What aspect of the proposed border wall does the story illustrate?
read the introduction to the interactive news report “The Wall,” about the proposed wall to be built along the southern U.S. border with Mexico. Then read one of the following stories listed under “Stories 6-12 minutes each” with the description, “Discover the unknown stories of the border. Hear from ranchers, vigilantes, migrants and more.” Although there are 15 stories listed, please choose one from the following
Answer the following questions for the story that you chose:
What aspect of the proposed border wall does the story illustrate?
Does the story have an implied or overt claim? What is it and how is it presented?
Does the story argue for or against the wall?
How do the writers link the story to the larger social issue of the proposed wall?
Requirements: 150-300words
Lives lost: Crosses rest against the U.S.-Mexico border fence in Nogales, Sonora. (Nick Oza/USA TODAY NETWORK)FORWARD OR BACK“Hey, get up!”There was just enough light to see. Three men. Black bandannas on their faces.“Walk this way.”By force, the two migrants were hustled to the gate of the cemetery. Into a black SUV. It sped toward the edge of town.The men in black bandannas began their lecture.“Look, the thing is that you both need to know how things run around here.”“Here, you have to pay a fee to be able to cross.”The two migrants had no money, no possessions. They had already decided they were never going south, back to Honduras.Now, they were not sure they would live to go north.(/border-wall/)û
Undeterred migrants: A nal journey?: Two Honduran migrants, biding their time to cross, say nothing will stop their dreams of reachingthe U.S. (USA TODAY NETWORK)Nogales, SonoraBorder crossers, and the wall that won’t stop themRafael Carranza | azcentral.comUSA TODAY NETWORKThe two men did not know each other in Tegucigalpa, but they le home under the same cloud.Norlan Yadier Garcia Castro had gone to the U.S. from Honduras to look for work. Aer two years, he hit a pedestrian in a trac accident. Hewas arrested and deported.Nelson Gabriel Valladares Funes was forced to join a gang before he was a teenager.Yû
Staging ground: Some people preparing to cross the border stay in the Nogales, Sonora, cemetery. (David Wallace/USA TODAY NETWORK)Support journalismTo support groundbreaking journalism like “The Wall,” nd one of the more than 100 USA TODAY NETWORK newsrooms closest to you andsubscribe today.Get started ( https://offers.usatodaynetwork.com/network-news-digitaloffer) ( https://offers.usatodaynetwork.com/network-news-digitaloffer) For both, the future was bleak. Honduras has one of the lowest family incomes of any country in Latin America. It has the world’s highesthomicide rate.So they le. Not together, not at the same time, but for the same destination.They walked back roads, took buses when they could, and rode the freight train known as la bestia — the beast.It’s the fastest route north, but also the most dangerous. Migrants go without food as they ride the train. They face mutilation if they fall o andextortion from criminal gangs that charge to be on board. As they went, they joined a river of migrants making the journey.Since early this decade, record numbers of Central Americans have headed to the U.S., eeing violence and poverty at home. Swelled by womenand children, their numbers peaked in 2014.In spite of the United States’ tough talk about enforcement and a border wall, the number of people eeing the so-called Northern Triangle of ElSalvador, Guatemala and Honduras has remained steady since then. But fewer reach the U.S. border. û
Resting place: Honduran national Nelson Gabriel Valladares Funes nds the Nogales, Sonora, cemetery more welcoming than the areashelters. (Nick Oza/USA TODAY NETWORK)“THOUSANDS HAVE DIED IN THE DESERT. AND IF DEATH DOESN’T STOP US, WILL A WALL? IDON’T THINK SO.”NORLAN YADIER GARCIA CASTROMIGRANT FROM HONDURASAs Central Americans rushed across the Rio Grande in 2014, they triggered a new round of backlash in the United States.Mexico, under heavy pressure from the U.S. government, responded to the surge in Central American migration with a secretive plan, ProgramaFrontera Sur, or the Southern Border Program. Mexico’s government has released few details about the program other than it empowersauthorities to crack down on migrants.In addition to a greater number of apprehensions in that country, Programa Frontera Sur has led to a dramatic increase in abuse at the hands ofMexican ocials, advocates say.“There has been a large investment in resources for Mexican immigration and Mexican military and police,” says Joanna Williams, director ofadvocacy and education with migrant-rights group Kino Border Initiative in the twin cities of Nogales. “But these are forces that areunaccountable.”Williams says the change has made migration through Mexico to the U.S. border more dangerous.The rst few months of 2017 produced some of the lowest numbers of migrant apprehensions at the southwestern border in recent years.Apprehensions in May were down 71 percent from the peak in May 2014, when U.S. Customs and Border Protection says it detained nearly69,000 people.û
“Oen times Central Americans like Nelson and Norlan will have a mix of dierent ways that they’ve journeyed,” attempting to sidestepimmigration ocials, Williams says. “In the process they are becoming more and more separated from the network and support of (migrant)shelters, and so they’re exposed to a robbery, assault, and then we hear far too frequently … kidnapping.”Among the graves: Honduran nationals Norlan Yadier Garcia Castro (left) and Nelson Gabriel Valladares Funes are biding their time in thecemetery until they are ready to cross into the U.S. illegally. (Nick Oza/USA TODAY NETWORK)The route to Nogales, Sonora, took Norlan a month.Along the way, he tried to dodge Mexican ocials and bribed them when he had to. He endured extortion attempts and regular beatings at thehands of drug gangs because he didn’t have cash to give them.As he rode la bestia, he saw others, who had no money, thrown from the moving train. Nelson took even longer. He le home on Christmas Day and had run out of cash by the time he reached Mexico’s southern border. He beggedand did odd jobs to feed himself.When he arrived in Nogales, in late May, he attempted to cross into the U.S., but was caught by the Border Patrol. Because he had no criminalrecord in the U.S., agents sent him back to Mexico, warning that if they caught him again he’d be sent to jail.Aer meeting each other for the rst time in Nogales, Norlan, 20, and Nelson, 21, decided to stick together.Countless people in the same situation — penniless and without a clear plan to get across the border — hunker down in this border city, hopingto raise enough cash to buy food and water to get them through the desert.Instead of staying at a shelter, Norlan and Nelson opt to sleep at the municipal cemetery — remaining closer to the border and the migrantservices they use on a daily basis — where city workers turn a blind eye to the small groups of migrants and deportees staying there until it’stheir time to move on. û
