In the Footsteps of Migrants Who Never Made It
The Walrus|July/August 2024
Thousands have died trying to cross into the US from Mexico. Each year, activists follow their harrowing trek
- MARCELLO DI CINTIO
In the Footsteps of Migrants Who Never Made It

LATE LAST SPRING, I stood alongside the steel bollard panels of the US-Mexico border wall and thought about the dead.

I'd joined about thirty others who had driven down to the frontier from Tucson, Arizona, early that morning, then crossed into Sasabe, Mexico, on foot. In the shadow of the nine-metre-high barrier, an Indigenous Mayo woman named Maria Padilla smudged our group with burning sage and tobacco. Then she slowly unspooled a string knotted with 160 prayer ties.

Each pinch of tobacco entwined in red cloth represented a set of migrant remains recovered from the Sonoran Desert in the past year, along with a blue tie to represent the sky, a yellow one for the sun, and a white one for the bodies that haven't yet been found.

Later, Padilla would tell me she had difficulty knotting the cloth on some of the tobacco bundles, as if they resisted being tied. This meant the person had struggled in their final moments, Padilla said. Their desert death was particularly hard.

Thousands of bodies have been recovered from the borderlands since the mid-'90s, when the American government launched a series of border policies many observers believe was designed to kill. The strategy gradually erected walls near large border communities like Sasabe, Nogales, and Douglas, where migrants who managed to cross could easily "assimilate with the population," according to a 1994 document prepared by the US Border Patrol. Walling off the urban areas would funnel migrants into "remote, uninhabited expanses of land," the plan said, where they could find themselves in "mortal danger." The risk of death was to provide "prevention through deterrence" and discourage migrants from trying to cross in the first place.

この蚘事は The Walrus の July/August 2024 版に掲茉されおいたす。

7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トラむアルを開始しお、䜕千もの厳遞されたプレミアム ストヌリヌ、9,000 以䞊の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしおください。

この蚘事は The Walrus の July/August 2024 版に掲茉されおいたす。

7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トラむアルを開始しお、䜕千もの厳遞されたプレミアム ストヌリヌ、9,000 以䞊の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしおください。

THE WALRUSのその他の蚘事すべお衚瀺
Dream Machines - The real threat with artificial intelligence is that we'll fall prey to its hype
The Walrus

Dream Machines - The real threat with artificial intelligence is that we'll fall prey to its hype

Some of the world's largest companies, including Microsoft, Meta, and Alphabet, are throwing their full weight behind AI. On top of the billions spent by big tech, funding for AI startups hit nearly $50 billion (US) in 2023.

time-read
10+ 分  |
July/August 2024
MY GUILTY PLEASURE
The Walrus

MY GUILTY PLEASURE

MY CHILDREN are grown, with their own partners, their own lives.

time-read
3 分  |
September/October 2024
The Quest to Decode Vermeer's True Colours
The Walrus

The Quest to Decode Vermeer's True Colours

New techniques reveal hidden details in the Dutch master’s paintings

time-read
6 分  |
September/October 2024
Repeat after Me
The Walrus

Repeat after Me

TikTok and Instagram are helping to bring Indigenous languages back from the brink

time-read
8 分  |
September/October 2024
Smokehouse
The Walrus

Smokehouse

I WAS STANDING THERE at the corner, the corner where the smaller street intersects with the slightly wider one.

time-read
10+ 分  |
September/October 2024
How Could They Just Lose Him?
The Walrus

How Could They Just Lose Him?

The Huronia Regional Centre was supposed to be a safe home for people with disabilities. Then, amid suspicions of abuse at the facility, twenty-one-year-old Robin Windross vanished without a trace

time-read
10+ 分  |
September/October 2024
Prairie Radical
The Walrus

Prairie Radical

How conspiracy theorists splintered a small town

time-read
10+ 分  |
September/October 2024
Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe
The Walrus

Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe

Scott Moe rose quietly through the ranks. Now the Saskatchewan premier and his party are shaping policies with national consequences

time-read
10+ 分  |
September/October 2024
The Accommodation Problem
The Walrus

The Accommodation Problem

Extensions. Extra exam time. Online everything. Addressing the complex needs of students is creating chaos on campus

time-read
10+ 分  |
September/October 2024
MY GUILTY PLEASURE
The Walrus

MY GUILTY PLEASURE

I WAS AS SURPRISED as anyone when I became obsessed with comics again last year, at the advanced age of forty-five. As a kid, I loved reading G.I. Joe and The Amazing Spider-Man.

time-read
3 分  |
July/August 2024