We arrive in Mexico. I go with M and V. V is the volunteer co-ordinator, and agreed to give us a tour. There we meet several other volunteers who have been working there.
Nogales is a city of approximately 159,000 people, and on the border with the United States. We cross from the American side to the Mexican side. Walking through the gate, no one checks our passports. We only see the Nogales that is close to the American side but it is quite an experience. Tacquito stands are set up along the street. There is a graveyard that is so colourfully decorated sometimes it’s hard to associate with a place of death. Houses dot the surrounding hills. Mexico is a beautiful country with beautiful people, yet also one with a lot of suffering. An estimated 44.2 percent of its population live in poverty. 10.2 percent live in extreme poverty. It is also the second richest country in Latin and South America.
Nogales is also one of the cities in Mexico in which deported migrants are dropped off by the US Border Patrol. Some have been caught that very same day and deported. Others have been sitting in prison for weeks and months. The deportees come in all ages, shapes and sizes; men, women and children. I see kids who can’t be more than 6 years old clutching on to their mothers in one of the centers.
They are dropped off from large Wackenhut buses, left completely on their own. Not infrequently, their belongings are taken away in BP or ICE custody- wallets, shoelaces, id. Money often goes missing.
NMD began partnering up with Mexican NGOs to try to provide some relief for the hundreds who are dropped off here everyday. According to Steve, one of NMD’s long-term volunteers; Currently, an estimated 250 people are deported from the US to Nogales every day. Only a few years ago, it was 800 to 1200.
Some of the deportees get to go to a comedora- a soup kitchen- which was started with help of the Catholic Church. There is room for 70 people in the morning and 70 in the afternoon, about 140 people use it everyday. Then people are taken In for a few days by a program ran by the Mexican government, Grupo Beta, which provides people a few days to 2 weeks of shelter as they try to regain their bearings and decide where to go next. Many of the deportees have lived in the US for several years, and their whole lives are behind them. Others paid a lot of saved up money to get to the US so they could work to support folks back home, now they are back at square one.
What really impresses me is the fact that NMD is there only in a supporting role. The people who are co-ordinating the work and are in charge are Mexicans. So are most of the volunteers. We are supporting them, and send volunteers over to help serve food, assist people in making phone calls to their loved ones, give some medical help. But they are the ones in charge, helping their countrymen and women. They give their time willingly and without asking for any money in return for their help.
There is a bus station that offers bus rides to various parts of Mexico for those who want to go back, and the rates are low. Shockingly, for me, most of the people who were recently deported intend to try crossing the desert again. Some have survived near death but are ready and willing to enter this hell again.
One of the things that most stands out for me is the wall. It is an ugly metal structure that runs through the city and separates the Mexican side from the American side. On one side are hundreds of thousands of people who, in spite of their best efforts, have been pushed to poverty by economic forces and problems created in part by their leaders and in part by the leaders on the other side of the fence. Where they know there are jobs that pay a living wage. Where many have families.
Strung out every few hundred metres along the fence, on the other side, are Border Patrol vehicles waiting and ready to catch anyone who tries to cross. Pictures to come later.
Cars driving into the States from Mexico. You can see the street vendors at work.
Nogales street view
Just before entering Mexico
No comments:
Post a Comment