You’ve been volunteering with No More Deaths and the Tucson Samaritans. How did these humanitarian aid programs get started?

Mary Ann Kopydlowski: In the early 2000s, people who lived near the border in Arizona came across human remains and items left behind like discarded back packs, clothing, and toothbrushes. It was horrifying for them to think that they were hiking in the desert for fun while others were hiking as a matter of life and death. They discovered and mapped a trail system used by the migrants and then started carrying in water and placing the jugs at key points.

It’s estimated that thousands have died on the Arizona/Mexico border. What makes the Sonoran desert such a killer?

MAK: The border wall! It forces migrants to cross away from towns and have to spend days walking in remote areas of the desert. If you're fleeing violence, you can’t choose what time of year to go, so you can end up experiencing extreme heat or bitter cold. You face scarce and polluted water sources, treacherous topography, and near-total isolation from possible rescue.

Sometimes a group gets rushed by Border Patrol helicopters, so they panic and scatter, causing some people to get separated from others and become lost. US officials purposely cause more deaths to stem migration. They call this policy “prevention through deterrence.” This “deterrence” doesn’t prevent, but it succeeds in killing.

No More Deaths also runs a desert camp/first aid station. Did your experience as a community nurse prepare you to provide care?

MAK: Migrants routinely suffer everything from sprains, dehydration, and blisters that turn into wounds to exposure, heat, and disorientation from the vast and remote expanses of wilderness. The No More Deaths camp is 11 miles from the border, and it’s still a 65-mile walk to Tucson.

My work as a visiting nurse and at Boston Health Care for the Homeless gave me the skills and confidence to work independently without any medical infrastructure around me. And I had learned a lot about foot care, something always needed in the desert.

Has the situation for migrants changed any over the years?

MAK: From no barriers except the desert itself, first came fences, now walls. Programs run by Catholics used to be considered sanctuary spaces, and aid stations were left alone. But not under Trump. At the No More Deaths camp, 30 people were arrested in July 2020 while they were getting medical help, and 12 more were rounded up a few weeks ago.

Has witnessing the inhumanity of US policy been a soul-killing experience?

MAK: I’ve met people who moved to Arizona to relax in retirement, but the situation of the migrants passing so close to their homes motivated them to devote themselves to giving aid. I’ve met young people from all over the country who move to Arizona in order to volunteer. Those people and more give me hope of a time when human needs take priority over the needs of capital.

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