Members of Desert Eagles – Desert Eagles – search for a missing user on August 28, 2021, near Three Points, Arizona.
THREE POINTS, Arizona – With 3 miles to go and the relentless Arizona desert sun hitting them, the search team turned to two vultures that turned in front of them, a sign that could take them to the missing immigrant.
Using a remote mountain peak as a landmark and a general concept of where he was last seen, members of Águilas del Desierto, or Desert Eagles, complex in a horizontal line Irvin, who had traveled to the border from the Mexican town of Puebla. , had been absent for 10 days. At this point, they were looking for a framework so that they could at least give Irvin’s circle of relatives a sense of closure.
During the week, Águilas del Desierto volunteers paint on farms, as assistant coaches and medical assistants, but some weekends they search for those in need along the U. S. -Mexico border, many of them once undocumented and some have made trips across the border.
Among them Francisco Gonzalez, a middle-aged boy who culminates in collecting cash and vegetables in Southern California, who years ago sold fruit to Ely Ortiz, the president of Águilas del Desierto, and discovered how it works. undocumented.
“If one day I get my papers, I need to sign up for you,” Gonzalez told Ortiz at the time. “I dreamed of signing up for them because what they were doing was so nice for me. “
In 2018, Gonzalez became a U. S. resident and almost without delay began volunteering at Águilas del Desierto, sometimes his circle of relatives will make it difficult for him to let them pass in search, but when Gonzalez doesn’t leave, he stays up at night wondering. whether he intended to locate the missing person.
Friends and strangers will tell Gonzalez he’s crazy, but he’s not. One day it may be just your circle of family or a friend who gets lost there and you’ll call us for help, Gonzalez tells them. , said he crossed the border with his wife many years ago and had to sleep outdoors for days.
“For migrants, the desert can be very unhappy about what we are suffering,” Gonzalez said. “But it’s also anything cute because you cross the clothes on your back with nothing yet and the hope that something bigger is waiting for you. “. “
(Clockwise from the most sensitive left): Desert Eagles Volunteers Gene O’Meara, Francisco González, Margarito Cruz and Ernesto Mejía
Desert Eagles receives up to 50 calls daily from families whose loved ones have disappeared in the desert, abandoned by their smuggler, before the organization initiates a search, it must ensure that the missing user is not in the custody of the U. S. immigration government. USA Or you have not been deported; otherwise, a percentage will be made with the U. S. Border Patrol. USA About where the user would have been for the last time, using data from other immigrants or main location points sent through the lost user. The government cannot locate them, Águilas has at least one starting point for the search.
If Águilas investigators locate the user alive, they give her water, food and a choice: should they go on alone or call the Border Patrol for help, even if it hurts, said Ortiz, the president, the organization. it can’t send the user itself, that would be crossing a line, and if they catch it, the U. S. government will be sent to the user. The U. S. government will never allow you to continue your work.
“It’s ruthless and painful because some walk seven or eight days and we allow immigration to take our people away,” Ortiz said. “But if we get into our van, we would be charged with human trafficking and our project is over. “
Even if a missing user is taken into border patrol custody, at least he is alive and can get out again, dying like so many others in the desert, he added.
So far in fiscal year 2021, the Border Patrol has discovered the remains of 383 immigrants near the border, a figure that surpassed the total of 253 in 2020 and is the one recorded since 2013, when authorities discovered the remains of 451 immigrants. carried out 10,528 rescues so far this year, up from 5,333 in 2020.
Advocates point to higher physical barriers, such as the border wall, and hardline policies as the explanation for why desperate immigrants take more damaging and faraway routes to be detected. maximum number of immigrants returning to Mexico or their countries of origin. At the same time, the U. S. border government blames callous traffickers who are just looking to make money and let immigrants die.
Meanwhile, for Ortiz the paintings never end, his phone rings 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, and he selects, they are misleading calls, which rarely come from the lost immigrants themselves, one of them was a woman recently lost in The woman said that maybe she could not take it anymore and Ortiz asked him to send him the data of his location so that he could call and ask for help. It would be bigger for her to die in the desert than to return to the life she was fleeing, a life that included threats from an abusive ex-husband and little support.
