Tucson, AZ: Samaritans: Artist Alvaro Enciso, the Crosses

Alvaro Enciso plants a Cross to honor a man who died seeking a decent life. Arizona. August 2019.

On a Humane Borders water run, I learned about Alvaro Enciso, an artist who has made it a mission to recognize the humanity of individual women, men, and children who have died in the desert in an attempt to claim a decent life.

Mr. Enciso honors the dead with painted wood Crosses that he plants into the Arizona soil.

Alvaro Enciso plants a Cross to honor a man who died seeking a decent life. Arizona. August 2019.

 Each Cross has a round red disk.

Alvaro Enciso plants a Cross to honor a man who died seeking a decent life. Arizona. August 2019.

The round red disk on a Cross represents a round red circle on the death map that Humane Borders maintains in partnership with the Pima County Medical Examiner's Office.

Each round red disk on the death map represents a woman, man, or child who died on their quest for a decent life.  Each round red disk on the death map corresponds to a precise geographic point on the planet where the human remains of a dream were found.

Alvaro Enciso plants a Cross to honor a man who died seeking a decent life. Arizona. August 2019.

There are so many collapsed dreams in the desert, individual collections of bone, sinew, skin, empty clothing, shoes, bags, papers. Maybe plastic baggies with garlic, dissolved in putrescence, to protect one from rattlesnake bites.

Garlic bulbs in a baggie, abandoned by a group of migrants, along with backpacks and other items, perhaps after pick-up by Border Patrol. Arizona. August 2019.

Most Tuesdays, Mr. Enciso leads a one- or two-car pilgrimage into the Sonoran Desert or adjoining highlands. He has selected the women, men, or children whose deaths he will commemorate on a trip, and he brings the day's Crosses with him. Sometimes he knows a fallen person's name, gender, and age; sometimes not.

The color of the painted Crosses vary according to the tint of the paint that someone donated to him or that he picked up somewhere on sale.

Democracy Now recently devoted a show to Mr. Enciso's mission, and I'll direct you there so you can learn more about his work in his own words: 

On the Cross pilgrimage I joined, there were small crews for ABC's Nightline and a freelance documentary company, and, I believe, a print journalist.

Alvaro Enciso plants a Cross to honor a man who died seeking a decent life. Arizona. August 2019.

In all, there were at least 10 of us. Upon arrival near the first site, several of us carried something that was a part of the planting - a bucket, a shovel, quickset concrete. And the Cross. I carried the Cross, grateful to do so. It didn't weigh much, and it felt well-balanced. It rested lightly in the crook of my right arm. I occasionally smoothed the wood with my left hand.

We walked, and I held the Cross, and I thought about this man who had died, and when we arrived at the spot where his remains had been found, it was .... gosh, it was so pretty. 

Alvaro Enciso plants a Cross to honor a man who died seeking a decent life. Arizona. August 2019.

Which doesn't surprise me like it might have long ago. When I think of the Rwandan Genocide, and my friend who survived that cycle of human madness, a question invariably comes to me: "Did birds continue to sing in the forest canopy above the screams of slaughter below"?

Of course they did.

The desert enchants and kills indiscriminately, thus a place for a pretty walk on a pleasant day for one is a place of death from heat stroke or thirst for another.

After Mr. Enciso planted the Cross in that grassy meadow, we embarked on a rather wild ride in the Samaritans' two SUVs up into the highlands, very close to the border. Mr. Enciso sought the last living place of another man, for whom he had brought a Cross. 

A man died in the saddle between those two peaks, in the search for a decent life. August 2019.

But this was not the day it would happen. See that saddle between the two mountains? There's a wide valley between there and the rise where we parked. Volunteer Samaritans would come another day and hike to the man's death ground.

Samaritans left water for women, men, or children who might pass through. A man died in the saddle between those two peaks, in the search for a decent life. August 2019.

The group left jugs of water in and under the shade of a tree, which looked across that valley. Maybe they will save a life. These jugs and barrels of water. They are an act of faith, or maybe more accurately, an act of hope in a lucky roll of metaphysical dice, that someone who needs water will see it and have still the strength to reach it. 


