PHOENIX — Arizona clergy are calling activists to gather this weekend at the state’s border with Mexico and leave large jugs of water on remote trails for migrants who continue to cross the desert during the dangerously hot summer.
The Sunday gathering organized by faith leaders and local groups such as No More Deaths comes just a week after the U.S. Border Patrol detained a group of 95 Central Americans, including at least one infant, in the area near the border, where the heat regularly exceeds 100 degrees during the summer.
The people from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador ranged in age from 3 months to 60 years and were found to be in good health. They were turned over to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
The Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association who was a Phoenix minister for nine years, said she wants to demonstrate solidarity with migrants and aid workers. Arizona faith leaders have a long history of activism and were at the forefront of the 1980s sanctuary movement that provided safe haven to Central Americans fleeing civil war in their homelands.
Also traveling to southern Arizona will be Rachel Gore Freed, a human rights attorney with experience representing migrants.
The vice president of the faith-based Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, Freed said the stream of Central American migrants still crossing the region underscores “the incredible violence they are fleeing.”
The administration of President Donald Trump has been outspoken in its opposition to illegal immigration and promotes the construction of a border wall.
The activists will set out shortly after sunrise Sunday to leave gallon jugs of water along trails frequented by migrants in the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge near Ajo, Ariz.