Mercy Mission In The Desert

By Elaine Rivera/Ajo

In the middle of Arizona's Sonoran Desert, the bright-blue flag and the 65-gal. water tank are hard to miss. This is no mirage; it's the work of a small volunteer group called Humane Borders, which last year began to erect emergency watering stations in the desert to help aliens stay alive as they try to enter the U.S. As the Rev. Robin Hoover hauls heavy plastic containers of water from his car, he explains its mission: "We want to take death out of the equation."

The water towers are the product of an uneasy peace between local clergy and the U.S. border patrol. It was the feds who guided Hoover's group to the best sites for the tanks, at the confluence of three popular trails coming up from Mexico. "We are allies in that effort," says David Aguilar, the patrol's special agent in charge in Tucson. And no wonder. As border-patrol agents shut down safer avenues through cities and towns, coyotes and their charges are pushed farther into the desert to cross, taking greater risks. That has discouraged some immigrants from making the journey; it has also killed hundreds.

Humane Borders was formed after a group of ranchers here and in Texas began taking shots at aliens as they crossed ranch property day and night. Several aliens died in those encounters, and ever since, a backlash against vigilantism has been taking hold. Humane Borders wants to rekindle a long tradition of locals' quietly helping along northward-bound aliens with food, water and sometimes a little cash. Father Robert Carney, a priest in Douglas, Ariz., holds prayer vigils at border-crossing points and often goes out into the desert to dispense toiletry kits and water bottles to people crossing over. The Rev. John Fife, an activist in Tucson, has earned three felony convictions for harboring immigrants and now permits the newly arrived to bathe at his Presbyterian church.

Neither Carney nor Fife is particularly happy about the border patrol's informal ties to his group. Fife says it's "the moral equivalent of starting a forest fire and then going in to rescue a couple of people." The clergymen say they will not turn in to the INS anyone who comes to them for aid. Border agent Aguilar sounds just as wary of the partnership. Saving lives is one thing, he says. Helping aliens get across is something else. Says Aguilar: "There is a line they must not cross."

--By Elaine Rivera/Ajo