Sara Busey - Operation Streamline Go-To
May 25, 2015 by Judith Whipple
Small, strong, always with a smile, Sara shows up. That’s important on the Arizona-Mexico border, because joining others equally committed to social justice is a matter of life and death for hundreds of migrants from Mexico and farther south.
A retired school teacher from Missoula, Montana, Sara and husband Henry began wintering in Green Valley in 2007. Later, joining a Sahuarita/Green Valley Samaritan friend on a “Border Issues” journey to the detention prison in Florence, Arizona, she spoke with a migrant.
Soon, Sara became a regular with Sahuarita/Green Valley Samaritans. She joined in Searches for migrants in distress and visits to El Comedor food kitchen for returned migrants in Nogales, Sonora.
In the fall of 2014, Sara began to lead groups attending the expensive federal formulaic trials called Operation Streamline (OS) that sentence about 10% of those migrants who have been arrested in the Tucson sector.
Every Wednesday, Sara and others head from Green Valley to the De Concini Federal Building in Tucson. They observe the public proceedings that begin daily at 1:30 and can last until 3:00. Though few of the approximately 70 shackled migrants petition the magistrate of the day, witnesses have heard heartbreaking things. “Please don’t send me back to Mexico. I don’t want to be kidnapped again.” “When you come to Mexico, we welcome you. When we come to America, why don’t you welcome us?”
Occasionally the magistrate or a lawyer will talk informally with the witnesses about this punitive U.S. policy that attempts to deter migration. “It’s costly and doesn’t work,” said one. Another offered, “These folks are desperate. They wouldn’t risk death in the desert and $3,000 to pay a guide if they weren’t.”
Sara posts dollar figures for the Sahuarita/Green Valley Samaritans after each Wednesday visit. For example, one day’s detention for a total of 3,690 days comes at a cost of $956,340 to be borne by the taxpayer; on trial day, 14 lawyers earn $125/hr. each. “In Harm’s Way,” a 2014 study by Jeremy Slack, University of Texas professor, found that "despite billions of dollars spent, thousands of deaths and millions of people detained...only 2% fewer of those who went through O.S. said they would cross again.”
“I’m so curious about the whole system,” Sara says, regularly showing up and looking for answers.
A retired school teacher from Missoula, Montana, Sara and husband Henry began wintering in Green Valley in 2007. Later, joining a Sahuarita/Green Valley Samaritan friend on a “Border Issues” journey to the detention prison in Florence, Arizona, she spoke with a migrant.
Soon, Sara became a regular with Sahuarita/Green Valley Samaritans. She joined in Searches for migrants in distress and visits to El Comedor food kitchen for returned migrants in Nogales, Sonora.
In the fall of 2014, Sara began to lead groups attending the expensive federal formulaic trials called Operation Streamline (OS) that sentence about 10% of those migrants who have been arrested in the Tucson sector.
Every Wednesday, Sara and others head from Green Valley to the De Concini Federal Building in Tucson. They observe the public proceedings that begin daily at 1:30 and can last until 3:00. Though few of the approximately 70 shackled migrants petition the magistrate of the day, witnesses have heard heartbreaking things. “Please don’t send me back to Mexico. I don’t want to be kidnapped again.” “When you come to Mexico, we welcome you. When we come to America, why don’t you welcome us?”
Occasionally the magistrate or a lawyer will talk informally with the witnesses about this punitive U.S. policy that attempts to deter migration. “It’s costly and doesn’t work,” said one. Another offered, “These folks are desperate. They wouldn’t risk death in the desert and $3,000 to pay a guide if they weren’t.”
Sara posts dollar figures for the Sahuarita/Green Valley Samaritans after each Wednesday visit. For example, one day’s detention for a total of 3,690 days comes at a cost of $956,340 to be borne by the taxpayer; on trial day, 14 lawyers earn $125/hr. each. “In Harm’s Way,” a 2014 study by Jeremy Slack, University of Texas professor, found that "despite billions of dollars spent, thousands of deaths and millions of people detained...only 2% fewer of those who went through O.S. said they would cross again.”
“I’m so curious about the whole system,” Sara says, regularly showing up and looking for answers.