Detained in the desert: migrants stuck in camps in the extreme climate of the USMexico border
It’s 8am on a chilly fall morning when the U-Haul pulls up at the US-Mexico border wall in Jacumba Hot Springs, California.
Dozens of people emerge from makeshift tents and from around small bonfires to welcome it, and line up for some of the water bottles and peanut butter jelly sandwiches its volunteers are carrying.
More than 200 people are camped out on this site in the shadow of the border wall, one of three in the desert east of San Diego. Immigrant advocates call the encampments open-air detention centers, or OADs. Most of its residents have crossed through gaps in the wall and then sought out federal authorities to request asylum. US border patrol directed them to the sites to await processing, they say.
Yazmín Calderon, 40, an asylum seeker from Colombia who says she’s fleeing intrafamily violence and threats from criminal groups, said she had been detained by US authorities four days ago. Border patrol gave her a wristband that notes the day she arrived, she said, ostensibly to help process migrants in the order they came across the border. But she was unsure what would happen to her next, and when.
Guards didn’t respond when she went to ask them questions, she said. “They look at you with, like, rage, disgust, contempt. So we’re adrift here because you don’t know who to ask.”
After the long journey north, the conditions in the desert were hard to endure, she said. The worst is the cold at night, she thought. In mid-November in the high desert, nighttime temperatures can drop to 30 degrees, and it recently rained. “Among ourselves, we huddle together, we bundle up, we figure out a way to stay warm because the night is difficult.” She said water bottles freeze overnight.
Border patrol is claiming the people at these sites are not in detention, said Jacqueline Arellano, the director of US programs for Border Kindness, a non-profit migrant relief organization. “However, if you issued somebody a bracelet, and given them the parameters of where to be, and aren’t giving them various instructions starting from the time they cross, and they know that they have to cooperate with border patrol in order to be compliant with the asylum process that they have a legal right to, then how is that not being detained?”, she asked.
No US government agencies are taking care of the migrants in openair detention, said Arellano, with aid instead being left to volunteer organizations like hers. Border Kindness volunteers usually hike into the deserts and mountains along the US-Mexico border to drop off water and supplies for migrants. Now they’re also helping with the daily assistance for migrants at the OADs in Jacumba Hot Springs.
Migrants usually stay in the camps a handful of days until authorities take them to another facility to process their claims for asylum. Border patrol sometimes asks the volunteers to bring specific items for migrants in need, she said. “We have received pushback for this work in some way from authorities in the past, and now they rely on it.”
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
‘It’s a mess’
As volunteers made the rounds to check on folks, 30 more migrants arrived on foot. They were wearing backpacks, and appeared dusty and tired. A border patrol van drove by without stopping.
Among the volunteers at Jacumba Hot Springs is a woman some migrants call “Aunt Bunny”, and whom the Guardian is not identifying to protect her identity.
Born and raised in the desert region, she said it was a part of their culture growing up to learn basic paramedic skills, like how to treat rattlesnake bites and put out fires. And for over a month, Aunt Bunny has been leading the medical response at the open-air detention sites. She visits them multiple times a day: triaging new arrivals, monitoring people with chronic conditions, and treating injuries – all with donated supplies loaded onto the back of her SUV. She calls the situation chaotic.
“If our government’s going to allow this to happen, and they are, they need to deal with it in a more appropriate fashion. One bottle of water a day and one granola bar – that’s what CBP is giving the people – doesn’t have a high enough caloric intake,” she said. Dehydration is a big problem that the cold at night only exacerbates. People with diabetes, high