About

About No More Deaths

Recognizing the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding on the borderlands, No More Deaths has worked since 2004 to end death and suffering on the U.S./Mexico border. No More Deaths acknowledges that human migration across the border is driven by economic injustice in Mexico, United States foreign policy, and the necessity to search for a better life. In the process of migration and deportation, migrants face extreme danger. The deadly combination of U.S. border enforcement policy and the harsh conditions of the Sonoran Desert cause hundreds of deaths every year, most of the deaths occurring in the brutal heat of the summer months. In the face of these adverse conditions, migrants crossing the border north still contend with the brutality and cruelty of U.S. Border Patrol Agents on the ground.

No More Deaths confronts this humanitarian catastrophe through civil initiative: the conviction that people of conscience must work openly and in community to uphold fundamental human rights. Our work embraces the Faith-Based Principles for Immigration Reform and consists of the following pillars:

• Direct aid that asserts the right to provide humanitarian assistance
• Witnessing and responding to violence, abuse, suffering and oppression
• Consciousness raising
• Global movement building
• Encouraging humane immigration policy

We have four active projects:

We Reject Racism/Rechazamos el Racismo

No 1070!The We Reject Racism/Rechazamos El Racismo campaign by No More Deaths and Tierra Y Libertad Organization was launched in May 2010. Through the campaign, participants are building a network of people committed to anti-racism, resisting anti-immigrant practices like SB1070, and aiding our friends, neighbors, and each other in this time of many personal and political struggles.

Desert Aid

picture of a supply drop in the desertNo More Deaths has an ongoing humanitarian presence in the desert migration corridor south of Tucson, utilizing both a fixed base camp and intermittent mobile camps. Our efforts are concentrated in an area 5–20 miles from the international border, and focus on upholding the most fundamental human right—life itself—by providing basic humanitarian assistance to those in need. Read More

Mexico Aid Centers

picture of a blistered foot being treatedOur work in México, centered around aid stations operated by local partners, directly addresses the needs of the large numbers of people ejected every day into the border cities and towns of Sonora, Mexico. Volunteers provide humanitarian assistance—including access to communication with family members, medical care, orientation, and recovery of confiscated belongings—and carefully document human rights violations.

Abuse Documentation

cover of 2008 Report Crossing the LineNo More Deaths volunteers are committed to bearing public witness to the injustices taking place on the border. As one corollary of that commitment, our documentation work with repatriated migrants has yielded two detailed reports; Crossing the Line: Human Rights Abuses of Migrants in Short-Term Custody on the Arizona/Sonora Border, published in September 2008, and A Culture of Cruelty: Abuse And Impunity In short-term U.S. Border Patrol Custody.

About The 2011 Report

In 2006, in the midst of humanitarian work with people recently deported from the United States to Nogales, Sonora, No More Deaths began to document abuses endured by individuals in the custody of U.S. immigration authorities, and in particular the U.S. Border Patrol. In September 2008 No More Deaths published Crossing the Line in collaboration with partners in Naco and Agua Prieta, Sonora. The report included hundreds of individual accounts of Border Patrol abuse, as well as recommendations for clear, enforceable custody standards with community oversight to ensure compliance. Almost three years later, A Culture of Cruelty is a follow-up to that report—now with 12 times as many interviews detailing more than 30,000 incidents of abuse and mistreatment, newly obtained information on the Border Patrol’s existing custody standards, and more specific recommendations to stop the abuse of individuals in Border Patrol custody.

The abuses individuals report have remained alarmingly consistent for years, from interviewer to interviewer and across interview sites: individuals suffering severe dehydration are deprived of water; people with life-threatening medical conditions are denied treatment; children and adults are beaten during apprehensions and in custody; family members are separated, their belongings confiscated and not returned; many are crammed into cells and subjected to extreme temperatures, deprived of sleep, and threatened with death by Border Patrol agents. By this point, the overwhelming weight of the corroborated evidence should eliminate any doubt that Border Patrol abuse is widespread. Still the Border Patrol’s consistent response has been flat denial, and calls for reform have been ignored.

We have entitled our report “A Culture of Cruelty” because we believe our findings demonstrate that the abuse, neglect, and dehumanization of migrants is part of the institutional culture of the Border Patrol, reinforced by an absence of meaningful accountability mechanisms. This systemic abuse must be confronted aggressively at the institutional level, not denied or dismissed as a series of aberrational incidents attributable to a few rogue agents. Until then we can expect this culture of cruelty to continue to deprive individuals in Border Patrol custody of their most fundamental human rights.