Desert Man General Transporting Dmt

[Keesha Ondieki]

NoMore Deaths offers volunteer opportunities with our desert-aid project throughout the year. The following general information applies to all participants in this volunteer program. Please review it before applying.

The primary function of the desert-aid volunteering is to staff our base camp, which is considered a medical facility, and to maintain water and supply drops on known migrant trails via driving and hiking. We operate out of our base camp in Arivaca, Arizona, as well as out of Tucson and Ajo, Arizona.

Providing year-round humanitarian aid is a costly project. Volunteer fees help to offset that cost. Your contribution not only makes it possible for us to run a volunteer program, but also allows us to purchase water, food, medicine, first-aid supplies, and socks for migrants. Volunteer fees only partially offset the cost of the program.

One of our goals is to include everyone who wants to be involved in the work we do. To that end, we encourage you to be creative in your efforts to raise money for this project. Seek out educational grants, do community fundraising, and invite your family and friends to support your participation in the program. We are willing to work with applicants on fee reductions. No one will be turned away for lack of funds. (See Fundraising below.)

Throughout most of the year, we cannot accommodate groups larger than four. We do encourage potential desert-aid volunteers to apply as a group with others. It enables volunteers to prepare collectively for their trip, provides a natural and preexisting support network for challenging works, and often creates a good starting place for taking next steps in organizing for migrant justice when volunteers return to their home communities.

We encourage you to raise the volunteer fee through fundraising. Use this as an opportunity for people in your community to learn about and support your time volunteering. Ideas for fundraising previously used by volunteers include spaghetti dinners, salsa dance nights, house parties, presentations to your church/school communities, letter-writing campaigns to friends and family, appealing to businesses for sponsorship, and more. We expect that you view your involvement with No More Deaths beyond your arrival in and departure from Tucson; committing to our mission without physically being on the border is an essential part of awareness raising and movement building. Hopefully you will view your volunteer experience with No More Deaths as a short but intense part of what you hope to accomplish, instead of viewing it as the goal itself.

During your time with us, you will be traveling through internal immigration checkpoints where you will be questioned about your citizenship and immigration status by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents. If you are not a US citizen, you should be prepared to present documentation proving you have legal permission to be in the US. If you do not have your documentation you can be detained, questioned, or possibly arrested by CBP agents. You may also have these interactions with CBP agents on the trails, on the roads, and at camp, and so you should carry your documentation at all times.

For people with discretionary statuses like DACA, DAPA, visas, and Permanent Residency, our legal team advises us that there may be consequences to maintaining your status if you encounter legal complications during your involvement with No More Deaths. We do host volunteers with these statuses and have not had this happen to date, but we encourage you to consider this possibility before coming. Please contact us regarding any questions about documents and legality.

Our work can be very stressful. We meet people who have suffered and are suffering greatly, and the potential for secondary trauma is high. We ask that you carefully consider your mental and physical capacity to work in this environment before you apply to join us. It is of great importance that we be able to focus all our efforts on providing direct assistance to those in need.

Racism and its effects exist everywhere in this country and are amplified on the border. One of the effects of intense border militarization that we encounter on a daily basis is racial profiling. NMD volunteers who are Latin@, or perceived to be, have encountered targeted harassment and profiling from CBP agents and some local residents. We regularly encounter Border Patrol agents on patrol, sometimes in cars and sometimes on foot in remote places. We recognize that as much as we try to build structure to minimize risks to our volunteers and provide support, we are working in a militarized desert and there are unknowns.

Due to our limited number of vehicles, groups of five or more are expected to provide their own transportation out to the desert camp. Normally this means renting or borrowing a vehicle or vehicles. Vehicles must be all-wheel-drive or four-wheel-drive as well as high-clearance, such as pickup trucks or SUVs.

If you are an individual or a group of four or fewer, transportation to and from camp and airport/bus pickups will be provided, but we cannot guarantee transportation around Tucson during breaks from volunteering.

A packing list will be included in prearrival information. Housing will be provided during your stay in Tucson. In the desert, volunteers will sleep outdoors in a camping environment. All volunteers should come with their own bedding (i.e., sleeping bag and ground pad) and tent.

Research published in March by the Arizona-based No More Deaths shows two to four times as many migrants died in West Texas and Southern New Mexico in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020 than reported by the government. The deaths resulted from dehydration or hypothermia (depending on the season), falls from mountains or the border wall, drownings, being struck by motor vehicles and being injured during law-enforcement chases.

Migrants have been crossing in that remote area for months, and aid groups are asking Border Patrol to set up a warming station and processing center in the remote area and increase processing capacity at the station in Sasabe.

Devil of a Storm

Dust devils are common in hot deserts. They look like tiny tornadoes, but they start on the ground rather than in the sky. When patches of ground get very hot, the heated air above them begins to rise and spin. This whirling column of hot air picks up dust and dirt. These spinning columns of dirt can rise hundreds of feet in the air.

Rising from the Ashes

The desert city of Phoenix, Arizona, is named for the mythical desert bird that burns to death only to be reborn, rising from its own ashes. The city of Phoenix was built on top of the ruins of canals built by the Hohokam people between 500 and 1450 CE. The Hohokam used the canals to irrigate their crops. Modern-day residents also rely on an extensive canal system to provide irrigation.

The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited.

For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. They will best know the preferred format. When you reach out to them, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource.

3a8082e126