On an eight-mile hike in southern Arizona March 2, eight students from Bellarmine University had a brief look into the journey of migrants who cross the U.S.-Mexico border on foot.
They were hiking in the Sonoran Desert — an area where hundreds of migrants die each year. Their hike took them into Walker Canyon on a trail where two migrants had died.
“It was just a couple of years ago,” said Dr. Frank Hutchins, an anthropology professor at Bellarmine. The migrants “got disoriented and both of them died,” he recounted during a discussion after the trip.
The eight Bellarmine University students spent their spring break — March 1 to 8 — on a trip to the southern border with Hutchins through his “Migrant’s Journey” anthropology class.
The students made the trip to gain insight into “who is arriving at the border and why, and what the circumstances are that can lead to suffering and death in the desert,” said Hutchins, who facilitated the trip. This was the sixth time he has taken a group to the border, he said.
‘We can read about this stuff in the news and it might pull on your heart strings, but it’s a very different experience being out in the desert knowing that a human being was here and there was a story behind what they left behind, where they were going.’
— Clare Kramer, Bellarmine student
Clare Kramer, a junior at Bellarmine, said in an interview on May 12 that the trip increased her sympathy for migrants.
“We can read about this stuff in the news and it might pull on your heart strings, but it’s a very different experience being out in the desert knowing that a human being was here and there was a story behind what they left behind, where they were going,” she said.
During their hikes, the group found items left by migrants, such as blankets, backpacks and clothing, said Hutchins.
One notable item they found was makeshift “shoes” which are worn “so that your footprints don’t show up in the desert or in the sand,” he said. The shoes, sold at the border, are composed of “a piece of carpeting” and “camouflage cloth over it where you can tie it around your foot,” said Hutchins.
“All of these things that we find tell us something. Usually, it’s a story about people on the move trying to evade detection; sometimes it’s a story of desperation,” he said.
Tiffany Couch said the trip made the migrants’ journey seem more real.
“We were hiking through the desert on trails that migrants likely used. We saw the water jugs and we saw clothes and blankets and the medicine left behind — and just seeing everything kind of scattered out there, makes it way more real and like in a way that you can’t get in a classroom,” she said.
The group spent one day of their trip planting crosses at sites where bodies of migrants had been found. The students were accompanied by the artist Alvaro Enciso, who produces the crosses.
To locate the sites, students used a “Map of Migrant Mortality” produced by the non-profit organization “Humane Borders.” The map documents each migrant found in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona with a red dot, Hutchins explained.
“When you click on a single red dot, it brings up known information about a specific body, including a name — if the body has been identified,” he said.
The students also learned about the migrants, whose lives were memorialized by the crosses.
“The first cross we planted was a young woman who died just in January,” said Hutchins. “She had been out there for about seven days wandering, apparently disoriented. It had gotten down to subfreezing temperatures every night,” he said.
Planting the crosses was a way to assert the dignity and humanity of the deceased migrant, Kramer said.
“They’ve often died alone and under really difficult circumstances,” lacking the dignity that should be provided to the dying, said Kramer. “I think planting a cross, marking graves, is such a human thing. It’s something pretty much every culture does for their dead.”
The group also found small human bones at two different sites where crosses had already been planted. The group took them to Pima County’s medical examiner’s office, said Hutchins.
“Most migrant remains found in the Sonoran Desert” arrive at that office, he said. The medical examiners identify the remains of unidentified people, aiming to “put the pieces back together of that body and that life and to let the family know.”
The medical examiner was able to confirm the identification of the bones from one site “to the person who died there and who was recognized by the cross,” and reunite them to the collected remains, he added.
The group spent another day volunteering with Humane Borders, checking on 55-gallon water barrels in the desert, said Hutchins. In addition to mapping migrant deaths, the organization operates water stations along routes used by migrants in an effort to prevent deaths caused by dehydration, he said.
The students tested the water and refilled the blue barrels with the help of a volunteer from the organization.
Kramer noted that a volunteer told the group that the barrels are regularly “sabotaged” by people who want to take away that access to water. Vandals shoot holes in the barrels, tear off the spigots or pour toxic substances into the water, Hutchins added.
“It really made me think of how much you would have to dehumanize a person in order to want to deprive them of water — something that is meant to give you life,” Kramer added.
Humane Borders places stickers of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the barrels, Kramer noted.
Hutchins explained the image of Our Lady is there “to engender trust — to let the person, who may not be able to read, know that this is there for them.”
The stickers were striking, said Kramer, who is Catholic.
“As people of faith, we are called to help people who are in more vulnerable situations,” she said, noting that some of the volunteers indicated they served at the border because of their faith.
“They shared this deep commitment to people’s humanity,” said Kramer. “A lot of the people that we worked with and spoke to on the border were affiliated with some kind of religious organization. … I’d like that to be a motivator for my work going forward.
“Coming back from this trip, I would like to become more active in the kind of work that is serving people in these kinds of situations,” she added.