Norlan says nothing will stop people from pursuing a better life in the U.S.: not a more dangerous route north, not being kidnapped by a carteland certainly not a border wall.The two were waiting only on the weather. June is too hot to risk a Sonoran Desert crossing. The late-summer monsoon, they hoped, with itsrain and cloud cover, would bring the time for them to jump the fence.But in the night came three men wearing black bandannas, and Norlan and Nelson were stued into the black SUV, headed away from theborder.What happened that night in June cannot be veried through investigative reports or ocial records. Immigrants with no legal right to be inMexico do not call police, who may be no more aid to them than the cartels that may already control their fate.So Norlan and Nelson’s story can only be told through the accounts both men later gave the USA TODAY NETWORK. At a cartel safe house outside Nogales, the kidnappers placed them in separate, cell-like rooms.Who are your friends and relatives in the United States, the men wanted to know. They demanded names, phone numbers, looking for someonethey might call and demand money in exchange for the two migrants’ freedom. They searched wallets and bags but turned up nothing.Along the section of the U.S.-Mexico border where the men hoped to cross, the Sinaloa cartel dominates the lucrative drug- and human-smuggling corridors.Nelson told the kidnappers his mother was ill and he was headed north because he needed money to buy her medicine. The men didn’t believehim and warned him to wait until their boss arrived. But when they le, Nelson noticed the door wasn’t locked. He slipped out, made his way to Norlan’s cell and unlocked the door.Sharing a goal: Nelson Gabriel Valladares Funes, 21, (left) and Norlan Yadier Garcia Castro, 20, are both from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, butmet for the rst time in Nogales, Sonora. They decided to stick together as they tried to cross the border. (Nick Oza/USA TODAY NETWORK)û
They spotted an open window.Border crossers Nelson Gabriel Valladares Funes made his way from Honduras to Nogales, Sonora, with plans to cross into the U.S. to seeka better life. (Nick Oza/USA TODAY NETWORK)1 of 22 () ()Nelson told Norlan to squeeze through rst and start running. Nelson was about to follow when the kidnappers spotted them.“Hey, where are you going? Stop there,” they yelled.The Hondurans sprinted toward the lights of Nogales with their kidnappers chasing them.Out of breath, they reached a parking lot. Norlan crawled under a car, seeking cover. Nelson climbed a tree.Minutes passed. When they sensed no one was coming, they continued into town, where they hoped to blend into the crowds.They met a man and told him they were eeing kidnappers. He gave them a change of clothes and told them to get rid of what they werewearing: better to disguise themselves.The migrant shelter across from the cemetery was closed. The two huddled in a church doorway nearby, waiting for daylight. û
Cooling the desert: A late-summer monsoon storm is ideal weather for some migrants looking to cross the border. (Nick Oza/USA TODAYNETWORK)In August 2010, the Mexican military uncovered a mass grave containing the blindfolded and handcued bodies of 72 migrants in SanFernando, Tamaulipas, about 90 miles south of Texas’ Rio Grande Valley. The Zetas drug cartel had executed the men and women, mostly Central American migrants on their way to the U.S., because they refused towork for them.Seven years later, and despite the arrests of more than 80 alleged Zetas members in connection with the massacre, no one has gone to prisonfor the deaths. And forensic workers have complained about obstacles to identifying the bodies.The violence against migrants in Mexico is now endemic, say human-rights and migrant advocates, and the case has highlighted authorities’inability or unwillingness to protect migrants. Mexican authorities are too oen dismissive of, and at times complicit in, the abuse, advocatessay.“Those who commit crimes … know that migrants don’t have much infrastructure to defend them,” says Williams of the Kino Border Initiative.“They’re very easy targets.”Williams’ organization took part in a study of such violence compiled by the Washington Oce for Latin America, a group advocating forhuman rights in the region. The study, released in July, found high rates of impunity for reported crimes against migrants in high-transit stateslike Sonora. Of the 5,824 crimes documented in the report, only 49 reached a verdict and sentence.The report also found migrant-aid groups such as Kino are exposed to harassment and abuse.“We feel an enormous responsibility to step in this situation of violence, of oppression, and stand with them,” Williams says.U.S. ocials see the same risks in another light. In an op-ed column for USA TODAY in August, Acting Homeland Security Secretary ElaineDuke wrote that fencing built under the Secure Fence Act of 2006 — she called it a border wall — made American communities such asYuma, Arizona, safer. She said strict enforcement of immigration laws should help dissuade migrants from trying to cross.û
Speaking directly to Central American migrants, she wrote: “Smugglers do not care about you. They do not care about your dreams. They do notcare about your family. They do not care about your safety. Do not believe the smuggler’s lies. We are enforcing the law.”Border Q&AWhat happens to people caught crossing the border? Aid for migrants: A man recently deported from the United States rests at the San Juan Bosco shelter in Nogales, Mexico. (Nick Oza/USATODAY NETWORK) ()When someone is apprehended: When Border Patrol agents detain someone caught crossing the border illegally, they take the individual to thenearest Border Patrol station to be processed. The crosser’s information is recorded, and the person is detained. What happens after thatdepends on the circumstances and whether the person is seeking asylum.Nextû
It’s a few days aer the escape from the kidnappers. Nelson and Norlan are back at the cemetery sleeping among the graves, a short walk fromthe nearest U.S. port of entry.They tried staying at a migrant shelter, but it was crawling with bugs, Nelson says, and at another shelter, people were looking to ght.Even though the masked men might return, the two feel safer among the tombs.“You feel that they’re watching over you,” he says of those who lie beneath them. “It makes you feel more at ease.”The Hondurans haven’t reported their kidnapping to the authorities. They don’t think ocials would do anything about the crime.Norlan says he thinks he knows why they were targeted. On a recent morning they had walked to the border fence near the Mariposainternational crossing.But cartels say they — not the migrants — decide who gets to the fence.“Supposedly … you can’t get close to the border … and since we didn’t know that, they came for us,” he says. “And now they think that’s wherewe will cross, and for that you have to pay.”The fee is $500 per person. But Norlan and Nelson have no money.Both men say they’re determined to attempt a crossing. Norlan could not make a living in Honduras. Nelson fears the gang he ed would killhim if he returned. There is no going back. Only a wait until the time they will try to go forward.Proximity problems: Getting too close to the border fence in Nogales can raise the hackles of the cartels that say they control who isallowed to cross. (Nick Oza/USA TODAY NETWORK)û
