There was one incident that was very tense. One morning myself and the other NMDers heard horses outside our camp. Byrd has horses on her farm and we can hear the both of them braying occasionally, but this was much closer. One of our volunteers saw a BP on horseback only a few metres away, and he heard two men talking. Two of us decided to go out and face them- there is nothing we could do to stop them from coming into the camp if they wanted to, since we are close to the border with Mexico no search warrants are necessary. Byrd Camp has been raided in the past.
We decided to opt for a non-confrontational route, and walked out, loudly talking about hockey- which is a topic albeit Canadian that I know nothing about. We saw one guy on horseback, when he saw us, he started trying to move away, down the wash and away from the camp. We decided to follow him, keeping a far distance. D got a soccer ball and we started kicking it around, all the while maintaining our sights on him. The agent looked a bit confused and tried to go behind a tree with his horse. There was a lot of shrubbery in the area and it almost worked, but D spotted him right away and pointed him out to me. He then tried going uphill again, towards the camp, and we began doing the same. So he turned around and went back. We could see him talking on his radio. I took a few pictures with my cellphone (camera was out of batteries at the time), and he began backing away from us… a lot. The funny part was that my cellphone camera is pretty hopeless and I’m sure I didn’t get him, given how far we were from each other.
Then, three Border Patrol vans pulled up on top of the hill. It looked like they were going to come into camp. Things did not look good. D and I went into one of our vans that got stuck at the wash last night and sat there, watching them from the driver’s back mirror. We turned on some music. All of a sudden, one of the vehicles seemed to have a flat tire, and the agents got out to have a look at it. It took a few minutes. Then another miracle- pastor Jean, who happened to be in the area and wanted to show our camp to a person he knew, pulled up alongside them. He got out and asked one of the agents if they needed help. After being told “no”, he drove down the wash, and came into our camp. Five to ten minutes later, the cars all left. I believe God intervened and kept them from coming in.
A day after that, we had a helicopter fly relatively low over our camp. This hasn’t happened before during my time there, either during this week or the last one. I’m wondering if it was connected to the incident the previous day.
The chopper that flew over our camp. I don’t know if it was a BP helicopter or if it was conducting surveillance or in any way connected to what happened the day before. The Border Patrol use helicopters for two purposes. One purpose is search and rescue. BORSTAR has also used them to find and rescue migrants who are stranded and in severe medical trouble, they have saved lives.
However, they also have a far more sinister purpose. In addition to being used to keep an eye on migrants coming through, BP engages in a practice called “dusting”. A helicopter is literally flown over and landed on a group of migrants. As the chopper starts to descend, the force of the propellers throws rocks, sand and dust into people’s faces. The raids often happen at night. People run in all directions, terrified. Groups split up. Some are tracked down and caught, some rejoin their groups, while others are separated and left by themselves. Most in the latter category get lost in the desert and run into trouble.
I took this picture as the helicopter was flying away.
A closer look at the chopper.
BP van, 3 like it were up at the wash looking down at the camp.
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