Journals

A requirement for the trip was to keep a journal. All members of the trip kept a journal after reading the journals here are some excerpts.

Chat with Mike Wilson-Representative from the Tohono O'odham nation who puts water on the reservation for migrants.

-Change the way we frame the immigration issue. It is a human rights issue, not an issue of homeland security

-Border Patrol has gotten more intense and sophisticated in terms of technology and militarization

-Governments mentality of border security and then immigration reform

-Desert people have always offered water and hospitality, this goes back to the old testament

“Politicians campaign in poetry, govern in prose”

Grupos Beta

-Mexican government supported group that provides resources to migrants

-Around 200 immigrants are served daily at this office

-Chiapas man paid 5000 pesos to cross

-After speaking with representative we got to speak with migrants using Grupos Beta

Maquiladora

-surprising how clean and well paid the people are

-Pay is 1.8 times the minimum wage

Desert Experience

-The most emotions that I have felt so far on the trip

Isabel Garcia

-Cool Lady, Address the root cause, reform immigration and demilitarize the border

Overall

-Trip of a lifetime, it taught me so much about what is going on there

-Instead of asking them why they are here we should be asking them why they left