In March of 2025, three friends will travel to Arizona to volunteer with Humane Borders and Samaritanos Sin Fronteras to serve and better understand the ongoing humanitarian crisis at the border.

HUMANE BORDERS

The primary mission of Humane Borders is to save desperate people from death due to dehydration and exposure by maintaining dozens of water stations year round and providing other critical aid.

In March of 2025, we three from Oregon will join water runs out of Tucson and Ajo. We also hope to raise enough funds to adopt the water station named after Luis Urrea who wrote The Devil’s Highway.

You can help by making a tax-deductible donation of any size to Humane Borders via their website. Under the “Public Statement of Support” field, please indicate that it is “For the Urrea water station.”

SAMARITANOS SIN FRONTERAS

Volunteers from Samaritanos Sin Fronteras work with migrant shelters in Sonoyta, Mexico to provide nutritious food, children’s vitamins, medicines, clothing, shoes, toiletries, and other items as requested by shelter managers.

You can shop their Amazon Wish List! Items will be shipped to Ajo and delivered by our group in March. You can also make direct donations of commonly requested items at an upcoming event TBA.

EVENTS

February 2, 2025 at 4:15 pm

Sponsored by Oregon Community Asylum Network (OCAN)

at Art House Cinemas in Eugene, OR

OCAN assists and advocates for people seeking safe haven through grassroots organizing, education, and sponsorship. OCAN and Pacific Refugee Support Group will provide information and answer questions.

Humane Borders and the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office maintain a searchable migrant death map on which it is possible to see the exact location where each migrant body has been found, along with the name and gender of the deceased (if known and if the family has been notified), date of discovery, and cause of death.

Since 1981, 4,329 migrants have died while crossing the vast Arizona Sonoran Desert, which translates into one death every two days. Many more haven't been found.

In March 2025, we will travel to Tucson, where the modern sanctuary movement took root, and to Ajo, a vibrant border town on the edge of the Organ Pipe National Monument and through which the Devil’s Highway runs:

“A world of cactus spines, labyrinths of sand, mountains shaped like the teeth of a shark, and a screaming sun so intense that even at midnight the temperature only drops to 97 degrees.”

RECOMMENDED READING