Inmigracion Topografia: The Incineration of Migrant Dreams

Prelude

When I arrived at Harvard University to begin a fellowship at the Nieman Foundation in August 2009, I was ground down. I had spent twenty years photographing people at very close proximity in acts of war or violence in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East for weekly news magazines. By the mid-2000s, I felt I’d become engaged in a hierarchical and increasingly proscribed form of journalism. I am grateful for the opportunities I had during that act of my career, but after twenty years, I wanted to step off the carousel and change my relationship with journalism and the media and my interaction with the communities that had been such generous hosts.

I felt constrained by the orthodoxy of the media and the practice of the craft as I had experienced it. A lot of contemporary journalism had begun to feel like a formulaic straightjacket, determined by political or cultural prejudice. With dramatically decreasing numbers of readers and shrinking budgets matters were sure to become increasingly severe. When I began my career my own libertywas critical, I always felt it was essential to integrity, honesty and fairness in journalism and the constraints I felt appeared to me to put that liberty, and integrity at risk. I knew I wanted to remain at large and engaged as a storyteller with the parts of the world I cared deeply about, but I wanted to change the process and the outcomes.

I had no idea what I would find at Harvard, and while I sought nothing specific, I was hoping to find something that would at least help me begin to shape what would come next.

I took three courses that changed everything: Constance Hale’s “Narrative Writing” course at the Nieman Foundation gave me the courage to experiment with the wonder of writing; Anne Mc Ghee’s “Life Drawing” class at the Graduate School of Design, courtesy of the Loeb Fellowship, helped me leave the violence behind and see without a camera; perhaps most important of all was Prof. John Stilgoe’s “Studies of the Built North American Environment.” Prof. Stilgoe helped me see beauty, significance, and nuance in what were hitherto the most unremarkable places. I saw magic in the unspectacular. He helped me re-embrace the possibilities of imagery and visual narratives and look for things I would never have looked for before.

When I left Harvard, I picked up a camera for the first time in a year and went to Arizona to photograph a story on the issue of immigration, using the built environment—the landscape—as the sole character in the story. This would have been an unthinkable idea for me just a year earlier.

Introduction

This is a story about migration, the illegal migration of thousands of men, women and children from Central and South America into the United States through one of the most hostile environments in the world. The project utilizes the photography of the topography and landscape of the Sonoran Desert, with the use of aerial, landscape and macro imagery.

The industrialization and militarization of the border and the integration of technology advanced during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq has changed the US-Mexican border region dramatically during the last decade. It is now one of the most militarized areas in the world. As the apparatus of border security rises out of the Sonoran Desert it resembles more North & South Korea or Israel & Palestine than a country at peace with its neighbors. The construction of the $15 million per mile border fence guarded by private security firms and US Customs & Border Patrol has cost $1 billion dollars so far and new technologies used to track the suspected terrorists and insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq are being deployed to catch the poor, adding to the bill a further $755 million dollars.

Migrants embark on increasingly desperate attempts to evade the drones or heat seeking technology. Forced to skirt the steel fence and watch towers that stretch for hundreds of miles migrants seeking a better life cross the harshest mountainous desert terrain. They die horrible deaths on remote trails and deer paths, paths that overlook the new desert settlements with names like Desert Bell populated by second generation migrants from Europe. The landscape is an incinerator of dreams, scorching men into the desert sand like dead livestock, it is a place where thousands of women and girls have been raped, the privilege of young men who peddle humans unimpeded by fear of justice.

According to the US Government the actual numbers of migrants crossing the border has decreased but according to NGO’s working locally the number of migrant deaths is increasing as the crossing has become more difficult. We will never know how many people try to cross and succeed, or how many die, in both cases they disappear into the landscape.

The issue of immigration looms large in the political life of America, especially this election year and has become a divisive and contradictory issue for Republicans and Democrats alike. They both seek to appear tough on immigration at a time when they are trying to appeal to Latin voters. With the increase in volume of the political dogma intelligent discourse has been curtailed.

This essay examines the presence of immigration in the environment and landscape of southern Arizona on the Mexican border between Douglas and Yuma. Photographed both from the air and the ground this series shows both the profound impact and scale of the border architecture and technology of immigration on the landscape and the intimate experience of the crossing. From the air we see the barrier Homeland Security has erected as it carves through the landscape toward the Pacific Ocean and the trails made by migrants who walk through the desert pursued by ‘La Migra’. Overturned cars and Border Patrol trucks in pursuit of migrants dot the landscape like toys. It examines on a local scale the impact of the apparatus of border security on the landscape, for example: car tires chained together and dragged behind trucks to ‘cut’ the trail at dusk, tracks in the sand, emergency beacons for migrants in distress who can walk no further, water containers left for migrants by sympathetic NGO’s, discarded clothing and blankets used to cover the tracks left behind in the sand by shoes and shrines to the dead.

A US flag tethered to a family gatepost flutters in the afternoon breeze on the road between Arivaca and Amado, in the background is the Santa Clara mountain range.

The border fence between Mexico (on the left) and the United States (on the right) stops abruptly as the Baboquivari Mountains rise out of the desert near the hard scrabble town of Sassabe that straddles the border in southern Arizona. The fence costs over one million dollars per mile and in areas where the terrain is especially harsh and dangerous to cross the construction halts. The consequence of this is that migrants are forced into areas where human life is incredibly difficult to sustain and they die.

The border fence between Mexico (above) and the United States (below) stops abruptly as the Baboquivari Mountains rise out of the desert near the hard scrabble town of Sassabe that straddles the border in southern Arizona. The fence costs over one million dollars per mile and in areas where the terrain is especially harsh and dangerous to cross the construction halts. The consequence of this is that migrants are forced into areas where human life is incredibly difficult to sustain and they die.

