Passover & Holy Week & Dying Migrants

April 21 was the 568th Thursday that we've gathered at El Tiradito shrine in downtown Tucson to remember the migrants -- known and unknown -- who have died in the Arizona desert in their desperate search for work.

This week the vigil fell during Passover and Holy Week. Here are the two short scriptural readings we had before sharing reflections:

From the Torah at Passover

When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself. (Leviticus 19:33-34)

From the Gospel of John on Holy Thursday

Jesus poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.... (Then he said),“I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.” (John 13:5-15)

In the year that ended last Sept. 30, the bodies of at least 253 migrants were found just on the Arizona part of the 2000-mile US-Mexico border. From Oct. 1 to Feb. 28, at least 59 more bodies were found. (We don't have the numbers from March yet.) All these gruesome deaths -- and we still have not had a triple-digit day this year. (One summer we had 99 of those in Tucson, and it is hotter than Tucson in much of the desert.)

With the never-ending ugly politics, it does not appear that we will have comprehensive immigration reform in the foreseeable future. This summer will most likely be one more borderlands massacre.

Cluster bombs in Libya

Human Rights Watch reports that Kaddafi is now using mortar-launched cluster bombs in Misrata. This particular type of cluster bomb explodes in the air above the target and spreads 21 smaller bombs over the area. Obviously it is devastating to civilians.

Three years ago in Dublin, Ireland, the international Convention on Cluster Munitions adopted a specific convention that prohibits the use of cluster weapons because of what they do to civilians. 108 countries signed the convention. Libya did not, nor did Russia nor China nor Israel..... nor the USA.

Execution on the border

On March 21, Carlos La Madrid, age 19, was shot to death by the Border Patrol as he climbed the fence separating his home town of Douglas, Arizona, from Agua Prieta, Sonora. He was going south, not trying to come into the U.S.

Carlos was a U.S. citizen. He was hit three times by Border Patrol bullets. Their response to his death was the familiar excuse: Carlos -- or somebody -- was throwing rocks. Remember, he was climbing a ladder.

Jennifer Allen, executive director of the human rights group Border Action Network, explains: “We will never know exactly what happened on March 21st because Carlos will never have his day in court. What we do know is that Border Patrol agents took the law into their own hands, acted as judge, jury and executioner and shot to kill a man who should have still been presumed to be innocent."

I do not see any way that this shooting can be called anything else but an execution.

Is all the screaming on Capitol Hill and in the state legislatures putting droves of Border Patrol agents on the border without sufficient training? The screamers say the border is unprotected. But the familiar white-and-green patrol vehicles are everywhere. Driving in these borderlands -- on both dirt and paved roads -- I see them coming one after the other, sometimes two at a time. Last Friday, when I drove past the Sonoita station late in the afternoon, there were so many Border Patrol vehicles neatly lined up in their lot that it looked like a major car dealership.

It is bad enough here in Arizona with anybody now allowed to carry a concealed weapon without training or license. If insufficiently trained law officers are being rushed to the border in the present climate of racist fear-mongering, we have reached the bottom of the pit.