We’ve heard isolated stories of federal officials interfering with activist groups along the border, as in the case of No More Deaths volunteer Dan Millis, who was ticketed for littering after leaving a canister of water for migrants crossing the desert. Unfortunately, it seems these incidents are part of a broader crackdown against activists by a variety of federal agencies, a disturbing pattern brought to light in an excellent piece by Tim Vanderpool for the Tucson Weekly.

“Officially, migrant deaths here [in the desert south of Arivaca, Arizona] each year number in the hundreds. Humanitarians who hike this country call those numbers bullshit,” Vanderpool writes. “They say the desert is haunted by thousands of unfound dead people.”

And in the last year or so, as Vanderpool documents, activists with several groups who provide water, food, and other supplies for migrants have noticed increasing interference with their work from "federal agencies ranging from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management to the Border Patrol."

This crackdown could keep untold numbers of migrants from completing their journeys. Julianne Ong Hing wrote in a recent issue of ColorLines that last summer, volunteers from just one of these organizations, No More Deaths, "had face-to-face contact with 580 migrants, giving them food, water or medical attention. It’s a statistic ... that does not count the untold numbers who empty the canisters of water and supplies left along the trail by humanitarian aid groups every night."

Sources: Tucson Weekly, ColorLines 

Image by benketaro, licensed under Creative Commons.

For the kid inside of you who still dreams of being president, take note. It seems the bar for getting on the ballot in Arizona is mighty low. Jim Nintzel of the Tucson Weekly announced in November:

It turns out that all you have to do to get on the Feb. 5 presidential primary ballot in Arizona is fill out a nomination form. You don't have to pay any fee; you don't have to gather any signatures. Yes, that's right: The state of Arizona will take anybody. There's no political party with veto power to cock-block our fun this political season.

With that opening shot, the alt-weekly began its strange and entertaining train wreck called Project White House, an ongoing feature that showcases a weird, self-selected menagerie of real dark horse candidates, all vying to capture the paper’s endorsement, while they soak up some free coverage.

With tongue securely in cheek, on January 3 Tucson Weekly ran a “Meet the Candidates” article profiling all 25 of their participating candidates, none of whom chart on the national stage.

Presidential hopeful Col. Karl E. Krueger stumps: “You may have noticed that I am not a good-looking man. In the electronic age of visional media, we are voting more and more for the best-looking. Abraham Lincoln wouldn’t stand a chance today.”

Candidate Sean Murphy “considers himself an old-school Republican. Like John McCain once did, he believes agents of intolerance like Pat Robertson have no place in the nation’s dialogue. Like Rudy Giuliani once did, he believes that hard-working immigrants, whether they’ve crossed the border legally or not, are the sort of people we want in this country. Like Mitt Romney once did, he believes that a woman should decide whether to have a child, rather than leaving the decision in the hands of government.”

Watching real people launch themselves into the presidential electoral circus makes for a great show. Unfortunately for that kid inside of you, your bid will have to wait until 2012: The deadline to file passed on December 17. Tucson Weekly’s endorsements will be announced in their January 31st edition.

—Jason Ericson