Ortiz told her to fight for her children because they needed her and begged her to send her her location, she nevertheless relented and sent Ortiz a photo of her landscape to help the rescue team, in the foreground was the woman’s face, her dry lips were cracked and bleeding from the side. He stayed on the phone with her until the ambulance arrived.
“It’s hard to walk away because to think I miss a call like that or not give it my full attention fills me with dread,” Ortiz said.
But the paintings have wreaked havoc. Ortiz underwent two spinal surgeries and was momentarily paralyzed, after a month in a rehabilitation center, he spent another 4 months in a wheelchair, despite this he continued to coordinate the search from his computer.
“It’s not a task you can prevent and what you need to get started is a commitment,” Ortiz said.
After the disappearance of his brother and cousin along the Arizona border in 2009, he became concerned about finding out for needy immigrants, which is when he learned how complicated it was to get help from consulates and the border patrol. Ortiz joined an organization to search for his brother and cousin, however, by the time they were discovered, they were dead.
Investigators located Irvin on Saturday, finding only the pieces discarded by the migrants who had made the same trip: bottled water, backpacks and old clothes.
Volunteers locate evidence, such as a pitcher of water (left) or a backpack (right), that this is an address used through immigrants.
Desert Eagles recently landed in Ajo, Arizona, where they can camp after a search. On Saturday night, the organization ate poultry tacos and toast in the shade, exchanging jokes and stories of the day. The organization also exchanged recommendations with Desert Chaplains, or Desert Chaplains, a Tucson-based organization that needs to be informed about how to conduct its own research.
At a nearby table, Ortiz tested a map, making plans for the next day’s search for Warner, some other missing type from Mexico, the little data his circle of relatives had provided, but from what Ortiz could understand, Warner was somewhere the assets of a U. S. army base.
In 2020, Ortiz said Águilas del Desierto discovered the remains of another 28 people, more than any past year, and discovered another forty-five people alive So far this year, they have discovered the remains of 8 other people, which Ortiz attributed to not having spaces where there could be more.
Sometimes the most difficult task is to get permission from landowners to conduct research. The pandemic has made things worse because Native American reservations, which have been hit hard by the virus, may not give them access now to control infection rates through flight. foreigners, and it can take weeks to get permission from a military base.
Volunteers pay attention to the commandos of the founder of Águilas del Desierto, Ely Ortiz, for the day of the search for a lacking young man.
“We don’t have much for army bases, where in years past we discovered a lot of bodies,” Ortiz said.
The organization was only able to get permission to access some of the land they were looking for to search for Warner on Sunday. Unlike the previous day, the terrain was dry and the heat more intense. The organization deployed, making sure they didn’t break the line. Keeping in touch with walkie-talkies as they searched for dry riverbeds and steep rocky hills. Again, the volunteers did not locate the user they were looking for. Ortiz fears Warner is close to assets that Águilas can’t access.
Águilas has also won increasing calls about the lack of immigrants in Texas, some of whom are families with young children, which is rare in California and Arizona, where most of those wanted are single adults.
Christina Otero, who recently moved from San Diego to a network outside dallas, was tasked with building a volunteer organization in Texas. Otero met Ortiz and his wife, Maricela through their daughters and began signing up for the search.
She hesitated at first, however, Otero saw how Águilas helped people, and as a former immigrant who had crossed the border illegally, she understood the call for help.
“Most of the members of the organization are immigrants who have followed the same paths as the other people we are for,” Otero told BuzzFeed News. “We know how they suffer. “
Otero will never do it the first time he saw the remains of someone they were looking for, just the missing young man’s leg with a shoe and a piece of his skull. The rest of his body had been recovered through animals.
“It’s very unhappy when we locate leftovers, but at the same time it can be smart because we can bring a little comfort to the family,” Otero said. “But when we locate other people alive, you are filled with joy because you know they are leaving the desert alive. “
On a recent weekend, when Otero and others asked for the donations they have to do the research, several other people approached the organization to thank them for locating the circle of relatives.
“A young woman came up to me and said, ‘My brother is alive because of Águilas,’ and hearing those words is what helps me move forward,” Otero said. “It’s not charity, it’s a service. “
A volunteer carries a cross that will be used in case human remains are placed in the search.