Ben Bergquam, the host of Real America’s Voice Law and Border, recently filmed an expose of a taxpayer-funded Non-Government Organization (NGO) called ‘No More Deaths,’ where a member of the group admitted, on film, that the people in the compound were in the United States illegally.
Bergquam knew from Border Patrol that the group is named, No More Deaths and is operating to assist people in breaking into the United States and assisting drug cartel members in getting past law enforcement and into the country.
In fact, the group is very out in the open, telling people what they are doing is illegal, by in person and on their website.
The group has been raided in the past by Border Patrol, Bergquam said in the film below. As Bergquam pointed out, what is happening there is illegal. What makes it worse is that the offenders are running their operations as a nonprofit, allowing them to take donations and have very little to no oversight of their activities.
No More Deaths is a ministry of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. All contributions are tax-deductible, the website says.
The social justice church’s motto is that they are a “liberal light in the desert”.
And what they are doing is being done knowing the harm they are committing to the lives of the American people. Watch as Bergquam finds a stunned man who tries to hide what is happening on the grounds.
“Unbelievable footage of illegal alien camp on US soil in Arivaca, Arizona, run by an organization called “No More Deaths,” which is paid for in part by the taxpayers of Pima County. You won’t believe what happened while I was there! Shut this place down and prosecute the people behind it!” Bergquam posted with the video.
According to the group’s website, the group has been busted many times before and are still operating knowing they are illegal:
EIGHT ACTIVISTS HELPING MIGRANTS CROSS BRUTAL DESERT CHARGED BY US GOVERNMENT
Rory Carroll, The Guardian, January 24, 2018
Eight humanitarian volunteers who help migrants survive desert treks have been charged with federal crimes, prompting fears of an escalating crackdown by the Trump administration.
The volunteers, all members of the Arizona-based group No More Deaths, appeared in court on Tuesday charged with a variety of offences including driving in a wilderness area, entering a wildlife refuge without a permit and abandoning property—the latter an apparent reference to leaving water, food and blankets on migrant trails.
The charges came a week after No More Deaths, a coalition of religious and community activists, published a report accusing border patrol agents of condemning migrants to death by sabotaging water containers and other supplies. It also accused agents of harassing volunteers in the field.
Hours after the report’s publication one activist, Scott Warren, 35, was arrested and charged with harboring two undocumented immigrants, a felony. No More Deaths stopped short of calling it retaliation for the report but said the timing was suspicious.
Warren was among the eight who appeared in court this week. It is a separate case which predates the report; the defendants started receiving summonses last month.
However, No More Deaths said the charges fit a pattern of interference in efforts to save the lives of migrants who trek for days or weeks across harsh deserts which bake by day and freeze by night.
“The charges also come during a nationwide crackdown on immigrant rights organizers, while the Trump administration seeks to end Daca, and increase deportations, potentially forcing thousands more into the dangerous desert journey,” it said in a statement on Wednesday.
The charges relate to activities in Cabeza Prieta national wildlife refuge, which covers more than 800,000 acres of remote desert along Arizona’s border with Mexico.
Some 32 sets of human remains were found there last year, according to the Pima County office of the medical examiner, making it one of the region’s deadliest crossing routes. It has few natural water sources.
Border patrol agents have free rein in the refuge but activists are denied permission to use administrative roads and since July last year are banned from leaving humanitarian supplies, said No More Deaths.
Sid Slone, the refuge manager, told the Guardian activists have the same access as the general public. He declined to elaborate on migrant and humanitarian activity in the refuge, citing the legal case.
Border crossers are advised to drink between five to 12 litres of water daily, depending on conditions. Few manage to carry more than seven litres even though journeys can last weeks.
The No More Deaths report said water containers were vandalised 415 times, on average twice a week, in an 800 sq mile patch of desert south-west of Tucson, between 2012 and 2015. It said border patrol agents were the main culprits, citing video and other evidence.
The border patrol said it does not condone such vandalism and that rescue beacons and search, trauma and rescue units often save migrants’ lives.
The agency tangled with activists on occasion during the Bush and Obama administrations but there has been a marked uptick since Donald Trump entered the White House. Dozens of agents entered a No More Deaths encampment last June and removed migrants who were receiving medical care.
The Guardian accompanied Warren, the activist facing felony charges, in 2015 when he inspected water supplies left at Organ Pipe Cactus national monument. “It’s satisfying to know people are getting the water,” said Warren, an Arizona State University instructor.
Last Wednesday, the day of the report, border patrol agents detained him in the town of Ajo on suspicion of supplying food, water and clean clothes to two undocumented migrants.
And this is some of what they admit to doing:
No More Deaths is a humanitarian organization based in southern Arizona. We began in 2004 in the form of a coalition of community and faith groups, dedicated to stepping up efforts to stop the deaths of migrants in the desert and to achieving the enactment of a set of Faith-Based Principles for Immigration Reform. We later developed into an autonomous project. Since 2008 we have been an official ministry of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson.
MISSION
The mission of No More Deaths is to end death and suffering in the Mexico–US borderlands through civil initiative: people of conscience working openly and in community to uphold fundamental human rights. Our work embraces the Faith-Based Principles for Immigration Reform and focuses on the following themes:
- Direct aid that extends the right to provide humanitarian assistance
- Witnessing and responding
- Consciousness raising
- Global movement building
- Encouraging humane immigration policy