o-border-human-smuggling-crossing-methods/605530001/)(story/brian-terry-us-border-pRD OR BACKants, and the wall that won’t stopmhad no money. But they had already decided theynever going back to Honduras. They were goingre05DOUBTS AND DUTYViolence, and thThere are many quesdied. Would a wall haExplore(https://www.usatoday.com/)© 2017 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Satellite Information Network LLC.About This ProjectHelp (https://www.usatoday.com/contactus) •Terms of Service (https://www.usatoday.com/legal/tos.html) •Privacy Notice (https://www.usatoday.com/legal/privacynotice.html)•Your California Privacy Notice (https://www.usatoday.com/legal/privacynotice.html#california-privacy) •Ad Choices (https://www.usatoday.com/legal/privacynotice.html#adchoices)•Accessibility (http://static.usatoday.com/accessibility/) •Our Ethical Principles (http://static.usatoday.com/ethical-conduct/)“Thousands have died in the desert,” Norlan says, contemplating their timing. “And if death doesn’t stop us, will a wall? I don’t think so, right? Idon’t think so.”As night approaches, clouds gather on the horizon. The rst storm of the monsoon is on its way.û
Deaths increasing: The remains of 81 migrants have been recovered in southern Arizonain 2017 as of the end of June. (Nick Oza/USA TODAY NETWORK)LIVING AND DYINGOn a map, the southwestern Arizona desert is an empty stretch, the size of Connecticut, asea of nothing. On a map of deaths, it is a sea of red. For those determined to enter the United States, this is a way in: A fence that can becrossed, an empty land with few watching eyes, a promise of a route north. But in reality,there is no way across without a smuggler as a guide, without nding extra water. Andboth the smugglers and the land are harsh.So people die here, and keep dying. And a wall may only speed their pace.(/border-wall/)û
Border crossings: A deadly desert: More barriers along the Mexican border can forceillegal immigrants to cross in more desolate areas. (USA TODAY NETWORK)Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, ArizonaBorder crossers, and the desert that claimsthemDaniel Gonzalez | azcentral.comUSA TODAY NETWORKAs she climbs out of the truck, it’s clear Selene Ramirez has never hiked in the desert.Her imsy sneakers are no match for the thorny cholla pods that easily pierce foam-rubbersoles. And as she shoulders her small backpack, it is obvious Ramirez is not carrying enough waterfor a nearly ve-hour trek on a day when the late-June temperatures will soar to 108 degrees.Yû
Migrant memorial: A cross in the Arizona desert marks the end of the journey. (NickOza/USA TODAY NETWORK)Support journalismTo support groundbreaking journalism like “The Wall,” nd one of the more than 100 USATODAY NETWORK newsrooms closest to you and subscribe today.Get started ( https://offers.usatodaynetwork.com/network-news-digitaloffer) (https://offers.usatodaynetwork.com/network-news-digitaloffer) û
But out there in the desert is a corpse. Several migrants passing through the area, a well-traveled route for illegal immigration, have reported seeing it. They say it’s near a dirt roadsouth of Kino Peak, a tooth-shaped mountain formation nicknamed La Muela, the molar.Ramirez fears it’s the body of her 25-year-old brother, Carlos Martinez. He became sick aercrossing the border illegally in mid-June. In the area where he crossed, there is no borderwall, something President Donald Trump has vowed to build to halt unauthorized migration.If the corpse is her brother’s, Ramirez is determined to nd it and end the agonizinguncertainty her family has endured since Martinez went missing.“It’s killing us,” she says. “The not knowing is the worst part. Not knowing if he is alive or ifhe is dead.”In her purse, she carries her brother’s Mexican voter card. The photo on the ID, she hopes,will be useful should she nd a body. By now it would surely be badly decomposed.“Some people view them just as illegal immigrants trying to cross the border. They don’trealize they have families, families that care about them,” Ramirez says as she takes her rststeps into the furnace-like heat, seeking answers.û
Grim reminders: Investigator Gene Hernandez shows the skull of one of 135 unidentiedmigrants whose remains ll the cooler at the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Ofce inTucson, Arizona. (Nick Oza/USA TODAY NETWORK)The remains of at least 2,832 migrants have been found in southern Arizona since 2001,according to the Arizona OpenGIS Initiative for Deceased Migrants. Nearly 40 percent(1,089) have never been identied. The initiative, a joint project between the Tucson-based group Humane Borders and thePima County Medical Examiner’s Oce, plots on an interactive map the location of everydeceased migrant who has been found. There are so many red circles on the map, southernArizona resembles a sea of blood.But the area wasn’t always a vast graveyard for migrants, says Chelsea Halstead, deputydirector of the Colibri Center for Human Rights.Founded in 2006, the center’s Tucson oces are in the same building that houses the PimaCounty Oce of the Medical Examiner.û
That puts Halstead steps away from the receiving area for the remains of migrants found inthe desert.The Colibri Center collects DNA samples and other information to identify those remains.Prior to 2000, fewer than ve dead migrants were found in southern Arizona each year,according to the OpenGIS data.But the number soared to 79 in 2001, as illegal immigration from Mexico to the U.S. surgedand increased border security in California and Texas funneled more migrants through moreremote and dangerous routes in Arizona.The peak came in 2010, when 224 remains were found.Preparing for the worst: Selene Ramirez carries the Mexican voter card of her brother,Carlos Martinez. She says it could be useful identifying him, if they nd his body. (NickOza/USA TODAY NETWORK)û
It was the second time he had been deported, aer he was caught in the U.S.illegally, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement ocials. He was deported rstin 2010 aer pleading guilty that year to a misdemeanor charge of marijuana possession andseparately to a felony charge of unlawfully discharging a rearm, ICE says. The rearmcharge occurred when Martinez was 17, court records show.Their mother had moved back to Cananea, Sonora, years ago. Aer Martinez was deported,he moved in with their mother, Ramirez says. But he yearned to be back in Phoenix.“He just didn’t want to be in Mexico anymore,” Ramirez says. “He didn’t like it. He didn’t feelfamiliar.”But re-entering the U.S. illegally aer being deported is a felony. And as a convicted felon ifcaught again, Martinez would face up to 20 years in federal prison — which might explainwhy he decided to take such a remote and dangerous route.At the time he crossed, Martinez was living with friends in Sonoyta, a town in Sonora acrossfrom Lukeville, the last stop in the U.S. on the way to Puerto Peñasco, a beach town alsoknown as Rocky Point.Before crossing, Martinez stocked up on food and plastic gallon jugs of water. He also boughta camouage shirt, pants and hat, says Patricia Perez, a 42-year-old Phoenix resident whoowns the store. As a gi, she gave him a package of Fruit of the Loom underwear from herstore.Her family was friends with Martinez when he lived in Phoenix. She rented him anapartment in Sonoyta before he le. Martinez told her he was going to cross the border with a group of eight or nine others.Most likely he crossed near the kilometer 19 marker on Mexico Highway 2, a well-knowndeparture point about 12 miles west of Sonoyta, aer being dropped o there by smugglers.This part of the border is divided by shoulder-high metal barriers welded together from oldrailroad tracks. The barriers are designed to prevent vehicles from driving across, not people.They are easy to climb over.What’s more daunting is the other side. It’s an 80-mile journey to Gila Bend, the mostcommon smuggling destination. The hike through mountainous desert terrain can takeseven to 10 days.û
