Blog Post – Borders and Beyond – Ray Ybarra Maldonado

Blog Post – Borders and Beyond – Ray Ybarra Maldonado

Photo:  Nogales Border Wall – November, 2018 (Peg Hunter Photographer)

NOGALES BORDER WALL – Part 2

Ray Ybarra Maldonado – Attorney serving migrants and Spanish speaking communities

(from talk given January 19, 2019)

 

About 4 weeks ago I attended a Border Issues event in Sahuarita, AZ.  Today, as I see articles about fake national emergencies and the massive application of concertina wire on the border wall in Nogales, AZ, I have found myself thinking quite a bit about some of the things the speakers had to say at that event.

Attorney Ray Ybarra Maldonado

“When you grow up in a militarized zone it sends a signal to you that those on the other side are inferior and something to be afraid of. And they’re dangerous. And when you see your own skin looking like the people on the other side of that fence, you can internalize that you’re also inferior, that you’re also not wanted, that you’re also not loved, that you’re also not special.”  

Ray Ybarra Maldonado was born in the border town of Douglas, AZ. His mother was born just south of the border.  As a child he and his brothers would visit their grandparents who lived 2 blocks north of the border. The border itself was their playground, with a “chain link fence with holes all over the place”.  His older brothers would run into Mexico and see who could get the farthest until “border patrol would come in and say ‘hey, go back to grandma’s house.’ ”

Speaking about his work as an Immigration Attorney –  I like to go with the bigger picture…” and here Ray Ybarra Maldonado quotes Stokely Carmichael:

I maintain that every civil rights bill in this country was passed for white people, not for black people.  For example, I am black. I know that. I also know that while I am black, I am a human being, therefore I have a right to go into any public place.  White people didn’t know that. Everytime I tried to go into a public place they stopped me. So some boys had to write a bill to tell the white man, “He’s a human being, don’t stop him.”  That bill is for the white man, not for me.

“Immigrants rights?  I see it the exact same way.  I’ve been doing this for a long time.  I’ve been thru Guatemala, thru Mexico, from Brownsville to San Diego and in between.  I’ve talked to thousands of migrants. Not one of them doesn’t know that they have the right to make a better life for themselves and their children.  Not one of them doesn’t understand that they have an inherent human right to make a better life. To work. To migrate… human mobility. They understand that.  What we need to do is pass a law so that everybody else can understand that. …what it means to live in the 21st century in a connected community. […] We don’t need to be talking about building walls, we need to be talking about making the table bigger.”

Blog Post – Borders & Beyond – Sheriff Tony Estrada

Blog Post – Borders & Beyond – Sheriff Tony Estrada

Photo:  Nogales Border Wall – November, 2017 (Peg Hunter Photographer)

NOGALES BORDER WALL – Part 1

Sheriff Tony Estrada – Nogales and Santa Cruz County, Arizona

(from talk given January 19, 2019)

 

About 4 weeks ago I attended a Border Issues event in Sahuarita, AZ.  Today, as I see articles about fake national emergencies and the massive application of concertina wire on the border wall in Nogales, AZ, I have found myself thinking quite a bit about some of the things the speakers had to say at that event.

Sheriff Tony Estrada – Mexican born sheriff of 26 years in Nogales and Santa Cruz County, Arizona.  He has worked in law enforcement along the border for the past 51 years. (Santa Cruz County includes the Nogales border wall, the US city of Nogales and a large area stretching north from Nogales towards Tucson)

He talks about the build up of border security and infrastructure in 1995 when there was a sudden influx of people heading north after the passing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)  “When they [the government] first started doing things in the urban areas, the Ports of Entry, especially downtown, the Federal Government did not take into consideration the relationships that we had with our friendly neighbors in Nogales, Sonora, in Mexico…”

“You would see families on both sides of the fence talking to each other, holding hands.  One time I was down there they had a mariachi group.”

“In all of the 51 years, and the years that I have lived along the border, I have seen that border community evolve and the dynamics change a lot.  From when I was growing up you could go across the line and come back without any problem. Go to church for holidays. Like the Cinco de Mayo… they would put a platform on the border and [there would be] a queen from Nogales, Sonora and a queen from Nogales, Arizona.  People would come back and forth across… That is something that I don’t think we will ever see again. And that’s something that we miss terribly along the border wall… our friends out there.”

“…the Federal Government did not take into consideration the relationships that we had with our friendly neighbors in Nogales, Sonora, in Mexico…”

Asked whether he could see anything positive being achieved by additional border walls, “No, I don’t believe in walls. I do believe that there are certain areas that they would be beneficial.  I believe that the wall is an option and I’ve said this before, …. it’s not a panacea, it’s not going to solve the problem.  You’re going to throw money at it […] and I say you know what? We have pockets of poverty in this country. We’ve got children who go to bed hungry.  We have families that are living in their cars. […] We have people who can’t get medication or healthcare and we’re thinking about throwing billions of dollars at a wall that’s not going to make a difference.  People will find a way…” (referring to finding a way to cross over)  

“You know, I have a lot of empathy and compassion because where I come from, I didn’t have much myself, but like I tell people, I had a roof over my head, you know, and I had food on the table… beans, tortillas maybe, whatever, but I had food.  Some of these people who are coming across have absolutely nothing but the clothes on their back. So they must be very, very desperate. Very, very desperate for something better. And when you think about people coming thousands and thousands of miles at great expense and at great danger and you say to yourself there’s got to be a special quality in the people that will take that challenge and take that trip. How courageous and committed and desperate might they be.”

_____

About drugs and violence in the border region?

He talks about the Nogales Ports of Entry. “We have a major corridor”. “We have people coming across. We have drugs coming across. The majority of the drugs coming across right now, the hard drugs, are coming thru the ports of entry.” “About 2000 tractor trailers cross that Port of Entry every day.” “About 20-30,000 people cross that border every day.” (at the Ports of Entry) “So, as a result of that, there’s an opportunity for people to bring drugs across the border, and we see that a lot.”

As for violence, “I can tell you that Nogales and Santa Cruz County are very safe border communities. […] With the exception of last year, April of last year and December, there were 4 homicides, which is unprecedented. Prior to that, the county of Santa Cruz hadn’t had a homicide since November of 2011.”

— Photo: Nogales Border Wall – 2017.  

We have pockets of poverty in this country. We’ve got children who go to bed hungry.  We have families that are living in their cars. […] We have people who can’t get medication or healthcare and we’re thinking about throwing billions of dollars at a wall that’s not going to make a difference.”