Second Place, News Picture Story - Lisa DeJong / The Plain Dealer, “Border Wall”President Trump says there is a crisis at the southern border – of illegal immigration, crime and drugs. He says the nation should spend billions of tax dollars to build a wall. Yet sheriffs along the border in Arizona say a steel wall is not the answer, noting that illegal immigration is at a historic low, crime is down and drugs mostly flow through legal points of entry. The steel wall that separates Mexico and the southern United States is not only a physical wall, but a line where fear and hope collide. Though Trump’s anti-immigration policies have turned a blind eye to vulnerable asylum seekers fleeing violence in their own countries, volunteers, activists and artists are proving that compassion rules at the border - and a wall is no barrier for humanity. Ohio volunteers join forces with the Tucson Samaritans, a humanitarian aid group that hikes food and gallons of water along migrant trails deep into the harsh desert landscape. About 3,000 migrant bodies or skeletons have been found in the Arizona desert since 1999. The Samaritans say it is all about saving lives, no matter what country they are from. "The government is using the desert to kill people," artist Alvaro Enciso says of the desperate migrants making their way north from the Mexican border for a better life. "They died looking for the American dream," he said. His art project of planting crosses in the desert honor the dead. "The vultures do very well out here, they always have dead bodies to eat.” In this first picture, Flora Martinez, looking through the fence from the Nogales, Arizona side, visits with her family who live on the Mexican side. Last year the U.S. welded a heavy steel mesh between the slats. Martinez escaped violence in Mexico and lives in the U.S. on a work visa. She wants her family to seek asylum to also be freed of constant fear. Trump's immigrations policies make it nearly impossible for them to seek asylum, separating the family for years now.
Second Place, News Picture Story - Lisa DeJong / The Plain Dealer, “Border Wall”The border wall between Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, and Nogales, Arizona, rises between 18 and 24 feet tall. It is made of vertical, triangular steel beams and topped with coils of razor wire. On Feb. 2, just days after this picture was taken, the U.S. Army began installing the razor-sharp concertina wire all the way to the ground after orders came from Washington D.C. to fortify the wall. Nogales, Arizona Mayor Arturo Garino was furious about the dangerous addition of the razor wire and explained it was not needed. Garino said it makes his city look like East Berlin. Of the 1,954 miles of border between the United States and Mexico, about 580 miles already have a wall or some sort of barrier.
Second Place, News Picture Story - Lisa DeJong / The Plain Dealer, “Border Wall”Wood painted crosses left for loved ones are leaned against the border wall in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. Bryan Martinez Miranda, 24, who lives in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, leans in close from the Mexican side to speak with his mother Norma Alicia Miranda Leyva, 53, through the border wall. Bryan is studying renewable energy in Mexico. Norma lives in the United States directly across the street from this spot in the turquoise house in the background on West International Street. Leyva wanted to live as close as possible to the border. When her arthritis flares up and she cannot walk down the stairs from her second-floor, one-room apartment, she steps out onto her balcony and waves to her son looking through the border wall. "It's been four years since I was able to hug any of my sons," she said through a translator. She said she became upset when she heard a rumor that Trump was planning to replace the current wall with a solid, metal one. "That would have been terrible," she said. "It's hard enough now, but at least we can touch and see one another. I don't know if I could stand being unable to do the little we can."
Second Place, News Picture Story - Lisa DeJong / The Plain Dealer, “Border Wall”A young man carrying bread walks by a shrine in honor of Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez, the spot where the 16-year-old boy was shot and killed in October 2012 by a U.S. Border Patrol agent on the corner of Calle Internacional and Ingenieros streets directly across from the border wall on the Nogales, Sonora, Mexico side. Bullet holes can still be seen in the wall on the upper right hand side. The boy was shot eight times in the back and twice in the head by American Border Patrol agent Lonnie Swartz in 2012 in response to rock throwers. The chief of internal affairs for Customs and Border Protection was quoted saying it was the most egregious shooting he had ever seen. American juries acquitted Swartz of murder and involuntary manslaughter charges in two trials.
Second Place, News Picture Story - Lisa DeJong / The Plain Dealer, “Border Wall”The border wall was no barrier for the Martinez family as four generations gathered on both sides of the wall around the new addition, baby Layla Morena, in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. New mother Dania Morena, left, holds her daughter Layla Morena during a visit with her mother, Flora Martinez, who peeks through the fence on the Nogales, Arizona side. Flora Martinez, who traveled from Phoenix, is meeting her new granddaughter for the first time today. On far right is Dania Morena's grandfather, Clemente Martinez, father of Flora Martinez. The family used to be able to stretch their arms through the four-inch gap in the beams for an awkward hug, but last year the U.S. welded a heavy steel mesh to the walls in Nogales. Martinez escaped violence in Mexico and lives in the U.S. on a work visa. She wants her family to seek asylum to also be freed of constant fear. President Trump's immigrations policies make it nearly impossible for them to seek asylum, separating the families from each other's daily lives for years now.