Deadly trek Selene Ramirez of Phoenix rests in the July heat while searching for the bodyof her brother, Carlos Martinez, 25, near Ajo, Arizona. He went missing after crossing theU.S. border illegally. (Nick Oza/USA TODAY NETWORK)1 of 31 () ()Two days aer Martinez crossed, Ramirez received a call from one of the people in his group.He told her that Martinez had started feeling sick. He was throwing up. First he said he wasgoing to turn himself in to the Border Patrol. Then he decided to keep going. That was thelast time the migrant saw him.Ramirez spent the next two days on the phone trying to nd out what happened to herbrother. She called the Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Organ PipeCactus National Monument and the Mexican consulate.There was no record he had been found.“I kept hoping he was in immigration custody, but he isn’t,” Ramirez says. “We are not goingto lose hope. Unless I see my brother dead, he’s alive.”“Bone!”û
It is a little aer 11 a.m. on June 23, and a group of volunteers from the humanitarian groupNo More Deaths is spread out in a line.Walking through desert scrub, heads lowered, eyes scanning the ground, they are conductinga grid search south of Kino Peak where migrants reported seeing a corpse, perhaps the bodyof Ramirez’s brother.One of the volunteers has just found a bone.The line comes to a halt.The group’s leader, Scott Warren, heads over to investigate. He is wearing a bandanna tuckedunder his ball cap to protect his face and neck from the scorching sun.The bone is bleached white. Warren leaves it in place, careful not to disturb the scene.One of the volunteers in the group is a veterinarian. It looks like a femur, or thigh bone, shetells Warren. But it looks too small to be human. It probably came from a deer, she says.Warren takes a GPS waypoint of the location anyway. He also snaps a few photos. He plansto send the coordinates and photos to the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Oce tolet ocials determine whether the bone came from an animal or a human.The volunteers resume their search.Along the way, the group stops to take a break under a clump of paloverde trees providingsome rare shade.The spot is littered with debris le by migrants who have also stopped here to rest: emptytuna cans, food wrappers, ripped clothing, backpacks and the tell-tale black plastic gallonwater jugs sold in Mexico specically to migrants because they don’t reect light that mightattract the Border Patrol.No More Deaths volunteers regularly drop o fresh gallons of water and packs of beans atthe same spot, part of the group’s eorts to prevent migrants from dying.When migrants reach this point, Warren says, they have already been walking one to twodays and are 15 to 20 miles from the border but 60 miles from Gila Bend, where theirsmugglers have arranged rides circumventing Border Patrol checkpoints. That’s another veto seven days of walking.û
Hear more on our podcastWalk the desert alongside photojournalist David Wallace as hesearches for Carlos Martinez in this episode of The Wall:Reporting on the Border(https://soundcloud.com/wallpodcast/migrants).Find this series on Apple Podcasts(https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-wall-reporting-on-the-border/id1277392172?mt=2) or wherever you nd podcasts. Wanting to help: Scott Warren of the humanitarian group No More Deaths heads out withother volunteers to search for the remains of migrants in Arizona’s Organ Pipe CactusNational Monument. (Nick Oza/USA TODAY NETWORK)û
The temperature that day is above 105 degrees. “You need more than a gallon of water perday, probably closer to 2 gallons a day,” Warren says. “If you did the math on that, you arelooking at 15 gallons of water. At 8 pounds a gallon, that would be like 130 pounds. You reallycouldn’t carry it.”Which helps explain why so many migrants die.No one knows how many bodies haven’t been found, but there could be thousands.Their energy depleted from the heat, the volunteers decide to head back to their vehicles,parked two miles away near a Border Patrol rescue beacon.Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, a man pops up from a bush, waving his arms.It is a migrant.“We have water,” one of the volunteers yells in Spanish.“We are lost,” the man yells back. “We need help.”Tagging along with the No More Deaths group that day is Irineo Mujica, hoping to nd thebody of Ramirez’s brother. He had met Martinez at a migrant shelter he runs in Sonoyta.While the other volunteers wait under a tree, Mujica follows Warren and the migrant to asmall stand of paloverde trees.A second migrant is there on the ground in the shade. The migrants are out of water.As the men treat the two migrants, a third arrives. He had le earlier in search of water. Hehad seen a body the day before while being chased by the Border Patrol, not far from thebase of the mountains, he tells Mujica. Aer receiving help, the migrants decided to hike back to Mexico rather than turnthemselves in, Mujica says. So the volunteers le them under the trees and returned to theirvehicles. Four days later, on June 27, Mujica decides to return to search on his own. This time hebrings Ramirez.Less than an hour into the search, Ramirez is starting to fade.With Mujica leading the way, she stops to rest frequently, taking deep gulps of warm waterfrom a clear plastic bottle.û
Things left behind: During the search, Selene Ramirez came across shoes and clothes leftbehind by a border crosser in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Ramirez said theydid not belong to her missing brother — the shoes were the wrong color. (Nick Oza/USA TODAYNETWORK)“SOME PEOPLE JUST VIEW THEM JUST AS ILLEGALIMMIGRANTS. THEY DON’T REALIZE THEY HAVE FAMILIES.”SELENE RAMIERZSEARCHING FOR BROTHERShe tries taking a few swigs from a bottle of Pedialyte. But in the 108-degree heat, theelectrolyte drink tastes awful. She leaves it on a rock next to a deep wash littered with debrisdiscarded by migrants.“I’m leaving it there for someone who needs it more than I do,” Ramirez says, beforecontinuing on.û
The area is full of migrant trails that snake through the desert.As she crests a ridge, Ramirez comes across a harrowing scene. Someone has ripped o all ofhis clothing — shoes, socks, shirt, pants, underwear — and thrown them on the rocks,evidence of someone in severe distress.Ramirez looks at the shoes. They didn’t belong to her brother, she concludes. He was wearingwhite shoes. These are black.Agent Daniel Hernandez pulls his Border Patrol vehicle to the side of Highway 85, whichsplits the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument nearly in half. So far, it is a slow day.The 500-square-mile preserve, known for its towering cactuses with arms that resembleorgan pipes, stretches as far as the eye can see.As his radio crackles in the background, Hernandez explains why this part of the border is sodangerous.First of all, the terrain is so barren and remote, migrants can’t cross without the help ofsmugglers, and therefore are putting their lives in the hands of people they don’t know, whomight leave them behind if they get hurt or sick.“Zero percent cross on their own,” he says.“If I bring you from anywhere in the world and put you at the border and say, ‘Get to Tucson.Get to Phoenix. Get to this remote village on the reservation. Get to Three Points, Arizona.’You are not going to know anything except that north is in front of you and south is behindyou. That’s it. Where are you going to go? How are you going to get there? Where is theBorder Patrol? Where are the caches of water? You have no idea. So the only method tocrossing the desert is with a smuggler,” Hernandez says.Second, it’s easy to get lost, even with a smuggler.The Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument is surrounded by the Tohono O’odhamReservation, the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge and the Barry Goldwater Air ForceRange. Together the vast expanse of desert equals the size of Connecticut.It’s also dangerous. The National Park Service closed most of Organ Pipe in 2003 aer 28-year-old ranger Kris Eggle was fatally shot by drug cartel hitmen eeing from Mexico on Aug.9, 2002, earning Organ Pipe the nickname “the most dangerous national park” in America.The preserve reopened in September 2015.What about Trump’s border wall? Would that help prevent migrant deaths?û
