Day 3: Minuteman Ranch, Sasabe, Nogales

Day 3, Kyle Tansley

On our third day, we met with the Minute Men in Arizona. They led us on a path through the desert, and on the hike we saw a few disturbing things. We passed through a few lay up areas, where migrants discard items they no longer need. The first one was small; no more than 5 backpacks, a few shirts, some pants and shoes, many empty bottles and a few limes. We left soon after arriving, continuing down along the trail, encountering many empty bottles and abandoned backpacks along the way. We even found a few empty Red Bull and Monster cans, showing a few desperate attempts to increase travel speed.

The next ones were rather intimidating compared to this. Countless articles of clothing and backpacks were piled everywhere. There were empty electrolyte bottles and carrots baking in the brutal sun. There were empty bottles and cartons that were faded and forsaken, brittle and easily broken. We even found a half empty bottle of hot sauce in one of the backpacks. Were these people crazy? They hiked miles through the desert, only to discard clothing and food, mere miles from the highway.

But we heard the reason for all of this; the migrants often bring two sets of clothing: one for traveling in, and one for looking fly in. The lay up areas are where they discard their dirty clothes and objects, and change into their clean clothes, so they don’t look like they’ve just walked through a desert. It’s just another way for the migrants to fit in when they arrive.

But as helpful as it is to the migrants, it’s hard for the ranch owners to deal with. There is so much trash left behind, it’s a disgrace to the land, and a danger to the animals that feed there. They have about 400 cattle on their land, and if any of them tried to eat a backpack or a shoe, they would probably die. This is one of the reasons that so many ranchers are against illegal immigration.

On the “lay-up” area by Sarita Krugman

When we met with the minutemen, we went on a small hike to the field. We saw some things we normally wouldn’t. It was incredible with the amount of junk we saw on our hike. There were clothes lying everywhere. Backpacks, hygiene products, limes, and food/cans/bottles. With the amount of trash there I would have thought that someone would have at least cleaned that stuff up but no one does. This was a ranch with many cows. It’s dangerous to leave all that stuff lying around because the cows could eat it and die from it because they can’t digest it. I would think that the people would clean it up for the cows but instead they’re worried about getting some kind of disease.