JE #5

        The New York Times article writes of the deaths of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. As border control has been strengthened, people crossing the border have been forced to cross through the most dangerous terrain in that area. As the article states, “…the remains of at least 116 people have been found this year in Arizona.” And those bodies are only the ones who were found. The documentary stated that the group working to identify the bodies of the individuals who passed away in the Arizona desert has been able to identify around 60% of the bodies found. As there continue to be push-and-pull factors influencing immigration, and as security continues to rise along the border, migrants will continue to die. Border security is a direct murderer of people along the border. And as the documentary stated, the deaths in the desert are invisible in governmental discussions because of the terminology around border crossings that criminalize the people crossing. This mode of thinking blames the dead for their “illegal” acts. Also, “Similar migrant deaths have recently resulted from capsized boats in the Mediterranean Sea, filled with migrants from Africa and the Middle East, and in the seas north of Australia.” This is not a single issue. It is a part of a larger scale of discrimination and a quest for power that results in murder. These current events are the outcome and continuation of Concha’s story of 140 years ago. In the novel Flower in the Skull, Concha is uprooted from her land by outside forces. She is forced to walk to the land called Tucson while fighting for her own survival. “There was no food, I told them, so I had come north with my sisters” (Alcalá 48). Governments do not care for the individual’s pain. Concha did not receive help or shelter from any government and it is those who have power in the U.S. government that are responsible for the deaths that continue along the border.