To Those Who Die In Seeking the Dream

Heat waves in Arizona have brought more tangible tragedies to the groups of people who every year attempt to illegally cross the border and find work in America, often in order to fulfill their own desire to rise from the poverty of their lives and participate in the so-called American Dream. [Other tragedies of this situation include the very fact of its existence: caused by economic forces and ideologic propganda out of any of our control; and the fact of the inherent protectivism and hysteria it inspires in potentially destructive ways.]

One was just 15. Another was a pregnant 24-year-old who died while her husband searched for help. A third was an unidentified, middle-age man who had sought shelter from the sun in an abandoned house. His body had been decomposing for at least two weeks.

All were found over the past few days during record-breaking heat that has led to a wave of death across Arizona's desert, with 12 suspected illegal immigrants reported dead since Friday night.

Dozens of other migrants were saved by nearly 50 rescue operations, the U.S. Border Patrol said. Volunteer doctors and nurses with the humanitarian aid group Samaritans also reported finding migrants in advanced stages of heat exposure, vomiting and in some cases drinking their own urine.

Many migrants come from tropical areas and are unfamiliar with extreme heat and aridity. Often smugglers lie about the difficulty of the trip.

Those of you looking for reasonable, humanistic means of helping these people even simply survive this journey northward [and hopefully tap into that legendary American Splendor] please support Elizabeth Ohmann and her Humane Borders project to man and maintain water stations. The alternative to individual vigilantism, with the inherent racism and jingoist problems and ecomonic conditions of it, is individual humanism and compassion.