TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — With Title 42 enforcement about to end, groups that work to protect migrants and asylum seekers are seeing signs of busy days ahead. KGUN9 checked in with two: a group that works to help migrants survive crossing the desert, and a group that helps asylum seekers as they wait in Nogales, Sonora, just south of the border.
There are many ways to track immigration. At Humane Borders, one of the ways they can track it is the level of water in the barrels they leave in the desert.”
David Sarando says, “It's definitely picked up since it was where it was a couple of months ago.”
He says in the past few months more people have been using the water Humane Borders leaves at water barrels along the migrant routes.
Humane Borders maps where bodies have been found. Some of that knowledge guides where they place the life saving water.
Sarando says they are seeing more activity in more remote areas. He’s used to hearing people claim that providing the water actually encourages migrants to risk crossing the desert.
“We're not attracting people to the middle of Cabeza Prieta, or Organ Pipe because we have water there. People are there and we want to save them.”
Humane Borders has to contend with vandals, who shoot holes in the barrels, or mark them to try to convince migrants the water’s been poisoned.
In Nogales, Sonora, Kino Border Initiative shelters migrants who have been waiting for their chance to enter the U.S. and ask for asylum. The shelter has room for 90 people. It’s normally full, but the Kino Initiative provides other services for people beyond its 90 beds. In the process they learn why people left their homes.
Zoe Martens of the Initiative says often it’s to escape organized crime. “Family members who have been kidnapped, disappeared or murdered, unfortunately, so some pretty extreme danger from organized crime. And we also receive people from Venezuela for example, who are also facing violence, but that might look more like persecution from the government against people who have maybe gone out to protest or who have opposed the government's rule.”
Martens says it’s not clear what will happen when Title 42 lifts. She says some people secured appointments with CBP through it’s phone app. Others may simply come to the border and see what happens next.