On the border

Today five of us went to Sasabe, Sonora, Mexico, a 1.25 hour drive from Tucson and the heaviest crossing point on the 2,000 mile border. We had a long talk with a Grupo Beta officer. (They stop vehicles coming north to warn migrants about the dangers of the desert.) He emphasized how the numbers fluctuate and told us that right now about 1,300 come to Sasabe each day. This little town (which I've known since 1967) now has "hotels" all over the place. The very bumpy road through town has full vans arriving one after the other. Clearly the migrants getting out of them are coming for survival.
The desert temperatures (91 in Tucson today) are quickly moving toward triple-digits, and the annual migrant slaughter is about to begin. (Actually at least 44 already have died in AZ since Oct. 1.) In the last decade, there have been about 3,000 migrant deaths along the whole border; in AZ last fiscal year, at least 235. But there is little talk about sensible change in U.S. border policy. Instead, the media rave on about the great job the "Minutemen" have done. Even the Christian Science Monitor got suckered by the propaganda (and skipped the conection between the Minutemen and white supremacist groups.)
Last Sunday Marc Cooper told the real story in the L.A. Times: Less than 10% of the promised 1600 volunteers showed up at the AZ rallies. At one rally there were two dozen reporters and no more than 10 Minutmen. "And in the days that followed... (It is) obvious that the Minuteman numbers dwindled to no more than a few dozen at a time... No one in the media, it seems, wanted to be the one who told his or her boss that they had trekked out to the border for no reason... It's a complex and vexing issue that is getting hotter by the day. Now more than ever the public needs news media that are serious, thoughtful and analytical, not compliant suckers for the wound-up partisans and pandering politicians who are increasingly likely to inflame or obfuscate the issue with goofball dog-and pony shows."
Amen and amen.
ricardo