Humane Borders (Fronteras Compasivas) is a Tucson-based organization that exists to provide lifesaving water to protect the fundamental human right to safe drinking water. The website states that Humane Borders operates a series of dozens of permitted water stations in the Sonoran Desert, along the Arizona/Mexico border wall and routes used by migrants making the perilous journey here on foot. Our primary mission is to save desperate people from death by dehydration and exposure, while also working to create a more just and humane border. Since 2000, 4,366 men, women, and children have died in Arizona while fleeing violence and poverty in their home countries. Many more individuals go missing and are never found.
I was asked by Kirk Astroth over the weekend if I’d like to go on a run this week (Tuesday) as he was short a volunteer. I know Kirk through the social connections made with the Sunday Sessions at Borderlands Brewing Company and he’s also the leader and guide for the Borderlands Adventure Club. He has been a volunteer with Humane Borders for over a dozen years. (He is also a registered archaeologist, mountain biker, and writer who fought fires for the US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management for 8 years until a helicopter crash on a fire in the Uinta Mountains of Utah)
Also on Tuesday’s run was John Stark, former general manager of both KNAU in Flagstaff and KLCC in Eugene, Oregon, before retiring in Tucson. If that wasn’t good enough company, it happened that students and chaperones from a high school in Jefferson County, Colorado, were along for the run.
The caravan of three vehicles headed out to Three Points on highway 86, the Ajo Highway, and headed south on 286. The first stop was the Jackalope water barrel where Kirk explained the procedures of checking the water in the barrel for level, contaminates, and algae growth.
The flag at that barrel was so wind blown that the rods needed straightening out. After doing so, the group had its Iwo Jima moment.
The next stop was the Bishop Carcaño barrel which turned out had enough algae growth that it needed to be drained and switched out with a fresh barrel from the truck.
Shortly after filling the new barrel with fresh water from the truck, things took a strange turn. As the students were mostly in the buses someone noticed a guy in the bushes, partway down the wash, waving at us.
At first, thinking he was a desperate thirsty and hungry migrant, we gave him water bottles and bags of food items. Then Nora, one of the chaperones and also a linguist, voiced her concern that something was way off with his mix of dialogues with no discernible accents.
In Kirk’s words: Today we had the weirdest experience I have ever had volunteering with Humane Borders. A vigilante, posing as a hurt and desperate migrant from Kazakhstan, hid in the brush below a water station we were servicing. He feigned hunger and thirst, drinking profusely from our water barrel. But it didn’t add up. We tried to leave but he blocked the bus carrying 15 students from a school in Denver. He was trying to film us but we left. He came back and started draining our barrel We sent the high school students and their teachers back to Tucson and we went back and found his vehicle parked about 1/4 mile away. It was full of camo gear, crutches, and the clothes he had changed out of to pose as a migrant. By this time, he emerged from the brush without his disguise and started running toward us with is camera phone. We left before he could reach us, but reported his vandalism to the Pima County sheriff department. The photos of his vehicle and license plate was key. He has a record. These are the lengths to which crazy vigilantes are going to try and ensnare humanitarians.
His van, just up the road, had Massachusetts plates and, as Kirk said above, the sheriff department already knew about the guy. As he was striding up the wash walking normally and dressed in ‘civilian’ clothes, he was filming himself and us while yelling something unintelligible…that’s when we took off.
Some guy from the New England area coming down to the Arizona border to sabotage water barrels…think it has anything to do with *rump, Faux News, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ronald Reagan, right-wing media, etc? You be the judge.
After our hearts stopped racing, the three of us continued on to check two more barrels and have a lunch at La Gitana in Arivaca. More on visiting the Arivaca Humanitarian Aid Office later…
And now…
Good on you, Gary!
Some years back I was out with the Samaritans and we headed towards a water stop. There sat 2 pick ups with vigilantes sitting on lawn chairs swilling beers and with rifles next to them. Out in the middle of the frickin’ desert waiting for thirsty and scared people to show up. You can’t make this shit up!