Ricardo Ramirez stands on top of a small hill in the heart of the Sonoran Desert. It’s cold out. It’s 7 a.m. He is surveying the land for immigrant routes.
When he finds what looks to be a convergence of a few different trails, he and two other volunteers open their backpacks and extract gallons of water and cans of refried beans. Before hiding the items under a plastic crate to protect them from animals, Ramirez pulls a marker out of his pocket and writes “NMD 11/23/14 buena suerte” on the jugs.
Members of the nonprofit group No More Deaths have regularly traveled to the Sonoran Desert National Monument since 2004 to leave humanitarian aid along the trails that immigrants take into the United States from Mexico. With the inhospitable nature of the desert, it’s common for the group to run into evidence that gives them their name.
As of October, the group has found over 80 human remains this year.
It’s numbers like these that push volunteers into the vast desert surrounding the border, leaving water jugs for Immigrants passing through from Mexico.
No More Deaths started 10 years ago in Tucson and has since expanded to Phoenix. The group meets twice a month at Central United Methodist Church near Central Avenue and McDowell Road.
“For me, No More Deaths was just kind of a way to get more involved with a bigger organization because everything I was doing beforehand was out of my own pocket,” water drop coordinator Ricardo Ramirez said.
Ramirez said he would travel to Mexican border towns before joining No More Deaths to help replenish first-aid supplies and give out “survival kits” that included water pellets, socks and rope for those preparing to cross. He said he wanted to help give migrants skills that would help them survive long enough to receive help if they were to become separated from their groups in the desert.
Ramirez said the team that goes out usually consists of a Spanish speaker, a medic and someone who is familiar with the trails. The group has four established locations where they drop water, but they also leave water in areas that appear to have heavier migrant activity.
No More Deaths advocates “faith-based principles,” according to its website. But Ramirez said the ideals of charity and goodwill they promote are not exclusive to a particular faith. Members of the group are from a variety of religious backgrounds.
“We all come together for the same purpose which is to help, regardless of who (we’re helping),” Ramirez said. “When we’re out there and we see border patrol, we’ll offer them water.”
But border patrol agents aren’t always as kind. Ramirez said they will often slash open the water jugs, rendering them useless and taunting for immigrants trying to survive.
“We actually had to move our drops farther away to areas where you have to hike to it,” Ramirez said. “It’s always like a cat-and-mouse game.”
Gene Lefebvre, one of the founders of No More Deaths, said officers slash about 10 percent of the jugs they drop. He said the agents have been directed by their leaders to not touch humanitarian supplies, though some still do.
“We’ve conducted thousands of interviews (with immigrants who have been deported) and we’ve found out that many border patrol agents have been very harsh with migrants,” he said.
In an email statement from the Tucson Sector Border Patrol, Public Information Officer Mark Landess said the Chief of the Tucson Sector officially directed agents in 2012 to leave water stations alone.
“The Tucson Sector has always maintained an open dialogue with the various faith-based and humanitarian organizations in southern Arizona,” Landess wrote. “While our ideologies differ in terms of enforcement, we share the view that crossing the border illegally should not be a death sentence.”
Lefebvre said one of the most poignant experiences he has had was bringing water to a woman who was hiding in bushes in the desert with her two children. She told the volunteers that she had been praying for angels to help her and that she was grateful to see three angels in front of her.
“When we do this work, we found out that the angels are the migrants,” he said. “Often they want to make sure we have water before they take anything from us.”
Ramirez said migrants tie sections of carpet to the soles of their feet to hide their tracks. The average journey through the desert takes about eight to ten days, but he said the coyotes — the people who smuggle immigrants across the border — often tell their clients it only takes a couple of days.
He said the coyotes sometimes force migrants to carry drugs into the U.S. if they are going to get help from them because “narcos,” or dangerous drug dealers, control much of the area around the border.
“There’s some parts of the border where you can’t move without the narcos giving you permission,” he said.
Mexican government officials don’t go near the border without narco permission either, he said.
Some of the most impactful memories for Ramirez have also been the saddest. He said he once spoke extensively with a 14-year-old girl as she prepared to cross the border alone.
“I just sat down with that girl and I showed her how to use everything that I had … that’s all you can do,” Ramirez said.
Lefebvre said the hardest parts of the job are finding people who have died and listening to the pleas for help from migrants to find members of their group who died along the way.
“We can rarely do that,” he said.
Laura Ilardo, a volunteer with No More Deaths since the group’s inception, has taken the advocacy aspects of the group into her own hands. She started another volunteer group this year called Keep Phoenix Together that provides free legal aid to immigrants.
“It’s us helping them defend themselves,” she said.
Ilardo said she helps clients apply for prosecutorial discretion, which could prevent them from being deported. Her group holds clinics twice a month at the First Congregational UCC in Phoenix.
One of the most memorable experiences Ilardo said she had with No More Deaths was helping a father look for the remains of his daughter and finding them after four weeks.
“It was incredible witnessing a father’s hope and determination,” she said. “It was just a real coming together of the entire community to work with him to bring some closure to him and his family.”
She said her time volunteering with No More Deaths inspired her to keep working, specifically with deportations. She said it’s important to make sure migrants aren’t afraid after all the work they do to get here.
“Knowing what these people have gone through to get to this country,” she said. “It’s just a travesty that they’re even treated this way.”
Contact the reporter at sajarvis@asu.edu