Second Place, News Picture Story - Lisa DeJong / The Plain Dealer, “Border Wall”Children are fed by volunteers here at Escuela Biblica N.A.N.A. in the Rosarito Dos neighborhood high above Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. The N.A.N.A. Ministry, a Hispanic title which translates to Children Helping Grateful Children, is a non-profit organization that feeds and houses children in the poor neighborhood of Rosarito Dos. The need is great, as many of the children's parents have left to cross the border into the United States.
Second Place, News Picture Story - Lisa DeJong / The Plain Dealer, “Border Wall”Dulce Belen Garcia Nara, 17, her daughter Genesis Elisa Santos Garcia, 2, far left, both fleeing Guerrero, Mexico, pass the time underneath the laundry line at the La Roca shelter next to the border wall. Child on far right is another child at the shelter, Ashlee Valentina Sereno Diaz, 4, who is fleeing violence in Honduras. The organization Cruzado Fronteras runs this shelter and volunteers assist migrants trying to enter the United States. La Roca currently houses about 30 families and is typically their last stop before they wait in line to seek asylum in the United States. Some languish for months here, stranded in U.S. immigration purgatory.
Second Place, News Picture Story - Lisa DeJong / The Plain Dealer, “Border Wall”Volunteers are proving that compassion rules at the border. Samaritan co-founder, Shura Wallin, 77, left, adds some levity to the dire situation as she laughs with Edwin Velásquez, 34, and his daughter Cintia Velásquez, 12, as they wait outside the food shelter she helps run called El Comedor near the border in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. The father and daughter have practically walked to Nogales to escape the violence in their home country of Guatemala. Wallin, who used to run a homeless shelter in Berkeley, California, has been volunteering down in Nogales for almost 20 years. Wallin has a black belt in karate and offered to teach self defense to women coming through the shelter. El Comedor, run by Jesuit priests and nuns, turned down her offer.
Second Place, News Picture Story - Lisa DeJong / The Plain Dealer, “Border Wall”Neythan Bermudez, 4, left, eats a banana, as his sister Naydeiyn Bermudez, 15, and his cousin Ayiyn Bermudez, 3, play with a stray dog at Escuela Biblica N.A.N.A. in a neighborhood that lives next to a dump high above Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. The N.A.N.A. Ministry, a Hispanic title which translates to Children Helping Grateful Children, is a non-profit organization that feeds and houses children in the poor neighborhood of Rosarito Dos. Volunteers bring food daily. The need is great, as many of the children's parents have left to cross the border into the United States.
Second Place, News Picture Story - Lisa DeJong / The Plain Dealer, “Border Wall”Underneath the searing sun, Volunteer Ricardo Osburn, 68, walks with fresh gallons of water towards a water drop in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona. "We just want to eliminate deaths in the desert," Osburn said. "That's what it is all about - saving lives." Osburn, a member of the Tucson Samaritans, works with Ohio volunteers to load up 72 gallons of water and drives for hours through the unforgiving desert landscape near Coyote Well in South Pima County at an elevation of 4,000 feet. A couple of times a week, the Samaritans leave food, water and blankets on well-traveled migrant trails. Today, Osburn checks on eight water stations and makes sure 12 gallons of water are left under milk crates.
Second Place, News Picture Story - Lisa DeJong / The Plain Dealer, “Border Wall”Homemade shoes with carpet sewn into the soles - which make it harder to trace footprints in the desert - are left behind by drug smugglers in this heavily traveled corridor off of South Fuller Road near Three Points, a town southwest of Tucson, Arizona. “The carpet shoes do not leave footprints, the black water jugs do not reflect light, the burlap sacks are specifically designed for marijuana and the clothing is gray-green to blend into the landscape,” said Pima County Sheriff Deputy James Allerton, Public Information Officer. “This was an area where the smugglers waited for their contacts,” he said. “Drug smugglers use the same paths as people entering the country illegally.”
Second Place, News Picture Story - Lisa DeJong / The Plain Dealer, “Border Wall”"The government is using the desert to kill people," says artist Alvaro Enciso about the desperate migrants making their way north in the harsh desert from the Mexican border. "They died looking for the American dream." James Goodreau, 76, of Tucson, carries a wooden cross while following Enciso through the Altar Valley, just east of the Baboquivari Mountains, 50 miles southwest of Tucson in Pima County. The cross Goodreau is carrying is for Olaf Avila Gonzalez, a 19-year-old Mexican male migrant, whose skeletal remains were found in the desert in 2004. "The vultures do very well out here," Ensico says. "They always have dead bodies to eat.” Goodreau is volunteering with artist Alvaro Enciso for his public art project called "Donde Mueren Los Suenos", or "Where Dreams Die". Enciso says he has covered 40,000 square miles, putting up crosses to honor migrants whose remains have been found in the desert. He has planted over 850 crosses in the desert over the last six years. The peak on the Baboquivari Mountains, in background, has been used as a navigation point by migrants crossing the border heading north. It is a sacred mountain for the Tohono O'odham Nation. Enciso has a team of volunteers for every weekly outing. His project is based on the information and GPS coordinates that the medical examiner in Pima County keeps for migrant deaths in southern Arizona.
