Yesterday, No More Deaths released video captured from a hidden camera showing a U.S. Border Patrol agent removing blankets from a migrant trails near Arivaca. Here’s the 411 from their press release:
Tucson, AZ- A hidden camera video released by Tucson-based humanitarian organization No More Deaths shows an agent of the U.S. Border Patrol removing clean blankets and food intended for migrants in distress. The January 8 video captures a Border Patrol agent on a desert trail near the town of Arivaca, Arizona, about 12 miles north of the international border. The agent stops, opens a plastic bag surrounding dry blankets and canned food, inspects the contents, and then leaves, removing the life-saving provisions. Between January 9 and 15 temperatures in southern Arizona dropped to historic lows, and the blankets and food are provided by humanitarian organizations to prevent death and illness due to these extreme temperatures. …Says No More Deaths Medical Advisor, Dr. Norma Price: “We know that hypothermia can be equally dangerous as dying from heat stroke in the summer. This month has been one of the most severe that Arizona has ever had. There is no question, people are crossing in the desert and their lives could be saved if they were given blankets and warm clothing.” During Fiscal Year 2012 the remains of 178 people were recovered from the southern Arizona desert.
In May 2012 another hidden camera video caught Border Patrol agents vandalizing caches of life-saving water. Video of this incident aired on July 20, 2012 on PBS’ Need to Know program, as part of a series highlighting abuses committed by agents against migrants in their custody (the May 2012 can be seen at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za_Tmt9rSGI). In response to this incident, then-Sector Chief Rick Barlow sent a memo to all agents instructing them to respect humanitarian workers and provisions. Despite this memo, volunteers have seen consistent and widespread vandalism and removal of life-saving water, food and blankets (photos of recent vandalism, from January 15, 2013, can be seen at: http://stevepaige.zenfolio.com/p600885186).
In an effort to prevent the cruel deaths and suffering commonplace in the U.S./Mexico borderlands, No More Deaths and other humanitarian aid organizations provide food, water and emergency medical aid to individuals in distress. It is shocking to see Border Patrol agents sabotaging these efforts, instead of helping to respond to the humanitarian catastrophe that U.S. border enforcement strategy has itself unleashed.
This article appears in Jan 17-23, 2013.
It is illegal to leave trash on public land.
I am sure this is not in his job description.
Aiding and abetting invaders is a federal felony. There are also state laws that prohibit littering. Somebody needs to go arrest every last one of those “No More Deaths” seditionist pricks.
I have always believe the Border Patrol should dump all water and take food and blankets to a shelter for U.S. citizens and arrest the no more death nut cases. I think maybe I will start a group called no more illegals and we can go hunt them in the wilds of southern Arizona.
…why don’t you self-proclaimed do-gooders just stand down @ the border and pass this stuff out. These illegals think that these are “traps” to catch them. They don’t use that stuff because of that fact. The Border Patrol Agents are just trying to keep our once beautiful landscape from looking like it does south of the border. …sorry those are the facts.
The Late Great United States
yea keep incourageing them, lets give em drivers lisence, and welfare applications also!
Patrick McDevitt,
In this day and age of search engines and mass availability of what once was private personal information, you should not post your name and photo on a site while simultaneously espousing potential illegal threats towards people on US soil. Saying “we can go hunt them in the wilds of southern Arizona” in reference to either immigrants or aid workers is reprehensible. If I were associated with No More Deaths, the group you specifically referenced, I would make sure that this was reported and documented.
The irony is that you list the anarchist cookbook as one of your favorite books and you have numerous references to marijuana on your facebook account. It appears as if you are an anti-government, pot smoking, immigrant hater, and good Samaritan hater all wrapped up into one!
God Help America….
Big surprise, here, folks!
Most Border Patrol agents I frequently meet here in Rio Rico would be totally disgusted by what that jerk did.
Which was an ugly, vulgar, and definitely unprofessional behavior by an alleged law enforcement officer.
If they had the chance, they’d kick that creep in the ass and demand that he be dismissed, forever, from the US Border Patrol.
It’s important to do everything possible to keep illegal aliens out of the country, and get the ones who are squatting here now out.
There’s no way to know just how many American jobs that border agent saved by doing what he did. Everyone should thank him.
In no way do I promote illegal immigration, but I do believe in humanitarianism. Do yourself a favor…try walking that 50mile path yourself. Border Patrol: please worry more about guns, drugs and human trafficers. The Cartels, Coyotes and our own Government are to blame for the violence. Those found emaciated, moments from the death in the desert are not to blame. They trusted someone w/no concsience to bring them to their imagined Eutopia. There is an outstanding PBS documentary on No More Deaths. Check it out online. Perhaps you shall be enlightened.
Patrick,
You are one sick puppy. You’re the type of person that shouldn’t be allowed to own or purchase a firearm.
Thank you, Old Man, for calling out Patrick as “one sick puppy.”
Meanwhile I wish there were some way Patrick could visit a soup kitchen operated by Jesuits just across the border in Nogales, Sonora.
It’s a kitchen that serves hot meals to repatriated migrants that have been snagged by the US Border Patrol.
Were Patrick to visit, he might change his desire to “hunt them down” after he sees that at least one-fourth of those repatriated migrants are women and children.