The border fence between Mexico (above) and the United States (below) snakes it’s way through the desert scrub east of Nogales in the Pajarita Mountains in Southern Arizona.

The border fence between Mexico (above) and the United States (below) snakes it’s way through the once prosperous town of Nogales which straddles the border. Nogales was a town where Americans and Mexicans would visit frequently to trade goods and engage in commerce. Now businesses struggle and the value of real estate has dropped forcing many American families to live elsewhere.

Two United States Border Patrol vehicles parked next to their horses on a trail in Baboquivari Mountains in the Sonoran desert. The Border patrol use horses to patrol remote areas where their vehicles cannot pass.

A solitary United States Border Patrol vehicle in the Baboquivari Mountains, Southern Arizona.

Two United States Border Patrol vehicles parked on a trail in the Atascosa Mountains in the Coronado National Forest, Southern Arizona.

An overturned migrant vehicle in a dried river bed in the Altar Valley near Sasabe in Southern Arizona. Coyotes - the name given to human and drug traffickers - pick migrants up in pre-arranged locations in the desert and then drive them further into Arizona and the United States. Sometimes the vehicles are seen by the United States Border Patrol who chase them through the desert. The coyotes frequently crash their poorly equipped vehicles in the dark.

Traces of migration like these can be seen all over the desert. The track to the north is made by vehicles, probably United States Border Patrol and local farmers, the smaller track to the south and those that branch off from it will be used by cattle and migrants.

The bend in the road at the centre of this photograph is at Diamond Bells Ranch near Robles Junction. Diamond Bells was built as a restful and upscale desert retreat before the recent property market crash. In 2010, unbeknownst to the owner of the house volunteers from the American charity ‘The Samaritans” found the body of a Mexican migrant who had died very slowly of dehydration and exhaustion.

A solitary United States Border Patrol vehicle on patrol in the Coyote Mountains Wilderness, Southern Arizona.

A solitary United States Border Patrol vehicle on patrol in the Coyote Mountains Wilderness, Southern Arizona. Migrants will normally travel in dried river beds like the one seen running from top left to bottom right of this photograph. River beds have shade and offer some cover.

Three car tyres used by the United States Border Patrol to ‘cut’ the desert trail. ‘Cutting the trail’ entails dragging car tyres behind a vehicle to sweep the desert trail. This is usually done in the evening so that any migrant footprints made overnight will be visible in the morning and allow Border Patrol trackers to follow them through the desert.

The hamlet of Lochiel in the Coronado National Forest east of Nogales in Southern Arizona. The Border fence that divides Mexico from the United States cuts straight through the middle of this small settlement. Lochiel is now all but deserted, the only inhabitants I saw were on the Mexican side and they used the border fence as one wall of a chicken coop. Lochiel is close to the location where the Spanish conquistador Francisco Vasquez de Coronado led the first European migration into what is now the North American Southwest.

A solar powered beacon located in the desert for migrants who are unable to continue their journey. When the beacon is activated it sends a signal to the emergency services.

A hydraulically powered United States Border Patrol observation post hidden behind a hill very close to the border near the Santa Cruz River in the Coronado National Forest, Southern Arizona close to the location where the Spanish conquistador Francisco Vasquez de Coronado led the first European migration into what is now the North American Southwest.

A remotely operated observation post near the town of Douglas, Southern Arizona close to the location where the Spanish conquistador Francisco Vasquez de Coronado led the first European migration into what is now the North American Southwest. The border has become one of the most militarized and observed borders in the world. Hi tech industries that are developing drone and other surveillance technologies have a significant presence in the region. Border security is self perpetuating multi-million dollar industry.

A portable vehicle mounted observation post at Canelo Pass in the Coronado National Forest at the location where the Spanish conquistador Francisco Vasquez de Coronado led the first European migration into what is now the North American Southwest. The border has become one of the most militarized and observed borders in the world. Hi tech industries that are developing drone and other surveillance technologies have a significant presence in the region. Border security is self perpetuating multi-million dollar industry.

A cross made by a volunteer from the Tucson based charity ‘The Samaritans’ marks the grave of a Latin American migrant who died on the trail in the Tumacacori Mountains just west of Highway 19 and five miles from the border. There are many graves and shrines like this in the south western deserts. They are tended by American volunteers and migrants alike. Migrants will often forgo carrying precious life saving food and water so that they can carry candles and amulets to place on unmarked graves and shrines like this.

Six truck tyres used by the United States Border Patrol to ‘cut’ the desert trail. ‘Cutting the trail’ entails dragging car tyres behind a vehicle to sweep the desert trail. This is usually done in the evening so that any migrant footprints made overnight will be visible in the morning and allow Border Patrol trackers to follow them through the desert.

Truck tyres used by the United States Border Patrol to ‘cut’ the desert trail. ‘Cutting the trail’ entails dragging car tyres behind a vehicle to sweep the desert trail. This is usually done in the evening so that any migrant footprints made overnight will be visible in the morning and allow Border Patrol trackers to follow them through the desert.

The trails are littered with clothes that the migrants discard, either because they can no longer carry them or because they have reached the end of the trail and are waiting to be collected in a vehicle by the ‘coyotes’ who will drive them deeper into the United States. Women’s underwear is sometimes found trail. Women are often raped and their underwear hung on trees as trophies. Some women in shelters have told volunteer workers that they take contraceptive pills on the journey to prevent rape leading to pregnancy.