Delegation Finds Militarization Causes Suffering, Separation, Death at Mexico Border Lisa Sullivan - OpEdNews.com
go to original June 13, 2013

U.S. militarization of the Mexico border has claimed 5,000 lives since the late 1990s. The U.S. government spent more than $18 billion last year on predator drones, bombardier aircraft, black hawk helicopters, sophisticated surveillance systems, 22,000 armed border guards and 651 miles of steel wall at the border. This has pushed migrants - often fleeing the dire consequences of US economic policy - to take the only remaining passage north: the deadly Sonora desert.

Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill that the Senate will debate this week only exacerbates this deadly situation, mandating billions of dollars to exponentially increase border militarization before putting anyone on the path to citizenship.

I read the statistics before joining 16 School of the Americas Watch (SOAW) activists on our first trip to the U.S.-Mexico border - before I followed Steve into the Sonora desert to drop off water jugs on migrant trails, before I watched Olga call her  coyote to make sure he'd delivered her son safely, before I conversed with Pedro and tried not to stare at his missing leg - severed by The Beast, the deadly train that migrants hop to travel through Mexico. Before I stood at the wall with Jose Antonio's mother and wondered why the Border Patrol pumped so many bullets into his young body as he walked along a street in his own city, on the Mexican side.

After this experience, I came to see the urgency of engaging the SOA Watch movement to resist the militarization of our border and its deadly consequences.

Read the rest at OpEdNews.com

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