FRONT LINE: HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS:"TODAY SOMEBODY will die crossing the US-Mexican border," said Enrique Morones, who has spent 25 years fighting for the rights of desperate immigrants looking for a better life in the United States.
The treacherous journey from Mexico had always been a dangerous one with several people perishing en route every year, according to Morones, who was in Ireland this week for the Front Line Dublin Platform. After Operation Gatekeeper and the construction of large walls to block popular crossing points began in 1994, 10,000 would-be immigrants have lost their lives trying to make the trip, he said.
“What happened to ‘give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses yearning to breath free’. There was a group of people from this part of the world [Europe] that saw that statue of liberty as they came in. South of the border, we see a wall that says if you go this way you will die.”
Born in California to Mexican parents, Morones began Border Angels in 1985 when he first travelled to aid immigrant workers forced to live rough in the canyons around San Diego in order to work the fields in wealthy districts.
“The migrants had nowhere to live because it was too expensive so they lived outdoors, they literally lived in the canyons – women, children, entire families lived there.” Dismayed that such living conditions existed in one of the richest countries in the world, Morones founded Border Angels and began providing food, clothing and general support for these impoverished Mexican families.
Since 1994 and Operation Gatekeeper, his work has extended to travelling out to the desert to provide water for the migrants, where many die of thirst. Because of his work and the publicity he draws to the immigrants’ plight, Morones has had endure many personal threats and has been accused of encouraging illegal immigration into the United States.
“I have had issues where weapons have been drawn or phone calls made or someone breaking into where I live and being armed and being arrested – those things do happen,” he said.
“I tell people that I have been doing this work for 25 years and not one migrant, not one, has ever come for the water, they are crossing because they are looking for an opportunity to be with their family or to find work.”
He believes the US authorities are tackling the issue of immigration in the wrong way and in doing so are forsaking the founding principles on which the country was built.
“The irony of it all, a country that likes to promote and preach human rights doesn’t always practice it. In the previous decade, President Reagan had said to Mikhael Gorbachev, ‘Mr Gorbachev tear down this wall’, now the United States was building a wall.
“What we are looking for is a pathway to legalisation. These 11 million undocumented people in the United States, the overwhelming majority have no desire to become US citizens, they just want to be documented.
“It is good for the security of the country, you know who they are, it is going to be good for the economy because of that pioneering spirit they bring.”