Brenda- Humane Borders- Day Four

Day four we went down to Nogales to a church called St. Andrews. The contact there, Roger explained to us that there were very visible trails. He explained to us that the migrants sometimes sleep in a shed and wait for someone to pick them up. The church is a safe haven for them. I likened it to “this is how they know they’ve made it” their only obstacle after that is passing through border patrol. Betzi later explained to us that the drivers would make the migrants get out before hitting the checkpoint and make them walk to a reststop without being seen by border patrol and that is where they would be picked up. While on the trails, we were picking up trash and our group of three ventured way out in our orange vests and found a couple of abandoned migrant camps. We were instructed to search the backpacks for some sort of identification before we tossed them. Between both groups combing the trails we had a total of about 20 bags of trash. I never realized about where migrants would toss stuff when walking in the desert. Betzi explained to us that in addition to being arrested for crossing illegally, they are charged with littering. When she said that I was just like, “You have got to be kidding me”. After that day I realized I have never hated  cacti and thorns and hills and barbed wire more than the plus minus system. I also realized that I could not last even 2 hours walking in the desert to find a better life up north so the people that did this of their own free will have got to be some of the bravest people out there.