Support Humanitarian Aid Work on the Border

I will be doing humanitarian aid on the U.S. southern border with No More Deaths for the month of January 2024. I need help funding the expenses related to this work, which I cannot afford to absorb personally.

Every year, hundreds of people die while crossing the harsh desert terrain of the U.S.-Mexican border. They die from heat exhaustion, dehydration, exposure, blunt force trauma, drowning. But the root cause of death is U.S. border policy, which has pursued a strategy called “prevention through deterrence” for the last three decades that deliberately pushes migrants to cross in remote areas. The policy is explicit: “Mountains, deserts, lakes, rivers and valleys form natural barriers to passage…. Illegal entrants crossing through remote, uninhabited expanses of land and sea along the border can find themselves in mortal danger.”1 Added to this official policy are widespread Border Patrol practices that further endanger lives – destroying life-preserving humanitarian supplies, deadly apprehension tactics, and lack of emergency response.

No More Deaths is a humanitarian organization based in southern Arizona that has provided direct aid to stem the loss of life on the border for the last two decades. You can read more about the work, which is almost entirely volunteer-based, on their website.

I will be part of No More Death’s Desert Aid Volunteer Program. We hike to remote areas and leave food, water, socks, blankets, and other supplies in the desert. We help support the 24/7 presence at No More Death’s humanitarian aid camp, whether that’s cooking or cleaning or whatever else is needed.

My expenses for this work include purchasing some necessary gear for hiking and camping in the desert in January; travel expenses for my drive to Arizona, food, lodging, gas, car maintenance; medical expenses, including several vaccines; and some funds to cover loss of income for the month.

If you know me, then you know that I have dedicated my life to social justice work, contributing in various ways and roles what I can wherever I am. As a white, able-bodied legal U.S. resident, I have significant privilege that I can put in play in service of aid to people fleeing poverty, violence, and precarity. Given the horrors of the world we live in, it feels particularly important to participate in and support concrete humanitarian aid in this moment. As Grace Paley said, “The only recognizable feature of hope is action.”

Thank you for helping make it possible.

1 James Verini, "How U.S. Policy Turned the Sonoran Desert Into a Graveyard for Migrants," New York Times , August 18, 2020