On June 21, Border Patrol agents flying over the Southern Arizona desert spotted two bodies and three small bundles lying on the ground near Quijotoa, west of Tucson.
The agents called Tohono O’odham police, who went to the remote spot a couple miles off state Route 86 and found two dead men and three bundles of marijuana. The bloated, decomposing bodies were collected and presumably transferred to the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office, where they will await unlikely identification and return to their families. Three days later the Border Patrol then sent out a news release warning of the dangers of crossing the desert. The news release included pictures of the blackened, swollen corpses found near Quijotoa, pictures you are unlikely to see anywhere else and ones I doubt my esteemed editors at the Tucson Weekly will run.
But the pictures tell the story, so I hope you get to see them. They’re pretty disturbing. [Editor’s note: We’re running the photos online.]
Back in 2008, two Border Patrol agents were about to end their shift, when they got a late-night call about a large group of apparent drug smugglers in the west desert. The agents responded, meeting a horse patrol agent who had found the smugglers. The mules dropped their loads and scattered, but four men were captured.
The agents then took the men’s shoes and jackets, so they couldn’t flee. This part is standard procedure for handling smugglers caught in the desert. It’s dangerous for these agents, and I understand taking measures to keep criminals under control. But this time after the shoes came off, things got a little bit too frat house. The agents went into a hazing fit and made the smugglers kneel and chew small mouthfuls of the pot they were carrying. They angrily berated them. Someone threw the smuggler’s shoes and jackets and personal backpacks into a fire.
Then the agents ordered the men to flee into the desert, shoeless and with no jackets on a 50 degree night. The next morning, they were picked up by Tohono O’odham police and processed like any of the other immigrants caught that week crossing the border. The men were never charged with a drug crime.
On Monday, two of the border agents at the scene that night in 2008 will be sentenced in federal court for the crimes. Dario Castillo, 25, faces 10 years for each of four felony convictions. Ramon Zuniga, 31, faces one year for each of four misdemeanor charges. Both face an uphill climb to rebuild broken lives after the civil rights convictions. It’s sad.
Both of these tragedies suck. They’re tragedies in the true sense, because these dead smugglers and fallen agents each met his end via his own human frailty. None of them were bad people, but each was thrust into a bad situation that led him to make bad decisions. I’m not making excuses for them; I’m recognizing their humanity.
The drug smugglers knew they were breaking the law, but they didn’t deserve to die for it. Dario Castillo and Ramon Zuniga knew what they were doing the night they abused four smugglers, but I’m not so sure they deserve lives in ruin. Our drug policies are leaving a swath of grief on both sides of the border and on both sides of the law. Good people don’t always make good choices, especially in bad situations.
Maybe it’s time to change the situation.
This article appears in Jun 27 – Jul 3, 2013.
PBS Independent Lens had an eye-opening documentary about the number of bodies found each year in the AZ desert–typically over 100 a year. They interviewed (among others) the Pima County Coroner who has the grizzly job of doing autopsies on many of the remains. They also interviewed family members of the dead and those whose bodies never show up. Some families whose loved ones simply disappear while crossing the border live for years in a kind of limbo state-never knowing where or what has happened to them. (One of my 5 year old students, lost his mother at the border several years ago. She disappeared and has never been found.) Families are broken. Our border/immigration policy is truly a barbaric way of dealing with human beings.
And, wha’t everyone’s solution? Let every person who want to enter illegally do so? Why not pick all of them up at the border and provide transportation to the US? MEXICO IS the problem, not the US. They have everything to become a great country, but choose not to be one. WE currently have 10% of Mexico’s population living in the US, why no just annex it and make it another state?
Definitely. I suggest starting to enforce the law in the workplace as we mostly do in Arizona with our E-Verify law. Remove the job magnet and these deaths will stop happening.
When the lure of work at better wages and conditions is stronger than that of your own country is removed, maybe some of the crossers will stay home. The real problem is complicated and probably has no real fix.
Like many problems this has many facets. One is our drug laws that provide the money lure for smugglers. The balck market created produces far more problems than the drugs themselves. Legalizing drugs here would eliminate some of the crossings and almost all of the violence. It would also help reduce the horrific violence within Mexico that drives many to find a better life for their family. We also have to realise that Mexico is not poor, just the majority of the population is, if we had been encouraging unions in Mexico then the standards of living there would be such that there wouldn’t be the glaring poverty that motivates them to come north. US companies pay factory workers 8.50$ in AZ but .85$ across the border, I worked for a company that had factories in the US and a couple of miles south of Douglas. On the other hand, many here would rather spend 50-60 Billion a year (of your money) to keep it the way it is. The situation as it stands is not an accident in my opinion and I doubt we will see a change anytime soon.
Live and let live
Promote international tourism
Changing laws really only help lawyers
(on another note Congrats to Senator Davis)
It’s amazing how much traction this issue gets without any mention of NAFTA and GATT.
“But the pictures tell the story, so I hope you get to see them. They’re pretty disturbing. [Editor’s note: We’re running the photos online.]”
My morbid curiosity always gets the best of me, so I clicked the “ONLINE EDITION” link above this article and the most recent edition that was available was dated April 11th. I also clicked on the ISSUES link and I didn’t have any luck with viewing this article there either.
Please tell me where I have failed. Thanks in advance. DC
Hey DC, nothing on your part. Simple miscommunication means that the photos of dead people are online now, as opposed to when the article went live. My apologies.
Thank you David Mendez! DC