Humanitarians Test the Law in Aiding Border Crossers

Disturbed by deaths among Mexican migrants crossing illegally into southern Arizona, church leaders and self-styled good Samaritans have begun offering a range of aid to immigrants--at times breaking the law to carry out what they see as acts of mercy.

The scattered humanitarian efforts by religious activists and ordinary residents are being compared to the 1980s sanctuary movement, in which scores of churches and synagogues nationwide agreed to shield Central American refugees from deportation by U.S. authorities.

The new drive to aid illegal immigrants includes veterans of the earlier movement, which was launched at a Tucson church in 1982. While some church activists are considering acts of civil disobedience, residents on their own have borrowed sanctuary tactics to help immigrants who have entered the country.

Because some of the actions are illegal, those involved have acted quietly, making it difficult to gauge the extent of the nascent movement. But residents in Bisbee said they alone have shepherded more than 100 people past U.S. Border Patrol road checkpoints this year. None have been arrested.

The actions are part charity, part protest.

“Unexpected people are reaching out in whatever way they can to be of assistance,” said Father Robert E. Carney Jr., a Catholic parish priest in the border town of Douglas who has become a leading local critic of U.S. border policy.

Driving the movement is a vast increase in illegal entries across the Mexico-Arizona border during the past 18 months--a result of stricter controls in places such as San Diego and El Paso. Favored corridors now slice through deserts and mountains where harsh conditions often prove fatal. The main cause of death has been exposure.

The Border Patrol has launched a rescue program to find stranded border crossers, and U.S. officials expect the flow through rural areas to slow as enforcement gels across the Southwest. But the influx has prompted a heated debate among residents. Controversy broke out last year when armed ranchers in Douglas began detaining immigrants who crossed their properties.

The border fatalities south of Tucson--74 people died crossing there during the federal fiscal year ending in September--presented churches with a moral imperative, clergy members said.

“Too many people were dying,” said the Rev. Robin Hoover, pastor of the First Christian Church in Tucson. “Death in the desert has called on many of us--former players and new ones--to coordinate our efforts again to address this situation.”

Although church activists have their sights set on broader changes in immigration policy, they now are focusing on direct aid. So far those efforts have been legal.

Hoover is head of a Tucson-based coalition called Humane Borders that plans to install as many as 800 water stations along 200 miles of desert. The new group put out its first station--a cluster of water jugs, food and clothing beneath a 30-foot-tall flag--on Dec. 12.

Border Patrol officials worry that the water program will mislead migrants into thinking it is safe to cross the desert, but are cooperating. “The real message we want to send is, ‘Do not risk your life by crossing in these areas,’ ” said David V. Aguilar, Border Patrol chief for the Tucson region.

Humane Borders, with 11 member churches, leaves it to parishioners to decide how far they will go in aiding border crossers.

“People are making choices on a case-by-case basis,” said the Rev. John Fife, pastor of Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson. Fife was first to declare his church a sanctuary for refugees in 1982 and later was convicted on federal charges for his activities.

Humane Borders is handing out bumper stickers--its North Star logo harking back to the Underground Railroad movement--to protest U.S. border policy. The stickers, which show water pouring from the Big Dipper, are meant to tell migrants that residents are willing to give aid. There is no sign yet that the logo is known in Mexico.

Churches add “moral suasion and legitimacy” to the border protests, Hoover said.

“It’s not very different from the human rights community, but it’s a different voice,” he said. “We heard it in [the] sanctuary [movement] and we’re hearing it again.”

The group will set guidelines so members know how to stay within the law in helping illegal immigrants.

Aguilar said U.S. law distinguishes between acts of mercy, such as providing food, water and medical care, and “aiding in the furtherance of an illegal entry,” a federal crime.

“Any humanitarian act is going to be looked upon in a positive light,” he said. “But it is important that these well-meaning citizens not cross the line.”

Residents are tiptoeing to the edges of the law--and, at times, over it. Some have dropped off water at spots where migrants are known to camp. Others have picked up hikers or brought migrants in from the cold.

In Bisbee, a scenic artists colony eight miles north of the border, the owner of a small hotel said she has provided free lodging and food to 34 migrants who became lost or ill during the trip north this year.

“This is a real moral and spiritual issue. It’s like man’s made this law that says these human beings are off-limits. God doesn’t say that,” said the woman. “I could not stand by and watch this happen.”

She said a small network of U.S. citizens has helped spirit most of those immigrants north to Phoenix. The woman, who declined to be identified for fear of prosecution, estimated that various residents have helped transport at least 100 people. To reduce the odds of detection, migrants have been given fresh haircuts, decked out in borrowed clothes and jewelry, and shuttled by a white driver, according to two people familiar with the actions.

One time, the Bisbee woman said, the helpers rented a plane to Phoenix, leapfrogging the checkpoint, to help a Mexican woman who was desperate to return to her three U.S.-born children, ages 2 to 8, in Chicago.

Aguilar said such efforts are illegal and could invite federal prosecution. “It’s smuggling,” he said. He declined to say whether officials are investigating.

The Bisbee woman, who is in her 50s, said she is guided by biblical teachings urging charity toward strangers. “When you know what you’re supposed to do, you just do it,” she said.

Earlier this month, she tended to a 31-year-old widow from Acapulco. Maria Luisa Ramos had fallen ill after hiking for four days wearing a T-shirt and light jacket in temperatures that fell to the low 30s at night. From her sickbed in the hotel, Ramos said she went without food or water before breaking away from her group. A doctor diagnosed her with pneumonia.

Activists who invoke the sanctuary movement said they want a wider impact than simply aiding illegal entrants. Last month, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a call for broad changes in federal immigration policies, including the border crackdown. Socially liberal church groups that work with refugees worldwide are drawing up policies to answer what they view as a crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border.

“We suddenly all looked at each other and said there is a strong need for a church voice on the border,” said Joan Maruskin, who works in Washington, D.C., for an immigrant and refugee program of Church World Service.

Maruskin and representatives of a dozen church-sponsored organizations from across the country toured the border Dec. 8. They later joined 40 activists at Southside Presbyterian Church to begin mapping a border strategy. Among the most dramatic suggestions: acts of civil disobedience, such as dismantling portions of the border fence, and demands for a halt in the government’s drive to add agents and border fences along porous zones.

Church activists acknowledge that new political and economic realities have created a climate quite different from that of the 1980s movement, which grew out of opposition to the U.S. role in Central American conflicts. Border crossers today are mainly Mexican workers--seeking jobs, not haven--at a moment when commerce is blurring international boundaries and labor shortages in the United States have fueled calls for more legal entries. It also remains to be seen how Mexico changes under a new president, Vicente Fox.

“Fundamentally, it’s a different moment,” said Phil Anderson, former border issues director for the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, based in Baltimore. “It’s harder for us to step up to the plate because it’s more complicated.”