underestimate McConnell, who’s got a fistful of dollars to buy off individual Republican votes. The phone calls, and whatever protests opponents of this bill can muster over the Fourth of July recess, are critical.
But the mere fact that we’ve come to this pass, where the bill’s fate is in doubt, despite Republican control, is worth noting.
In 1977, 1983 and 1993, the federal government launched a major retrenchment of Social Security. Benefits were slashed, benefits were taxed and the retirement age was raised. In two of those instances, the Democrats controlled the White House and Congress. In all those instances, the Democrats controlled the House. Throughout the past four decades, in other words, entitlement programs have been under attack – by both parties.
It will be truly significant, if the Republicans are able to overturn Obamacare, that they could only do it by the skin of their teeth, with zero support from the Democratic party. That they’re now struggling not to lose three Republican votes in the Senate tells us how far the politics of the welfare state has come.
For my part, I’ll be much happier if they simply lose the vote. Not only will that loss protect healthcare for millions of people; it’ll also be a major demoralizing blow to the conservative movement.
The left always think it’s the only movement that is subject to feelings of weakness and political hopelessness, that the right is possessed of some preternatural confidence in its right and ability to rule. But that is not the case.
The right has had its spells in the wilderness, where they’ve been exiled from power, left to find comfort in the dark corners of their despair. Crushing their dream of denying healthcare to millions of people will put them on that road to despair.
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hatever else comes of the Donald J. Trump presidency, already he has perfectly fulfilled one campaign pledge in a way that will affect the entire United States for a generation or more: 
