Border Angels desert water drop for migrants

Border Angels is a non-profit organization headquartered in San Diego. They advocate for human rights and immigration reform.

The non-profit has also made it a mission to help put an end to migrant deaths in the southern desert by dropping gallons of water in remote areas of the desert where migrants cross.

Every month Border Angels, organizes a water drop with a group of experienced and new volunteers.

Carrying gallons of water, they hike through some of the toughest terrain near the Southern California border to leave water and survival packages for migrants.

” They know they’re coming over here and that they’re not wanted, they know they’re coming over here, and they’re going to be living in the shadows. To see not just a gallon of water, but a message of welcome, we want you to live, and we value you, ” said Jaqueline Arellano , Border Angels water drop director.

In 2018 U.S. Border Patrol recorded 283 migrant deaths at the Southwest Border.

It’s a number, humanitarian agencies say is higher, because many human remains in the desert are never found.

“This is a humanitarian crisis in our own backyard,” said Arellano .

According to Border Angels heat exhaustion and dehydration are the top causes of migrant deaths in the desert.

” There’s people crossing for days, weeks, months, away from their homeland. We are out for an hour, and we’re seeing signs of heat exhaustion, what are the people that are crossing through the desert experiencing, ” said James Cordero , Border Angels advanced water drop director.

” Who is just going to wait with their children, waiting for their number to be called.

Desperate times call for desperate measures and what we are seeing now is more women and more children taking to the desert to migrate. What that means is more women, children, and families are going to die, ” said Arellano .

Recent happenings and tragedies surrounding immigration and humanitarian aid have been weighing heavy on some Border Angel volunteers.

” She was hitting the key points you know. We’re frustrated we’re angry. Instead of using violence we’re harnessing that energy and releasing it by doing water drops, food drops, clothing drops for whoever might need it, ” said Jesse Madera, Los Angeles resident.

Madera is just one out of the many volunteers that travel to the Southern border to help save lives.

” He told me about what he was going to do alone, and I was like your not, I gotta be a part of this, it’s so powerful and there was no way I can miss that. I try to stress the fact that, it’s never about race it’s about helping your fellow man. It’s very vital , we have to help each other in order to grow, ” said Jimmy Quiroz , Inglewood resident.

Many of the volunteers are also people who have been a product of migration.

“Actually my mom was pregnant with me when she crossed, so im just doing this for her in a way,” said Luis Perado , El Centro Resident.

Perado’s mom was four months pregnant when she decided to take the dangerous trek across the border, eighteen years ago.

With his mom’s blessing, Perado wanted to pay it forward and volunteer.

“She gave me her bendicion , and she told me to save lives,” said Perado .

It’s miracle stories like Perado’s that keep Border Angels motivated to do more.

“People have come up to our leaders in those events and have said, hey I was crossing and I came across your gallon, I was out of water, or I was out of food, and that saved my life,” said Arellano .

” When you start seeing the signs the footprints and everything, that’s when it really hits home to them. A lot of our volunteers are some way related either first or second generation americans where their parents or grandparents have crossed, ” said Cordero .

Arrellano emphasized that the face of migration has changed and help is needed now, more than ever

“It’s no longer just men that come over here to work manual labor jobs, now it’s woman, now it’s children, and they are not migrating, they’re fleeing,” said Arellano .

“Knowing who and what is at stake just keeps me motivated,” said Arellano .

For migrants who enter the U.S. through the southern desert, crossing paths with a gallon of water may be their last chance at survival.

For July’s water drop, Border Angels placed over one hundred gallons of water at popular paths of migration along the El Centro and San Diego Border Sector.