A Social Action Shared Offering will be taken for No More Deaths/No Mas Muertes on Sunday, February 24, 2019. No More Deaths is a humanitarian organization that grew from a coalition community and faith groups including the UU Church of Tucson. Since 2004, NMDs has been working to alleviate suffering and death on both sides of the US-Mexican border. In this country, volunteers hike the desert to leave water, food, basic supplies, and provide emergency first to assist migrants who are attempting to walk across remote and hostile terrain. In northern Sonora, NMDs offers first aid and assistance with phone calls and basic needs such as a check cashing service for those deported with prison checks that cannot be cashed in Mexico.
While the number of border crossing has dramatically decreased, deaths have increased. The hostility of the government at ports of entry has resulted in immigrants risking longer walks through more remote reaches of the desert. The government is also putting pressure on people of conscience who are living their faith by providing humanitarian aid. Just last month, four NMD volunteers were convicted in federal court of misdemeanor crimes such as entering a wildlife refuge without a permit, abandonment of property (by leaving bottled water in an area of the desert known as the “trail of death”) and operating a motor vehicle in a wilderness area. One other volunteer could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted on charges of harboring for providing food, water and shelter to two undocumented people. Kindness and humanitarian aid is never a crime and the Social Action Committee asks you to support this brave work.
Learn more about our church’s periodic Social Action Shared Offerings – or SASOs – here.