Over the last 7 months we have seen BP agents speed up and down the border wall road with little regard for the lives they could be endangering. We are frustrated and saddened that asylum seekers were harmed in this reckless incident.

https://twitter.com/MelissaLaLinea/status/1799592466892665087

We believe this incident would not have occurred if people were allowed to present for asylum at ports of entry, as is their right under national and international asylum law. Not in the middle of the desert, 35km from the nearest road.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report/1…

Our latest report (Left to Die) is part of a series called:

DISAPPEARED: How U.S. Border Enforcement Agencies are Fueling a Missing Persons Crisis.

The series is really long, so here's a brief summary. ⬇️🧵 Border Patrol created a crisis of death + disappearance as a strategy of enforcement.

Known as “Prevention Through Deterrence,” the strategy funnels people crossing the border into remote + dangerous areas of the desert.

The architects of the policy knew it would kill people.

In LEFT TO DIE, we document how families of the disappeared face a negligent and hostile Border Patrol search and rescue response system.

Lacking adequate government emergency services, many seek help from aid groups.

Border Patrol routinely obstructs these efforts. 🧵⬇️ Families often receive urgent calls from loved ones who are lost and in distress in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, or from an eyewitness who was with them in the desert.

These calls can contain crucial details regarding the person’s location and medical condition.

Biden’s immigration bill will "escalate death-as-deterrence border enforcement under the guise of 'smart border controls' and the spurious 'humanitarian' initiatives of Border Patrol."

@_maxgranger | @ElFaroEnglish
elfaro.net/en/202102/colu… "A new report [by] No More Deaths and La Coalición de Derechos Humanos finds that [Border Patrol's "life-saving" initiatives] are aimed at diverting attention from the agency’s official policy of pushing migrants to their deaths."

"When calls for help are transferred to Border Patrol, they are handled by an 'aggressive enforcement agency' that has 'no accountability'..."

@CurtTucsonStar on cell phones, migration, and how Border Patrol leaves people to die. tucson.com/news/local/for… “Dealing with the root causes that are putting people out into the desert with no cellphone reception and leading them to die on U.S. soil because of blisters on their feet, that is what needs to be addressed, more than beefing up law enforcement,” she said.

In our report, we show that search and rescue for migrants is separate and unequal. When citizens are lost, border counties respond with all resources at their disposal. When they suspect a missing person of being undocumented, the case is transferred to Border Patrol. Border Patrol works alone with no transparency. In the cases we analyzed, 27% of emergency cases that BP responded to ended in disappearance. In contrast, local SAR teams boast a near 100% success rate of search and rescues for citizens and tourists in similar areas.

📣CALL TO ACTION! Every year, Congress gives more than $25 billion dollars to ICE and CBP to profile, jail, deport and terrorize immigrants.🧵 Our new report finds that Border Patrol systematically ignores and mishandles the search and rescue emergencies of migrants, who are funneled into dangerous and remote terrain by the agency's policy and practices.

Our new report — Left to Die: Border Patrol, Search and Rescue and the Crisis of Disappearance — is out now! (thedisappearedreport.org).

Here are some of our KEY FINDINGS 🧵⬇️ There is an urgent need for emergency search & rescue services for undocumented people in distress in the US-Mexico borderlands.

For the second time in two months, the U.S. Border Patrol and their SWAT unit, BORTAC, raided our humanitarian aid camp in a military style assault, chasing + terrorizing migrants receiving care.

BORTAC is a product of the hyper-militarization of border enforcement [A THREAD] BORTAC is BP's special forces cosplay unit, formed in 1984 to repress uprisings in INS detention centers.

The unit’s participation in the raid is a result of @DHSgov’s funding for police across the country. @memomiller / @democracynow) [2/13]
democracynow.org/2020/7/23/fede…

Disturbing photos show the aftermath of last night's raid at Byrd Camp. Border Patrol and BORTAC arrested people receiving care and ransacked the humanitarian aid station, ripping apart tents and destroying medical supplies.

🚨🚨🚨 UPDATE — At sunset last night, in a military-style assault, Border Patrol raided our humanitarian aid camp, chasing and arresting 30+ people who were receiving care and detaining all aid workers, whose phones were confiscated along w/ any video footage of the raid. In a massive show of force, Border Patrol + BORTAC—the same militarized tactical unit recently mobilized against protestors in US cities—descended on the camp with an armored vehicle, three ATVS, two helicopters, and ~24 marked and unmarked vehicles.

NEW DOCUMENTS obtained by #FOIA request indicate the US Border Patrol union—a pro-Trump, anti-immigrant extremist organization—provoked the agency to raid our humanitarian aid camp and clinic in 2017. The documents also reveal #BORTAC’s involvement in the raid (1/x) The documents include an email to top level CBP commissioners, urging the agency to crack down on @NoMoreDeaths. While the sender is redacted, we deduce that the author is Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council and notorious anti-immigrant fanatic.

BREAKING: Dr. Scott Warren found NOT GUILTY on all charges for providing food, water, shelter, and medical care to two undocumented men. Yet again, No More Deaths has withstood the government’s attempts to criminalize basic human compassion. This verdict is validation of what we have always known: that #humanitarianaidisneveracrime

We will continue to provide food, water, and medical aid to all those who need it, until the day that no one dies or disappears while crossing the deserts and oceans of the world.

Trial today began with video of the interrogation of the two men arrested with Dr. Warren, Jose and Kristian, detained until they testified, then deported. We acknowledge that these stories are not ours to tell, but we also don’t want their experiences to be erased. Jose and Kristian are from Honduras and El Salvador, respectively. Like so many people who attempt this journey, they had traveled for months by the time they scaled the wall and entered the Arizona desert. #noalmuro #noborderwall

A guilty verdict in Dr. #ScottWarren's case will be a catastrophe, but even if Scott is acquitted, the crisis of death and disappearance along our southern border will continue. Take action today at bit.ly/waternotwalls. Our #solidarity asks include (1) Share the video made explaining the dangerous #precedent Dr. Warren's case could set:

Today, as Scott Warren's misdemeanor trial for leaving water for people in the desert on #CabezaPrieta, the refuge ironically posts this about the importance of drinking water in the desert - for pronghorns: which they must resupply with water driven through the wilderness area on trucks. Today @USFWS regional director Juliette Fernandez testified that they put blue flags on animal water tanks, but this water is not safe for humans to drink.