Journey For Justice Dec 15th, Day 15 Ajo to Yuma

When we arrive in Yuma we are horrified to hear that there are some 600 refugees waiting in the dark and cold on the border of Yuma, being detained there by border patrol who have to take them to be processed. And the border patrol arbitrarily decides when, how many, how quickly/slowly, and how often they will do this. In other words, on their own sweet time schedule.

We've left the Rio Grande a few states back, but here on the border is the Colorado River.

This means in addition to being exhausted, probably dehydrated and injured, people - womyn, children, men - are probably wet as well.

And neither did we leave the freakin cold a few states back.

We get in gear, go shopping, jump into an assembly line to make 100 wraps & 200 peanut butter & jelly sandwiches.

We learn that we cannot also provide them with anything but food, snacks & water - all else is confiscated by border patrol along with their shoe laces...

Journey For Justice Dec 15th, Day 15: Quitobaquito

We drive the 45 miles or such from Ajo thru the Organ Pipe Cactus National park to end up at the Quitobaquito Oasis.

This land is the homeland of the O'odham people since ancient times and now reeling from the devastation that the construction of our 'wall' has perpetrated upon their piece of paradise.

There were massive protests beginning around 2016 as the wall advanced and threatened this sacred land.

Even though the O'odham Nation is a federally recognized tribe, they were stripped of any little sovereignty or autonomy they might have had when this wall was barreling thru their land.

Lorraine, our guide, described how her people began noticing the Oasis water receding so quickly & severely, a huge lump of mud appeared to take over most of the center. They found out that every 5 miles, the 'wall' construction crew were drilling wells and sucking up water, causing the Oasis to almost dry up.

The parks with financial support from an anonymous donor swiftly built holding tanks on the banks of the Oasis in order to move as many pup fish & mud turtles they could find, to save them, at the very least, from extinction. They were able to move into holding tanks some of the native grasses & plants that grew along the outer banks of the oasis.

All of the cottonwood trees that also grew naturally along the far edges of the Oasis rapidly died. There's one cottonwood skeleton left today that might have a little life remaining in her - although doubtful but this spring will tell.

The 'solution' someone came up was not to cease building the 'wall' and ending the drilling of wells. But it was to put cover the entire bottom of the Oasis ith a rubber liner in an attempt to keep the water from draining out.

Out where you might ask? Well how about into the multitude of wells dug every 5 miles that are still sucking water into giant trucks so they can wet down the roads several times a day along the 'wall' so border patrol vehicles won't get so dusty plus footprints of fleeing humans can be seen & tracked down - if anyone has so tricked the 'wall', barbed wire, drones, helicopters, blimps let alone heat & vibration recording technology...

So now you'll see in the pics of an oasis with a fake bottom lining & hardened edges surrounding the water instead of shores of lush vegetation & flowering medicinal plants.

Another consequence of our fabulous 'wall' - this oasis used to be fed by 7 springs. Now there is one and only one.

Journey For Justice Dec 15th, Day 15: The only thing "illegal" is the wall

This morning we drive 40 miles south of Ajo to the Organ Pipe Cactus Park where over 23 environmental laws were broken in order to construct this 'wall' that devastates much of the Park as well as the stark, incredibly beautiful mountain range that few humans, if any, can traverse and so many animals, birds, plants, cactus need free access to roam & survive.

We go to the sacred ancient Quitobaquito where the O'odham people lived around an oasis in this high desert for thousands of years - bit worse, for times that the elder womon remembers.

Heartbreaking to know that in order to build this 'wall', not just dynamite, leveling huge swaths thru the land to accommodate 10, 20, 30 tractor trailers hauling hug steel beams daily, drones adding to the shattered silence of the desert, but they had to drill deep into the earth every fuckin 5 miles to get water for the roads, for construction.

So this oasis started loosing so much water it filled with mud.

This First Nation of the O'odham people fought hard to stop the construction but lost.

The only thing illegal here is this fuckin wall.

Journey For Justice Dec 15th, Day 15: Ajo 600 more

If this 'wall' is sooooo great & soooooo fuckin necessary, then why are there so many forms of high tech monitoring being utilized at several billion more dollars, let alone hundreds if not thousands of fuckin border patrol - starting salary $80,000 to $100,000 thousand - hanging out in trucks ready to hunt down humans?

This billion dollar wall south of Ajo is apparently sooooo ineffectual 600 more border patrol were recently hired in a part of the country where few folks even attempt to cross and even fewer are successful in getting across...