These Immigrants Weren’t Pro-Mountain Climbers, They Died in Deserts and Trailers | Latin America & Caribbean |Axisoflogic.com

Recently while inspecting prototypes of his long-promised U.S.-Mexico border wall just south of San Diego, California, President Donald Trump warned that undocumented workers from Central America would find it easy to get over the top. Trying to explain why the barrier needed to be a trough obstacle to circumvent, he moreover compared immigrants to “professional mountain climbers,” adding that “They can’t climb some of these walls” but “Some of them they can” which is why we’re not using them.”

Instead of Mountains, Deadly Foreign Policies and Deserts
Yolanda would’ve disagreed with being likened to a mountain climber or labeled as an “illegal alien.”. She would’ve also questioned Donald Trump’s privileged by birth and status and a “us versus them mentality” that always discounts a shared humanness. In fact, she was one of 26 El Salvadoran refugees who was fleeing her country’s civil war on July 3, 1980, a civil war that was not only started by the United States but then funded and supported by American military personnel and military arms.

Desperately seeking her own independence, she had paid two “coyotes”-smugglers $1,200 each in hopes of a war-free life. Her dream, however, turned into a nightmare as the two coyotes grew unsure which way to go. During the next two days, she and others ran out of water in the 110-degree air and superheated ground. Like the others, she too drank perfume and then her own urine. Tormented by the sun and huddled under the spindly desert brush, she lay alongside some who were near death or had already died.

By the time a low-flying plane spotted the group in the “Camino del Diablo”-the Highway of the Devil, 13 lived and 13 died. Seeking moisture, Yolanda had stuffed a small cactus into her mouth. Three other women lying nearby weren’t as fortunate. On the rocky, sun baked ridge and in the stingy shade of a few scraggly trees, she heard their cries begging to die. Too weak from the overwhelming heat and dehydration, she couldn’t do anything, not even for the young child who also died in his mother’s arms.(1)

Instead of Mountains, Deadly Human Trafficking
Jose wasn’t a mountain climber either, and he too would disagree with such stereotypical images and discriminatory language. He would also challenge the president’s expressions of negativity and hostility directed at the “out-groups” of humanity.” Indeed, he’ll never forget the scratching and pounding on the walls and door, or the cries and screams that turned into soft deadly moans. He was a survivor of the many immigrant tractor-trailer death traps that not only smuggle human cargo but have, over the years, killed hundreds.

Fleeing a region known for its civil strife and generational violence, sometimes due to the rapacious nature of international corporations, he was one of at least 100 immigrants that were smuggled across the border in a locked and sweltering, overheated tractor-trailer. Only when a Walmart employee stumbled on the horrific tragedy was he set free from his ordeal. Even then, he still has to endure his own internal injuries, including the faces of those who slowly baked to death in the Texas heat.(2)

And then there’s others like Jorge Garcia. He was forced to climb a different mountain, one filled with fear, government bureaucracy, and a new regime. After being brought to the U.S. at age ten, where he lived and worked and paid taxes as a landscaper, the 39 year-old father was just deported on MLK Day. As the impasse delays over the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals continues to fail others, he boarded a plane in Detroit to be deported to Mexico while his wife, young son, and daughter stood by and sobbed.(3)

Hidden “Mountains” of Biases and How Not to Lose Our Humanness
Science has started to explain why some are more cruel and insensitive than others. The brain, it turns out, engages two different clusters of neurons in thinking about other people. The medial pre-frontal cortex fires for some, making them rational, understanding and compassionate. The dorsal region fires for others, making them more fearful, overly competitive and territorial, and discriminatory. The possibility of realizing how selective neural activation influences our decisions towards others remains to be seen.

Until then, “us” and “them” identities, specifically in regards to refugees and undocumented immigrants, will more than likely be forged on the flimsiest of criteria. They will also be applied without proper information or a knowledge of the past, a past in which the U.S. has been complicit of crimes and that still haunts many refugees and immigrants as they flee. To be sure, immigration reform has to include a history of U.S. military interventions and the ongoing international exploitation of Central America.

Though hidden biases are everywhere, it’s important to regard the humanness of others, because if we don’t, we become less human in the process. In becoming less human in the process, we can sadly compare those who may not be born in privileged and status to “mountain climbers” when, in fact, they were fleeing circumstances beyond their control. There’s no excuse for women, children and men to die in deserts or trailers or unmarked graves because they’re fleeing civil strife or seeking a better life.

Rewriting History and Biology
Some finally claim a wall running the entire 2,000-mile frontier from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico is not only an attempt to rewrite a shared history of many peoples, including indigenous, but of biology. Consequently, conservationists warn a wall would be catastrophic for borderland ecosystems and migratory wildlife. Economists, meanwhile, warn of a different catastrophe. They question too which construction companies will be awarded the multi-billion dollar contracts, and if any will have ties to the president.

In the end, Edmund Hillary may be right that the real mountains we conquer our ourselves-including our leaders and their misguided foreign policies.

Dallas Darling is the author of Politics 501: An A-Z Reading on Conscientious Political Thought and Action, Some Nations Above God: 52 Weekly Reflections On Modern-Day Imperialism, Militarism, And Consumerism in the Context of John’s Apocalyptic Vision, and The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace. He is a correspondent for www.WN.com. You can read more of Dallas’ writings at www.beverlydarling.com and www.WN.com//dallasdarling.

(1) Farabee, Charles R., Jr. Death, Daring and Disaster: Sea and Rescue in the National Parks. Boulder, Colorado: Roberts Rhinehart Publishers, 1998., p. 348-49.
(2) www.mysanantonio.com. “San Antonio Death Toll in ‘Horrific’ Human Trafficking Reaches 10, by Guillermo Contreras and Emilie Eaton. Monday July, 24, 1917.
(3) www.washingtonpost.com. “A Michigan Father, Too Old for DACA, Is Deported After Three Decades in the U.S.,” by Derek Hawkins. January 16, 2018.