Dear Friend of IRTF,
I’m Lilly, the German ARSP volunteer this year. I had heard from former volunteers that they were able to join a delegation to Central America or Colombia during their time with IRTF, and I really wanted to do that too, to feel closer to the issues we work with every day. But after a few weeks of the Trump administration, it became clear that I couldn’t leave the country—it was uncertain whether I’d be allowed back in. As an alternative, Brian suggested that I travel to the US-Mexico border, and that’s what I did.
On Saturday, May 3, I flew to southern Arizona where I stayed for two and a half weeks.
The following day, I attended an orientation with the Tucson Samaritans. They are a human rights organization run entirely by volunteers. Their main focus is water trips— small groups of two to four people drive into different parts of the Sonoran Desert around Tucson to leave water, food, first aid supplies, and other vital items for migrants crossing the border.
They hike to established drop-off points which are known to be on paths of people who cross the desert and leave the supplies in buckets or under crates.
I went on several water trips. For three weeks in a row, I joined the weekly water trip to Chimney Canyon, south of Tucson.
In my second week, I joined a two-night trip to Ajo with the Samaritans. We drove through the Tohono O’Odham Nation Reservation, a few hours west of Tucson. The Tucson and Ajo Samaritans work closely together because the desert around Ajo is particularly deadly; volunteers from Tucson support them monthly. The landscape there was very different, and the hikes were longer and more intense.
While hiking, we repeatedly found black water bottles—used because they’re harder for Border Patrol to spot in the dark—as well as clothing, like shoes and jackets.
The items left behind by migrants are the closest I got to them in the desert. Holding a black bottle and thinking about which hands had held it before was very powerful to me.
Besides water drops, the Tucson Samaritans also do search and rescue missions and what they call “crosses trips.” I joined one of the crosses trips with the artist Alvaro Enciso, who has been placing handmade crosses in the desert for over ten years at the locations where people have died while trying to cross. He often takes interested people with him.
Together with Alvaro, a school class, and two other Samaritans, we drove into the desert to plant a new cross and check on two older ones. The new cross was for an unidentified person who died just a two-minute walk from the road where we parked. A woman walking her dog had found the bones and the person’s backpack under a tree next to a trail.
Alvaro explained that most people who die in the desert never have a funeral in their home. Families don’t know if they lost phone reception, were detained by Border Patrol, or died. That’s why it’s important to him to give them this ceremony and remembrance. But it’s also a way to shape the landscape and raise awareness to the dreadful reality.
Most of the people who die in the desert are never found.
I also went to the Tucson Immigration Court for an “Operation Streamline” hearing. I met there with Katarina, a volunteer who attends these hearings every day to document them.
Operation Streamline was a U.S. immigration enforcement program that criminally prosecuted nearly all “undocumented border crossers” in mass court proceedings, raising serious human rights concerns for its lack of due process and detention conditions. Though officially ended on paper, similar practices continue. The mass trials are only possible because people plead guilty because they would otherwise face a much higher prison sentence.
Forty-two people sat on wooden benches in the court room. Men in orange jumpsuits, three women in red jumpsuits. They were handcuffed, and their hands were chained to a chain around their waists, their legs were shackled together so they could only take small steps. When a group walked forward, you could hear the clanking of the chains. They couldn’t negotiate putting on the interpretation headphones and microphones themselves, so a court staff member had to do it for them. It was degrading, dehumanizing.
Each group of defendants—about nine or ten at a time—was called up to stand in front of the judge. She asked the same nine questions to each of them; they all answered the same: "Sí" or "No" and "Culpable" (guilty) at the final question.
And then it started all over again. The judge’s words, the answers—everything repeated 42 times.
You could easily replace the judge with a robot. It was like an assembly line.
The human who dreams of a better life gets turned into a commodity for the enrichment of the rich.
Outside the courtroom, Katarina explained that in the past, people were brought straight from the desert to their court proceedings, often spending only one night in detention beforehand. Now it’s ten days or more due in part to court backlogs but also because prison operators profit from longer detentions.
She calculated the cost: 42 people, 10 days, $150 per day; that’s $63,000 that the government pays the prisons. And that’s before the six-month sentences begin.
What I saw in this court was horrible.
The extreme militarization in the region was overwhelming as well. We passed through Border Patrol checkpoints every time we drove into the desert. The Border Patrol presence felt constant—white cars marked with green stripes, unmarked white cars which the Samaritans still recognized, camera towers, drones, ground sensors, helicopters. The desert never felt fully peaceful; the military presence was always with me. Sometimes it was just in the back of my mind, subconsciously; other times when we heard the helicopters, it was the only thing I could think about. I can't possibly imagine how people who cross the desert—in constant fear of being detected by Border Patrol—must feel.
The time I was in Arizona also coincided with the arrival of the military. On my second day, someone showed me a picture of a tank that was just spotted at the border wall. Later, driving to Ajo, we saw tanks parked at the Border Patrol station on State Route 85 in Why (an unincorporated area in Pima County). The local paper (Ajo Copper News, May 14, 2025) reported between six and ten vehicles. On our way back, we passed two tanks on the highway. On my final water trip, in Chimney Canyon, we encountered four soldiers in the desert. One of the Samaritans asked if they were military or National Guard. They laughed. One said, “I don’t know.” Everyone I was with was sure they were military. That same day, we saw a military helicopter. This military presence is unprecedented.
The Air Force regularly trains in the same desert areas where we went for water trips. Every time we went out, we saw or heard fighter jets overhead.
To gain a deeper understanding of Native perspectives, I visited Saguaro National Park, where I learned about the sanctity of the land for Native communities.
I listened to an interview with a Tohono O’Odham man who talked about his culture and how the border impacts his community. Part of the community lives in Mexico and part in the US; the border wall disrupts the natural flow between them. He described the wall as if someone were scraping a knife across his mother’s belly.
I attended a protest to protect Oak Flat (Chí'chil Biłdagoteel), a sacred site for the Apache people currently threatened by mining. Apache Stronghold is fighting a legal battle to prevent the land from being transferred to a mining company.
Driving through the desert, I saw many mines—unnatural, deep cuts in the landscape where there once were thriving mountains full of life.
But there was also so much that was beautiful. The natural landscape was breathtaking—unlike anything I had ever seen. I met so many warm, committed people. All the people who organize and make a difference together with the Tucson Samaritans, Ajo Samaritans, the Arivaca Aid office, the Global Justice Center which houses SOA Watch, the Apache-Stronghold, Alvaro, Katarina and many other groups and people I met gave me hope.
The trip to the borderlands was deeply meaningful to me. It gave me a much deeper understanding of the situation at the US-Mexico border and a deeper emotional sense of what migration means, not only at this border but at all borders. Seeing the vastness of the desert, walking on the same paths as people trying to migrate. Always knowing that I will sleep in my bed and they will sleep in the desert tonight. Standing next to this hateful wall and spotting Alvaro’s crosses everywhere. This was very different from reading articles or looking at photos.
What I experienced brought me closer to IRTF—our work and our mission.
It is important that we educate ourselves and help others educate themselves on why people undertake such a dangerous journey, leave their homes, friends and families behind and together with them change the conditions that force them to leave.
I am incredibly grateful to all the supporters of IRTF and to everyone who contributed to make this trip possible.
Thank you!
Lilly
Lilly Wehrmann,IRTF volunteer associate
ARSP volunteer 2024-25
Action Reconciliation Service for Peace
