from No More Deaths, No Más Muertes

Temperatures are plummeting in the Sonoran desert this week, reaching freezing and near-freezing temperatures at night, as winter now sets in.  The dangers posed by this intense cold are no less than those that come from the soaring summer heat.  Border enforcement continues to funnel migrants into desert corridors where, no matter what time of year, the extreme environment can cause death by exposure.

In conditions like this we have found water gallons frozen solid.  The patients we see are suffering from hypothermia and trench foot, as well as dehydration.  As the cold gathers around us this holiday season, we are responding by putting food, dry socks, and blankets in areas where people are walking through the desert.

As weather conditions intensify along the border, thousands of migrants are trapped in camps in northern Mexico, systematically being denied any chance for asylum in the United States.  No More Deaths volunteers are maintaining a presence in the desert 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to help with this crisis.

Please consider giving an end-of-the-year tax-deductible gift today to support the critical work of our volunteers in the field.  We can't do this lifesaving work without your support. You can give a one-time or recurring gift here.

Please see more about what we do by taking a look at our end-of-the-year newsletter here.  

https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/nomoredeaths?code=web.  

Thanks so much for being with us, now and always.

With deep gratitude,

The No More Deaths/ No Más Muertes community

In Nuevo Laredo with asylum seekers forced to remain in Mexico awaiting first interview under new "Migrant Protection Protocol"

Young father and son, asylum seekers

Child receiving a toy

Pastor announcing holiday meal.

Listening to Pastor's announcements

Children waiting 

Volunteer handing pencil to child

Volunteer helping injured asylum seeker enter shelter

Children with newly received games and toys

first house, standing room only

from parents of Dr. Scott Warren, No More Deaths

May 13, 2019

Dear Sylvia,

thank you so much for signing the petition for our son, Dr. Scott Warren.  Will you take the next step and call the US Attorney's Office and demand they drop all charges?

Today we head to Tucson Federal Court for a pre-trial hearing in which our son's lawyers will argue that all charges stemming from his January 2017 arrest should be immediately vacated due to the selective nature of Border Patrol’s enforcement activities and that his arrest was a targeted act of political retaliation resulting from No More Deaths’ open criticism of Border Patrol’s human rights abuses.  Read more here.

In response to the growing evidence that Scott was clearly targeted by the US Border Patrol, we are asking supporters to call the U.S. Attorney’s Office and demand they drop all charges.  You can call today and every day between now and May 29th, the first day of Scott's trial.  For an up-to-date phone number and script, visit bit.ly/scottwarren.

Thank you for your continued support,

Pam & Mark Warren

From No More Deaths/ No Más Muertos, May 12, 2019

Call the US Attorney’s Office

MAY 12, 2019

From May 13th to May 24th, No More Deaths is asking all supporters to call newly appointed US Attorney Michael Bailey and demand that he drop all charges against Dr. Scott Warren

520.620.7300

Use the sample script below or create your own.  After you call, let us know and sign our petition.

I am calling to demand USDOJ drop all charges against Scott Warren. This is in reference to case 4:18-cr-00223-RCC-BPV.

Given the crisis of death and disappearance of undocumented people on the border, humanitarian aid workers must be allowed to perform their life-saving work without government harassment and prosecution. I oppose the intimidation of aid workers.  Humanitarian aid is never a crime!

including Washington Post article about tear gas

Spent a week at a hospitality house in El Paso at Tepeyac Institut, a seminary, volunteering through Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of San Antonio.  (El Paso is in an archdiocese with no Catholic Charities of its own.)

These children spent 5 days sleeping on floor before ICE brought them to Catholic Charities hospitality center at Tepeyac Institut in El Paso where they and their parent(s) rested up for their travel to sponsors (usually extended family members) somewhere in the United States.

Returning by bus this last Sunday, November 25, got a text that migrants had been tear-gassed over at Tijuana.  Today have received a Washington Post article worth putting here by way of link:



Only realized today that Tijuana is almost Aunt Janey.  Tia Juana would be appalled, wouldn't she?

Hope to go down to volunteer with Las Tías y Abuelas Enojadas in the Rio Grande Valley in December.  Maybe Tía Juana is among them?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2018/11/26/why-tear-gas-lobbed-migrants-southern-border-is-banned-warfare/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.502174305cbc&wpisrc=nl_rainbow&wpmm=1

I'm proud of Bernie's statement toward refugees.

In this hysterical xenophobia following the Paris terrorist attacks, it's good to be able to read the following from Seven Days, a weekly tabloid distributed from Burlington, quoting Bernie Sanders:

"During these difficult times, as Americans we will not succumb to racism," Sanders said.We will not allow ourselves to be divided and succumb to Islamophobia.  And when hundreds of thousands of people have lost everything.  And when hundreds of thousands of people have lost everything -- have nothing left but the shirts on their backs -- we will not turn our backs on the refugees from Syria and Afghanistan.

The full statements from him and Shumblin is at sevendaysvt.com.

The First Universalist Parish in Derby Line

V on a ladder painting First Universalist Parish on November 5, 2015, Derby Line, Vermont

Allen Yale, Derby Line, Vermont, UU church, Nov. 5, 2015, putting primer on bare wood on a wonderful November afternoon.

Yesterday I went to Derby Line and was able to help V and Allen paint, some; then went to the Haskell and was able to speak a little French with the library staff person, probably walking over into the Canadian side of the library.

from Barton, Vermont, November 4, 2015

 Are these different, these photos, from each other?  Are morning waves in Crystal Lake, moved by a northwestern soft wind, different from one another?  The leaves, the maple leaves?  Even Colleen, in whose house I wake, a third morning ... are we altogether different, distinct?  Twenty-five miles south of the Canadian border, beside a lake filled with Canadian geese trying to decide, I think, if they are altogether for the journey south, or not.  Route 5 traffic interrupts thoughts, but a still photo is a still photo still.  Early November.  Barton.