Below is a slide show with more photos from this trip with Mr. Enciso, plus the accumulation of photos from the water runs to the Sonoran Desert via Humane Borders and Samaritans.

Tucson, AZ: Samaritans: Topo Maps

Karr Canyon, New Mexico map. June 2013.

At a recent Samaritans meeting, professor emeritus Ed McCullough gave a brief lesson on how to read a topographic (topo) map.

Topo map, the Bumble Bee, Arizona. Source: USGS.

Topo maps and GPS are important in the humanitarian work the Samaritans do. Through direct encounters with migrants on the move; through the discovery of human remains; through indirect, visible evidence of apparent migrant activity; and through second-party reports, Samaritans collect location data and record it. Topo maps and GPS devices assist Samaritans in returning to prior water placements and in making decisions about where to test new water placements. ... and, oh yeah, to not get lost in the desert.

The Tucson Samaritans have an inventory of hard-copy topo maps for the areas they cover.

Tbilisi map. June 2012.

Samaritans use the topo maps in conjunction with their GPS devices, which the Samaritans customize to reflect historical location data related to their mission.

Dubai map. January 2012.

You can be sure vigilante militias do the same.

In poking around about topo maps, I found a 2015 article, Designing a Topo Map For Search and Rescue. It's illuminating to learn how the elimination of utility lines on an updated USGS topo map might affect search and rescue efforts of first responders.

As I learn more about the deadly theater that plays out in the desert, and the people on the front lines - migrant peoples, Border Patrol, humanitarians, vigilante militias, coyote guides, Tohono O'odham Nation peoples, other borderland residents - and what a crap shoot it is to save lives with water in the right place at the right time - I think: Surely there are people who know with a reasonable level of certainty the trajectory a group of migrant folks will follow, depending on its departure point from Mexico.

If a coyote is leading a group, at what point, and with the guidance of whom, is the decision made to follow a certain path?

Is it true that the Border Patrol might track a group into the US early on, but let the group exhaust itself after several days of travel in arduous conditions before picking it up, jeopardizing the lives of group members?

If a group leaves from a widely-known departure point in Mexico, a border village, say, doesn't it stand to reason there are only so many paths a group can take in the first 20 miles or so into the desert? And therefore, in theory, make some educated estimates possible about where a group might first start hurting for water?

And if a humanitarian group deduces or receives advance intel about a group's general trek path, at what moment does the humanitarian group's act of mercy in the form of water and food, based on the use of that intel, become a crime of aiding and abetting?

Could a humanitarian group use reverse 'engineering' to predict travel patterns of migrants, based on where Border Patrol picked up groups in the previous 30 days?

Do algorithms exist that suggest how a group of people tends to make decisions at way points about which direction to go?

I'm sure more will be revealed to me as I get more educated. Because I sure as heck know that people smarter and more experienced than I are literally in the trenches (or in the desert: the washes) doing life-saving work every day.

Video tutorials on topo maps

Below is a quick-and-easy, chill tutorial from REI. I like the unrushed pacing of the narrator's speech, the timbre of her voice, and her plainspoken accent, all of which contribute to a pleasant tutorial experience.

Below is a longer lesson. Although five times as long as REI's tutorial, Seth Horowitz' lesson is smooth as cake in the mix of his friendly, accessible voice; an approximation of interactivity with fill-in-the-gaps exercises; the multiple examples of each concept; and the simplicity of his terminology and his economy of speech. Mr. Horowitz is an earth science teacher at a middle school, and the graded language and content for this lesson works just fine for me!

Tucson, AZ: Samaritans Introduction

Border Patrol on watch in desert near El Paso, Texas. December 2016.

"[Our mission is to] hold our government accountable for policies that kill people."

Samaritans training

Every month, the Samaritans present training related to human migration from south to north.


The training occurs at the lovely Southside Presbyterian Church, which was the locale for the Melanie DeMore event sponsored by the Tucson Threshold Choir.

At the Samaritan training, a series of people speak about the Samaritans' work and its context within the history of borderland and migration issues.

