Migration through a child’s eyes

In December 2020, in the middle of the COVID pandemic and a month before Joe Biden was inaugurated, I visited the Arizona-Mexico border to learn about the border wall that the Trump administration was building and how it was impacting immigration policy. My guide was Father Neeley, a Jesuit priest who works for a migrant relief organization based in Nogales, a town that spans the border.

The day after I arrived, Father Neeley invited me to a mass he was giving in Arivaca, Arizona, a town 11 miles north of the border that sits on a route frequently used by coyotes bringing migrants across. As we bumped and rocked along the potholed asphalt to the church in my shiny blue rental car, Father Neeley explained why so many coyotes use this route: “Unlike further west, there’s no road to or along the border here, so ICE and the Border Patrol cannot get there, except in ATVs. They have to rely on drones and high-tech surveillance equipment.”

As we neared Arivaca, he had me pull over. “Get out and walk a bit,” he said. “Down in that valley over there. That’s the path that the migrants follow, through those mountains.” I climbed out and stumbled around in the hot, rocky terrain, amid the mesquite trees and scrub brush—and tried to imagine what the migrants endured. “Everything out here sticks or pricks or bites you,” Father Neeley said. “A gallon of water weighs eight and a half pounds. Can you imagine walking 20 or 30 miles through this terrain and heat with several gallons of water, a couple of kids, and nothing to eat?”  I could not.