Arizona Journalism Students Profile U.S. Immigration System's Victims

Lately, it doesn't seem like anything good is coming out of Arizona. From the "paper's please" SB 1070 to assaults on birthright citizenship, the state is becoming a black spot full of bad ideas for violating constitutional rights and demonizing immigrants. But Arizona State University journalism students are putting out some A+ articles as part of their News21 Latino America project, which puts a human face to the problems of our immigration system.

We already know how much children suffer from lawmakers' refusal to pass immigration reform to create a family-based system. Torn from one or both parents or sent to a strange country where they cannot speak the language, left in foster care or, worse, homeless: these are only some of the trials faced by children, many of them U.S. citizens, who are collateral damage of the strict deportation system. Journalism student Erynn Elizabeth Reitmayer profiles some of these casualties, like Christopher, who was only one-and-half when his drug addict father reported his mother to immigration to thwart her intention to leave and take her children to a safer place. Unfortunately, it is not rare for an abusive partner to misuse the system in this way. Soon after her deportation to Mexico, a friend checked in on the children left behind, which probably saved Christopher and his three-week-old brother, who were sitting on the floor alone, covered in blood, their father nowhere to be seen.

Another set of articles explore the plight of immigrant women: trafficked, missing, raped, detained. Unable to find work in Mexico, 21-year-old Iris attempted to cross to America to provide for her sick mother and her sister's child. Betrayed by the coyote she paid $2,000, she submitted to rape to keep the men who found her from killing her little sister. When rape survivors like Iris are picked up by Border Patrol, they rarely receive any help for their trauma, and nobody inquires into the violent crime against them. Lauren Gilger writes, "Investigating the cases of rape victims like Iris is simply not their job. Deporting them is." But should it be? Should we be focusing all our resources on deporting women looking for work to support their families, or the men who raped them?

And then there are the dead. Hundreds of people die every year attempting to cross the desert, and death by dehydration and heat exhaustion is not a quick or painless death. Back when Senator John McCain (R-AZ) wasn't catering to nativists, he read a graphic account from an Arizona paper: "When the body temperature reaches 107 degrees, the brain cooks, and the delirium starts. ... My friends, that's what this is all about." It's a humanitarian crisis that shows no signs of decreasing; as Rebekah Zemansky reports, "So far 2010 has broken records for migrant deaths each month."

Meanwhile, families on both sides of the border wait anxiously for news on missing relatives, wondering if one of the many unidentified bodies find is their husband or wife, father or mother, son or daughter. “By the time we ID’d him he had a 3 or 4 month little baby son,” laments Robin Reineke, who works for the Pima County Medical Examiners Office, referring to Carmen Antunez Grande, who died trying to rejoin his wife in America.

Arizona legislators should listen to the stories their journalism students are telling. Checking papers on the street isn't going to protect children's well-being, prevent the rape or trafficking of women, or reduce border deaths — the true crimes and humanitarian crises we should be spending a bit more time worrying about.

H/T ImmigrationProf Blog

Photo credit: Wonderlane