CPTnet
July 8, 2003

ARIZONA LETTER: Borders are choices of the heart

[Note: Arizona/Sonora team member Elizabeth Garcia wrote the following to
the Brownsville Herald on June 26, 2004.]

Editor:

"Give me me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, the tempest-tost, to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

(Poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty)

Perhaps we should add at the beginning of the poem, "If you are not caught
by the Border Patrol."

I still don't understand why some people think having troops on our border
is a good idea, even more, that they are needed. At the present time, I am
working on the Arizona border, participating in a summer-long
violence-reduction project based near Douglas, Ariz., working in cooperation
with No More Deaths, an Arizona coalition to protect life on the U.S.-Mexico
border region and promote humane and sustainable immigration policies.

In just three weeks, since I started this project, I have witnessed what
people go through crossing the desert. Last year about 200 died in the
attempt to come to El Norte. Many say they deserve it, many say no one asked
them to cross, many say death is a fair punishment.

In some [of my] encounters with migrants in the desert, they said they don't
want to come to the States to stay, all they want is to work for a while,
save some money and go back home to start a business. Who are we to deprive
someone of wanting to have a better life, even if the only way to do that is
to travel to foreign lands?

Many forget that this is not your land, it is God's land, and that as
children of God we all deserve a chance to better our lives.

We need a change of heart; borders are not physical, they are what is inside
of us; borders are choices of the heart.

E. Elizabeth Garcia
Christian Peacemaker Team
Brownsville/Arizona BorderLands
Douglas, Arizona