Hernandez says it’s not his job to comment on political issues. But fences alone don’t stoppeople from crossing the border illegally, he says.Border Q&AHow many people die trying to cross the border?Crossing curtailed: Roger Antonio Paiz Leyton, a 28-year-old from Nicaragua, wasapprehended by border agents after he spent 10 days walking through the southernArizona desert. (Nick Oza/USA TODAY NETWORK)It’s impossible to know precisely: Many who die haven’t been found and some may never be. Inaddition, there is no single system for tracking migrant deaths, with different agencies usingvarious sources for gathering data. û
()Next“It’s meant to create time for agents to respond to incursions. It’s not meant to keep anyonein. It’s not meant to keep anybody out.”Later that day, Hernandez hears a call on his radio. A Department of Homeland Securityhelicopter patrolling by air has spotted two migrants running south near Charlie Bell Pass.The agents catch one of the migrants aer a short chase on foot through the desert.The 28-year-old migrant says his name is Roger Antonio Paiz Leyton and he is fromNicaragua. He had been walking in the desert for 10 days trying to reach Gila Bend. Along theway, he says, he saw at least 10 dead migrants.“Can we head back?”It’s nearly 1 p.m. The sun is high overhead. The temperature is now nearing 111 degrees.Ramirez and Mujica have been searching for over two and a half hours. Now Ramirez is sick.“I’m feeling really anxious,” she says. “I’m getting chills.”Signs of dehydration.Now it is a 4-mile hike back to the truck. By the time they arrive, Ramirez is limping. She hasblisters on her feet. Her head is pounding.She climbs in the backseat and takes o her hat and glasses.Aer popping some Advil and drinking more water, she starts to feel better.û
“I don’t even know how they do it for seven, eight days,” she says. “It’s their dream to be inthe United States. That’s what keeps them going. They want to be in the land of opportunity.I did four or ve hours and I couldn’t have walked any longer.”On the drive back to Ajo, Ramirez calls her mother, who is waiting for news in Sonoyta.“No encontramos nada,” Ramirez tells her in Spanish. We didn’t nd anything.A corpse lies on a stretcher in the receiving bay of the Pima County Medical Examiner’sOce as death investigators Gene Hernandez and Trevis Hairston catalog the dead man’sbelongings.The mummied skin has turned black and leathery from exposure to the sun and lowhumidity.A stomach-turning stench lls the room.As Hairston calls out each item, Hernandez types it into a computer.One green camouage shirt. One Nike hoodie. Two pairs of socks. Blue underwear. Bluejeans. A black belt with a metal belt buckle decorated with a marijuana leaf. One waterbottle, still full. Various packages of food. Three cellphones and one charger.The investigators nd no identication. But the dead migrant is wearing a white plastic ringwith these inscribed words: “Dany y Kren.” The personal items might help investigatorsidentify the body.Border Patrol agents had found the body that morning while pursuing a group of sevenmigrants. The body was under a tree in a desert area about 30 miles southwest of Tucson.From there, the body was transported to the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Oce, wherethe remains of all dead migrants found in southern Arizona end up.Until that day in late June, the Medical Examiner’s Oce had received the remains of 77dead migrants in 2017. This one makes 78. Hairston assigns it a number: 17-1568-John Doe.He writes the number on a piece of red tape and wraps it around the corpse’s right ankle,which wears a black sock with the word “USA” sewn along the top.Hairston zips up a white body bag and wheels the corpse by stretcher into a large walk-incooler.û
The remains of 134 other unidentied migrants ll the cooler.The body brought in that day is identied as Alfredo Pablo Gomez, a 31-year-old migrantfrom Guatemala, Hess says later. The Medical Examiner’s Oce is able to identify him aerrehydrating the hands and matching ngerprints through a Border Patrol database. Familymembers also conrm through a Border Patrol photo it is him. The remains are released to afuneral home and sent back to Guatemala.But other remains are not so easy to identify. Those that haven’t been aer six months to ayear are cremated and interred in a Tucson cemetery.The cemetery is lled with unidentied migrants.“It’s not a secret that the more the border has been militarized for whatever reason it seemsto push folks out into more remote of the desert,” Hernandez says.Maximizing efforts: Volunteers with No More Deaths spread out as they search forbodies of migrants in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument near Ajo, Arizona. (NickOza/USA TODAY NETWORK)û
“I think if you look at the border that we currently have and the fence that is currently inplace, it may have slowed the amount of trac coming (illegally) to the U.S., however ithasn’t prohibited people from dying,” he says. “We can tell that just by the deaths thatcontinue to be found there.”Suddenly there is a knock at Hernandez’s door.Hairston pokes in his head.“I have another case,” Hairston says. “Way, very, very far out.”Minutes later, Hairston is back in his truck, driving to retrieve the body out near the SilverBell Mine, 60 miles west of Tucson near the border of the Tohono O’Odham Reservation.Before loading the body into the back of his truck, Hairston unzips the body bag, revealing atwisted blackened corpse, shirtless and wearing blue jeans cut o at the knees.Hairston then drives back to his oce and begins the process all over again.In the dead man’s pants pocket, Hairston nds a boarding pass for a June 6 ight fromMexico City to Hermosillo.Hairston also nds a crucix, some Mexican pesos, ve $20 bills, a Mexican driver’s licenseand Mexican voter card. He places each item neatly on a table. The name on the license andvoter card says Juan Manual Sandoval Sandoval. He is 46.Lastly, Hairston pulls out seven small photos, individual pictures most likely of the deadman’s family. Four of the pictures are children: a boy and three girls. Two are women: oneabout his age, the other older, perhaps his mother. The last photo is larger than the rest.It is of a baby girl with long black hair. She is wearing a pink sweater. Her dark eyes gazedirectly at the camera.She appears to be crying.On July 17, a group of migrants discovers the remains of a migrant in the desert not far fromthe area where Martinez was last seen alive. The men pick up the remains andcarry them more than 10 miles back into Mexico, where they call Mujica, who runs theshelter in Sonoyta.Mujica tells the men they should not have removed the body from the United States. Then hecalls Mexican police to come retrieve the remains, which the men le under a bridge near thekilometer 19 marker on Highway 2.û