Speakers included

1.     Margo Cowan, JD

• Public defense attorney for Pima County, Arizona (since 2004)
• Co-founder, No More Deaths
• General Counsel, Tohono O'odham Nation (1993-2003) 

2.    Guadalupe Castillo, Founding faculty emeritus, Pima County Community College

• 2001 YWCA Lifetime Achievement Award 
• Why We Need Mexican-American Studies: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 (2013)

3.   Dorothy Chao, RN

• Volunteer with Samaritans, Kino Border Initiative, and No More Deaths (Nogales comedor)

4.   Ed McCullough, professor emeritus, University of Arizona

• Mapping migrant trails to save lives

Near Antelope Wells, New Mexico. US-MX border. March 2013.

Some notes I took

Note: Any errors that may exist below are mine and not the mistakes of the presenters

Clamping down

• In the late 1990s is when the border clamped down. 
• The government started to prosecute people who gave rides across the border, when in the past, that had been a common practice, especially on and near the Tohono O'odham Nation: A Mexican national along the border might need a ride into Arizona, and when they finished conducting their business, they'd get a ride back home in Mexico. 
• It was during this time that people began to die because they had to walk through the desert.

Near Antelope Wells, New Mexico. US-MX border. March 2013.

In response to the rising death toll, humanitarian groups came to life along the border

• Humane Borders (founded 2000)
• Samaritans (founded 2002)
• No More Deaths (founded 2004)
• Colibri Center for Human Rights (founded 2013)

The dynamic of ensured group compliance

One of the speakers said (and I'm paraphrasing): "You might wonder why a group of people, when they outnumber the Border Patrol agents who've detained them, don't resist or run away. This is because the Border Patrol employs techniques to ensure group compliance."

From the document, Culture of Cruelty: Abuse and Impunity in Short-Term U.S. Border Patrol Custody, published in 2011 by No More Deaths, based on hundreds of interviews with formerly detained migrants: 

Verbal abuse was particularly common with 1,699 incidents being reported. It demeans and intimidates detainees and may compound  feelings  of  confusion,  helplessness  and  terror  for those in custody. Verbal abuse includes racial and sexist epithets, in addition to threats of sexual violence, used to subjugate and degrade detainees. Furthermore, verbal abuse may include violent threats made credible by public examples of physical abuse and assault. Verbal abuse appears to aid in creating an environment of intimidation, fear and compliance among detainees. Typical forms of verbal abuse included:
• Derogatory racial, ethnic, and sexual epithets
• Profanity
• Yelling  and  screaming  for  no  apparent  reason,  both  in  the field and in processing centers

[I added the highlighted emphasis.]

An example of a public assault by a BP agent in front of a group: Throwing someone into cactus.


When encountering people on the move

1. No, we cannot "aid and abet" with transport "in furtherance of illegal presence." 
2. No, we don't let someone use our phone, but we can get the number of the person's family so we can call the family when we return home, assuring them that we saw their family member alive
3. Yes, we can share water and food with people on the move. 

But what if we encounter someone who is very sick or injured?

• Let the person know where they are
• Give them the best information we have re: likelihood of making it to their destination in their condition so they can make an informed decision about our calling for medical rescue

Border Patrol has a permanent presence in every ER in Arizona. 

Some historical context that affect the borderlands

"American exceptionalism has replaced 'manifest destiny'"

Guadalupe Castillo

American exceptionalism is one or a combination of three ideas:

1. American history is substantively different from other countries' histories;
2. America's mission is to transform the world; and
3. America's history and mission makes it superior over other nations. 

Based on my limited research into this, it appears that our so-called exceptionalism presumes a starter yeast of White Protestant Christian and White Western European culture.

Ms. Castillo proposed that the strictures against migration are not just about color, but about class. "The borders are open if you are the 1% or the middle class."

History.com offers a succinct definition of manifest destiny: "... the United States was destined—by God, its advocates believed—to expand its dominion and spread democracy and capitalism across the entire North American continent."

Despite the bleakness of some of Ms. Castillo's history narrative, she ended with a powerful thought:

"These people who are in movement are the ones who are going to change the world."

Notice the absence of the word "the" before "movement." In other words, she refers to the people who are part of today's migration, not to an organized activist movement.


Counting deaths

The Border Patrol only counts the remains of those it finds, which is only about half the number that Pima County has had in its morgue.

The Border Patrol's accounting method reminds me of the controversy over the Vietnam War body counts.