pipe-cactus/608910001/)(story/human-smuggling-crossing-border-illegally-methods/559t claims themn Arizona neverndersabouteach02RISK AND PROFITA human smuggler, and the wall that wimake him richThere are risks in his line of work, from the cartels, frothepolice.Butonethinghe’snotworriedaboutisaThe male body is too badly decomposed to identify. It is mostly bones. But Mujica believesthe remains may belong to Martinez, the missing migrant, because of several clues. Thestraight white teeth indicate the body belonged to a young man. He had dark hair; he waswearing camouage clothing; and the label on his underwear says Fruit of the Loom, like theunderwear Martinez received as a gi before he crossed the border. Mujica posts photos ofthe remains on Facebook.A few days later, Selene Ramirez’s mother takes a bus six hours from her home in Cananea toSonoyta to look at the body, aer it has been recovered by Mexican authorities. She alsoprovides a sample of her DNA to see if it matches the DNA of the corpse.Two months aer that, test results give the family an answer. Selene’s brother has beenfound.û
nders about eachthe police. But one thing hes not worried about is awall.Explore(https://www.usatoday.com/)© 2017 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Satellite Information Network LLC.About This ProjectHelp (https://www.usatoday.com/contactus) •Terms of Service (https://www.usatoday.com/legal/tos.html)•Privacy Notice (https://www.usatoday.com/legal/privacynotice.html)•Your California Privacy Notice (https://www.usatoday.com/legal/privacynotice.html#california-privacy)•Ad Choices (https://www.usatoday.com/legal/privacynotice.html#adchoices)•Accessibility (http://static.usatoday.com/accessibility/)•Our Ethical Principles (http://static.usatoday.com/ethical-conduct/)û
Traditional rites: Thomasa Rivas stands on a beach in Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, afterpraying at the ocean. She will travel to the Vikita Ceremony, where tribal members prayfor the earth and everyone and everything on it. (Mark Henle/USA TODAY NETWORK)SILENT AND SACREDFor the Tohono O’odham people, the mountains are sacred.The story is told that, I’itoi, their creator, lives in a cave below the Baboquivari peak. Oneday, Tohono O’odham farmers who wanted to expand their land asked I’itoi to move themountain. But the greediness of the men forced the top of the mountain to break off andthe rain to stop feeding the farmers’ crops.Even as the land turned brittle in the heat, the Tohono O’odham people never left.They were here long before their land was divided, rst by a border, then again as fenceswere built and gates closed. Now they fear they will be divided once more.There is no O’odham word for wall, the people say. They promise each other they will stayand ght.(/border-wall/)û
Tribal lands: Most sacred places: Tohono O’odham lands are divided by the border, thusdividing the tribe physically and spiritually. (USA TODAY NETWORK)El Bajio, MexicoA border tribe, and the wall that will divideitDianna M. Náñez | azcentral.comUSA TODAY NETWORKThe earthy smell of mesquite lls the air on a Saturday in late March.The sun hangs high and the clouds low over a desolate stretch of the border that dividesArizona from Mexico, that divides the Tohono O’odham Nation in two. It is a quiet morning, except for the rhythmic scraping of Julian Rivas’ shovel against dirt.Yû
A tribe divided: A barbed-wire fence separates the United States and Mexico. (MarkHenle/USA TODAY NETWORK)Support journalismTo support groundbreaking journalism like “The Wall,” nd one of the more than 100 USATODAY NETWORK newsrooms closest to you and subscribe today.Get started ( https://offers.usatodaynetwork.com/network-news-digitaloffer) (https://offers.usatodaynetwork.com/network-news-digitaloffer) “I’m digging a hole,” he says.û
The San Miguel Gate — Wo’osan Gate in the O’odham language — is a few long strides away,an unremarkable opening in the metal posts that jut from the parched earth.“For the ags,” he says, turning dirt with the shovel.There will be nine ags, each representing a traditional community of the Tohono O’odham,the desert people, in Mexico. The people who will gather to talk about unity and division.The Tohono O’odham Nation — the tribe is the second-largest in the U.S., by land holdings —sits on an estimated 2.7 million acres in southern Arizona’s Sonoran Desert. Ancestral landsstretch across the border into the Mexican state of Sonora.About 2,000 of the tribe’s 34,000 members live in Sonora, according to tribal ocials. Theywere cut o from the rest of the nation by the 62-mile international boundary and havefound themselves increasingly isolated from their people in Arizona.The Tohono O’odham people consider the San Miguel Gate a traditional passage of theirancestors.û
Deep concerns: Thomasa Rivas, who lives in Tucson, says opposition to the border wallgoes beyond politics. “It is going to change who we are,” she says. “The world will change,too.” (Mark Henle/USA TODAY NETWORK)Today, it connects family members who live on both sides of the border. It is used by tribalmembers who travel for sacred pilgrimages and ceremonies in Mexico, as well as those livingin Mexico who travel to the U.S. for tribal services, to sell or buy goods, or to visit the hospitalin Sells, the capital of the Tohono O’odham Nation. At the San Miguel Gate, Rivas can legally cross the border into the U.S. Most Americans andMexicans cannot. A tribal ID serves as a passport of sorts for members to travel back andforth.The informal arrangement dates back decades and secures access to ancestral lands for atribe whose people are quick to explain that they did not get a say when the U.S. mapped theboundaries of their land, or when American and Mexican diplomats negotiated the border163 years ago.No one knows what would happen if the fence and the gates are replaced by a wall, the onePresident Donald Trump has vowed to build on America’s border.On Tohono O’odham land.û
“IT WILL BE IN MY BACKYARD – THE WALL, AND ALL ITSPOLITICAL POLICIES ALONG WITH IT.”OFELIA RIVASTOHONO O’ODHAM MEMBERFurther separation feared: Verlon Jose, vice chairman of the Tohono O’odham Nation,enters the U.S. from Mexico at the San Miguel Gate. Many fear the border wall wouldresult in all tribal ties with Mexico being cut off. (Mark Henle/USA TODAY NETWORK)When the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was ratied in 1848, the border placed most TohonoO’odham land in Mexico. In 1854, under Mexican President Antonio López de Santa Anna and President FranklinPierce, the U.S. paid Mexico $10 million for 29,670 square miles of land.The Gadsden Purchase agreement sketched a new border that split the tribe’s land, leavingpart in the U.S. and part in Mexico.û
Mexico does not recognize the sovereignty of indigenous land. Tohono O’odham in Mexicowere still accounted for when the tribe became federally recognized in the United States andratied a constitution that denes tribal membership based on blood, not country of origin.Tribal members living in Mexico were given the same rights as those in the U.S., regardlessof citizenship status.Those rights remain but with each transition in tribal and U.S. leadership, with each shi inimmigration and border policies, tribal members say it has become more dicult for thoseliving in Mexico to secure their rights.Many fear Trump’s proposed wall will trigger a historic nal act, a severing of all tribal tieswith Mexico.Reaching across: About 2,000 of the Tohono O’odham Nation’s 34,000 members live inSonora, according to tribal ofcials. (Mark Henle/USA TODAY NETWORK)Straddling the borderû
The Tohono O’odham Nation is the second-largest tribe inthe United States by land holdings. Tribal land sits on anestimated 2.7 million acres in southern Arizona’s SonoranDesert. Traditional lands extend into Mexico, but are notofcially recognized and so can’t be mapped.Source: maps4news.comOn this Saturday, tribal members from both sides of the international border are gathering toprotest the wall, to call attention to their plight, to stop another barrier on their land.Julian Rivas is standing near his truck, the ags now uttering in the breeze.His sisters arrive.Thomasa Rivas, who lives in Tucson, came with her daughter. Ofelia Rivas traveled from herhome on tribal lands.Ofelia’s long skirt fans out over the dirt. For years now, she has been a vocal activist againstany form of border-patrol surveillance on tribal land.She says her home, in the small border village of Ali Jegk, where her mother is from, wouldbe destroyed by Trump’s wall.û
“It will be in my backyard — the wall, and all its political policies along with it,” she says.She says this battle is about more than politics.“It violates all life,” she says. “How’s it going to aect our plants … our animals that migratethrough the region.”Ofelia tilts her head to the le, and her long hair moves with the wind.“Will the wind have to get permission?” she asks. “And the water?”Thomasa is so-spoken, even when she is angry.“These are our traditions,” she says. “We have to keep them alive, and pass them on to ourchildren.”Taking it easy: Darryn Cruz, 12, and nephew Kayden Cruz, 3, play at their home on triballand in Sells, Arizona. (Mark Henle/USA TODAY NETWORK)û
Thomasa is preparing for a July ceremony called the Vikita, in Mexico, where tribal memberspray for the earth and everyone and everything on it.A woman walks from the U.S. side of the border through the opening in the gate. FaithRamon scowls as she clutches a ier she says Tohono O’odham police handed to peopledriving to the gate.It said that non-tribal members traveling without permission were “trespassing and mayface civil and criminal penalties.”Ramon was stopped by a tribal police ocer. Tribal leaders said the protesters didn’t havepermission to gather at the gate.“I told them they can’t tell me where I can and can’t go on my land,” she says.Tohono O’odham leaders from Mexico behind the protest have been critical of the tribalcouncil, calling for greater support for the rights of members living in Mexico and a strongerstance against the wall.Nearby, Miguel Estevan leans against a fence post and absentmindedly digs his boot in thedirt. He has a habit of stopping mid-sentence to gather his thoughts.He says the tribal council is worried about pushing the U.S. government too far, so far thatthey will lose federal funds.û
Border tribe Tohono O’odham Nation Vice Chairman Verlon Jose holds his tribal card atthe San Miguel Gate on the reservation in Arizona. Tribal members use the gate to crossbetween the U.S. and Mexico. (Mark Henle/USA TODAY NETWORK)1 of 19 () ()Tribe dividedAbout 2,000 of the tribe’s 34,000 memberslive in Sonora, Mexico.A border wall would cut across about 62miles of Tohono O’odham land.SOURCE: Tohono O’odham tribal ofcialsThe wall would make traveling across the border seem impossible, he says. Now, his dadlives less than 15 minutes from the San Miguel Gate. If a wall seals the crossing, any tribalmember living near the gate would have to travel hundreds of miles to the nearest ocialport of entry.“My father and mother live where their parents lived. They are O’odham and should be ableto travel anywhere on their native lands,” he says.Many years ago, Estevan’s dad, Ramon Valenzuela, le Tohono O’odham land to join theNavy. He hasn’t le since. Valenzuela pulls his tribal ID from his wallet. He resents beingasked for his ID in a place where his family has lived for generations. He says some agents get to know tribal members and treat them with respect. Others do not.If he sees a new agent, he pretends to speak Spanish or O’odham only.“I want to know how they’re treating our members who can’t speak English,” he says.Estevan says he is not worried about a wall. He taps his hand against a fence post.“We will never let anyone build a wall here,” he says.û
As the protest continues, a Mexican tribal elder, standing under the ags, speaks in Spanishand O’odham.”This is our land,” says Alicia Chuhuhua, 80. “We want it without walls.”When U.S. diplomats rst mapped the border, they considered the area uninhabitable andpaid little attention to the Desert People.But interest increased on each mile of the border as the U.S. tightened its immigrationpolicies and its border crime and security procedures.In the 1990s, the U.S. heightened security in urban areas. Smugglers turned to the less-monitored tribal lands.Tribal commerce: Janet Garcia prepares tortillas in her family’s food stand in the TohonoPlaza shopping center in Sells, Arizona. (Mark Henle/USA TODAY NETWORK)û
In the mid-2000s, to stem drug smugglers, the tribal council approved a resolution to seekfederal funding to build a vehicle barrier that would still allow wildlife and people to passthrough.The measure drew vehement opposition from some tribal members angry over any policythat would dig up sacred earth and serve as a barrier between their ancestral lands.Aer the 9/11 terrorist attacks, then-President George W. Bush signed the 2006 Secure FenceAct, calling for 700 miles of fencing. On Tohono O’odham land, barbed-wire fencing wasreplaced by a line of thick metal posts.No one knows if Trump’s border wall will someday stretch the full 62 miles across theTohono O’odham people’s land. No one knows whether there will be a door in that wall onlyfor Tohono O’odham people.Warning shot: Verlon Jose says a border wall on Tohono O’odham land would drawindigenous people from across the world for a ght larger than the one against theDakota Access Pipeline on land belonging to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. (Mark Henle/USATODAY NETWORK)û
Hear more on our podcastTraverse the Tohono O’odham Nation with reporter Dianna M.Náñez in this episode of The Wall: Reporting on the Border(https://soundcloud.com/wallpodcast/tribe).Find this series on Apple Podcasts(https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-wall-reporting-on-the-border/id1277392172?mt=2) or wherever you nd podcasts. Four months have passed since the border wall protest at the San Miguel Gate.Hopping into a full-size SUV, Verlon Jose, the tribal vice chairman, warns that dehydrationsets in quickly for people not used to the scorching desert weather in July.Jose has become the face of the Tohono O’odham’s ght against the wall. He made mediaheadlines last year when he said: “Over my dead body will a wall be built.”He has said that tribes are ready aer what he and others experienced at Standing Rock,battling an oil pipeline in North Dakota. He warned that a wall on Tohono O’odham landwould draw indigenous people from across the world for a ght that would eclipse StandingRock.The White House says the president has the authority to build a border wall under theSecure Fence Act of 2006, but many see the wall as an assault on the tribe’s rights as asovereign nation. The National Congress of American Indians has opposed the wall.Federally-recognized tribes have certain property rights under U.S. laws and treaties.Additionally, a lesser-known 2007 U.N. declaration established broad protections ofindigenous people’s rights.”You talk about the border issues,” he says, “two things I think are a solution: Trueimmigration reform and for America to kick its drug habit. “Just because the tribe opposes a wall, he says, doesn’t mean they don’t secure their land. Inrecent years, they’ve invested more than $3 million annually of their own tribal funds tosecure the U.S.-Mexico border and stemmed human tracking and drug smuggling throughpartnerships with Border Patrol and their own policing, he says.û
Jose calls Trump’s wall bad policy, a waste of taxpayer dollars. Criminals, he said, will nd away over or under the wall.”I would say this is not only a Tohono O’odham issue, this is not only an international issuebetween Mexico and the U.S., this is a world issue,” he says. “The Great Wall of China, theBerlin Wall and many other walls that were built out there to corral human beings — Ibelieve, at this time, the people are going to say that we are going to accept no more of thosethings.”Jose is a pro at navigating the rugged dirt roads along the border in his SUV.He parks near a wash. A storm has washed out a U.S border fence. He says he has toldBorder Patrol ocials the fences won’t hold in the torrents. He still can’t believe politicianswould even consider spending money on a wall that will erode.Jose has family in Mexico, grew up on both sides of the border and has made pilgrimagesthrough the traditional routes in the desert for ceremonies.He tells people opposed to the wall that they must remember what they’ve learned from theelders.“We carry the spirit of thousands of warriors. Dominant societies have tried to kill the spiritof our people,” he says. “We will survive.”He drives into the rocky foothills of the Baboquivari Mountains and looks down at thedistant sacred sites in Mexico. Soon he will be with his people in a small Mexican village forthe Vikita ceremony.He turns toward El Pinacate and sings a traditional song in his native tongue about thesacred peaks in Mexico.“The song that I was singing, as I look to the south here,” he says, “it talks about the PinacateMountains … a place where our creator also calls home.”û
Border Q&AWhat is the Border Patrol?Time to reflect: Thomasa Rivas walks on the beach after praying with her family in PuertoPeñasco, Sonora. From here, she will travel to the sacred site of Quitovac. (Mark Henle/USATODAY NETWORK) ()The border, not the ports: The U.S. Border Patrol is the federal law-enforcement entityresponsible for securing the nation’s borders between ports of entry. With a workforce of morethan 21,000 uniformed agents, it patrols more than 6,000 miles of border with Canada andMexico. Its primary task is to look for terrorists, people entering the U.S without authorizationand other illegal activity, including drug trafcking.Nextû
It’s the third weekend in July, and the Vikita ceremony is only a few days away.Some people travel the traditional passages to Vikita. Others, like Thomasa Rivas, drivethrough the Lukeville Port of Entry to rst pray at the “Big Waters,” the words she uses whenshe talks about the ocean at Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, also known as Rocky Point.There, she will pray before traveling to the natural spring and pond of Quitovac, one of themost sacred sites for the Tohono O’odham people. Only tribal members are supposed toattend this ceremony.Rivas remembers when there was a traditional trail from her village to Quitovac. It was aday’s walk and the way most people made the journey. Now that passage is closed.Vikita is the rst ceremony Rivas thought of when she imagined a 30-foot wall cutting themo from the traditional passages. She also thought of her children and grandchildren and her father, who is buried in theMexican village of San Francisquito. She thought of the tribe’s Mexican ranching familiesthat still live near the traditional passages.On Friday, by the beach in Puerto Peñasco, Rivas’ daughters and grandson are by her side asshe steps onto the sand. They walk to the ocean where they can pray in private. At thewater’s edge, she opens a case with bird feathers.Her family holds hands as the salt water washes over their bare feet. About 15 minutes later,they nish.Rivas is standing in the sand, searching for words.“If there was a wall here, we would really feel that disconnection, just spiritually, evenmentally,” she says.û
“I can’t even fathom the words for this because it is going to change our lives. It is going tochange who we are. The world will change, too.”It’s a humid Thursday in early August. Monsoon storms have hammered Estevan’s familyhome near the San Miguel Gate.Estevan is in Caborca, Sonora, an hours-long drive from his home on desert roads withoutsignage or pavement. This place is known for the petroglyphs etched by the Hohokam, theTohono O’odham people’s ancestors. It is the closest major city in Mexico to his home nearthe border.His mother and father are back home. He brought the baskets his mom weaves to sell at astore in Caborca that deals in indigenous art.Turning to Mexico: Miguel Estevan, at his family’s home in Caborca, Sonora, says he haslost faith in his Tohono O’odham leaders. (Mark Henle/USA TODAY NETWORK)û
01/)(story/tohono-oodham-nation-arizona-tribe/582487001/)07In the months since the protest at the San Miguel Gate, Estevan has lost faith in triballeaders and has turned his attention to Mexican leaders. They’re listening, he says.His family received a grant for indigenous people from the Mexican government. The moneywill pay for a windmill. For the rst time ever, his family will have power for running water.“It will change our lives,” he says.And the wall?What many non-tribal members don’t understand, he says, is that Tohono O’odham peoplebelieve their connections to their ancestors keep their people’s future alive.Estevan remembers going to school and learning traditional tribal songs. Lately, he has beenlearning more songs.“When I sing, my voice is loud,” he says.He sings in O’odham. His deep bass voice carries across the yard. He remembers what hisschool teacher told them about singing and praying.“Our teacher would say, kick up the dirt,” he said. “How do expect to be heard if you don’tkick up the dirt?”He sings another O’odham song.û
emmSILENT AND SACREDA tribe, and the wall that will divide itThey stayed in this place, even after their land was splitin two. This, they fear, may be the nal division.Explore(https://www.usatoday.com/)© 2017 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Satellite Information Network LLC.About This ProjectHelp (https://www.usatoday.com/contactus) •Terms of Service (https://www.usatoday.com/legal/tos.html)•Privacy Notice (https://www.usatoday.com/legal/privacynotice.html)•Your California Privacy Notice (https://www.usatoday.com/legal/privacynotice.html#california-privacy)•Ad Choices (https://www.usatoday.com/legal/privacynotice.html#adchoices)•Accessibility (http://static.usatoday.com/accessibility/)•Our Ethical Principles (http://static.usatoday.com/ethical-conduct/)û
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