Border Network for Human Rights (BNHR)

While BNHR does work to monitor law enforcement and to lobby for changes in anti-immigration policies, the emphasis from its inception has been on organising immigrant communities themselves so that they are aware of - and empowered to exercise - their rights. BNHR began its work by offering meetings to educate people about their human rights, but found that immigrants - fearful of persecution for their legal status - would attend only one meeting and never come back. The organisation thus moved beyond simple talks and began to prepare people to become their own human rights promoters.

In order to build the capacity to carry out community-based human rights work, BNHR offered training sessions. The training model and methodologies were conceived of and tested within Latino communities (Mexicans, Centro Americans, and South Americans); all materials are in Spanish. This training was designed to provide the promoters not only with the educational values to internalise rights and to educate their communities (collective dynamics to understand and apply the United States Bill of Rights and the Universal Declaration in its local and practical reality), but offered them organisational values and principles to build a highly participatory process to defend these rights (internal democracy, accountability, consultation, etc).

Once trained, these promoters created self-sustaining Human Rights Community Based Committees that, through time, created BNHR. The committees gather in communities to read the Bill of Rights and to learn about universal human rights. In addition, a youth group made up of teenagers from these communities meets to learn about the Bill of Rights and talk about their own needs. In 2004, they organised a summer camp where they painted a banner to communicate BNHR's commitments, met farm workers from the region, and wrote and performed skits about the constitutional amendments. Paola Rodríguez, a sophomore in high school, explains, "In school they teach you about the Bill of Rights and you never learn them...But at the Border Network summer camp, we learned about our rights by acting them out."

However, the BNRH philosophy is not that rights come from the Constitution or the United Nations; rather, rights are understood to arise from communities themselves. During the first activity promoters use to sensitise their communities, they ask participants to imagine that they are establishing a new community. In response to the question, "What are the human needs that we need to fulfill to have a dignified life?", they draw these needs on paper. As a part of the activity, the promoters then take away their drawings, rip them up, and throw them away. "Do you think those were your rights?" they ask the stunned participants. "No. Those drawings represented your needs but they are not your rights." This activity reflects the BNHR's conviction that a right is that which is understood and defended, within a community.

BNHR, which is housed in an old abandoned factory in El Paso, Texas, is founded on full participation of its members and promoters. All decisions are made in assembly, by unanimous agreement of all the members. During the 2002 assembly, committees collected their communities' perspectives to formulate 13 points of struggle: permanent residency, constitutional rights, labour rights, dignified housing, education, health, nutrition, public services, culture and language, political participation, human mobility, dignity and respect, and peace and justice. In 2003, approximately 800 people from 250 families in diverse communities on the border in East El Paso and Southern New Mexico were registered in the Network.

Members carry out various communication initiatives to raise awareness about their rights and to mobilise community members to defend and protect those rights. In October 2004, more than 200 men, women, and children marched in El Paso, Texas, holding coloured flags painted with their 13 points of struggle. The march was organised by BNHR who, along with ex braceros from the Farm Workers Union and displaced workers from the Border Workers Association, "took back" so-called "Columbus Day" and renamed it the "National Day of Immigrants," with a public forum in the morning, a march at midday, and a cultural festival in the afternoon. During the morning forum, the immigrants met in the office of the Farm Workers Union and one by one spoke out about the living conditions in their communities. They addressed a panel made up of a representative from the Mexican consulate, a civil rights lawyer, representatives from local dioceses, a representative of a local congressman, and two social workers. This panel was not present to speak, but, rather, to listen to the immigrants.

To cite another example, in December of each year, promoters apply what they learned in the human rights training and then work within their own communities to document cases of abuse. (BNHR saw that the common method of documenting abuses - that is, waiting for people to go to our offices to report cases - was not very effective, given the climate of fear and intimidation experienced by members of border communities). Promoters put up tables in public places like churches, schools and supermarkets; they also go door-to-door to collect testimonies. These campaigns have been covered by local TV news stations, and the results of the campaigns have been published in national newspapers such as The Washington Times (USA) and La Jornada (Mexico City). A full report of the campaigns was sent to several law enforcement agencies, local congressional offices, and the United Nations.

Dialogue and advocacy work with those in positions of power is another programme strategy. BNHR representatives travel regularly to dialogue with legislators in Washington, DC (USA) and Mexico City (Mexico), asking members of congress in both countries to promote more humane immigration policies. BNHR has also engaged the immigrant community in dialogue with the Border Patrol as part of its yearly human rights documentation campaign. As Martina Morales, regional coordinator of BNHR in Southern New Mexico, explains, raids in her region were greatly reduced after December 5 2003, when BNHR organised a community forum in Anthony, New Mexico, for people to speak directly with Border Patrol authorities and report violations of their human rights. Morales also recalls the first BNHR assembly in 2001. Beforehand, members spoke with the local office of immigration to announce that several buses full of human rights promoters (many of them undocumented) would be arriving at the assembly, and they hoped no one would be detained. Apparently, the buses arrived without problems.

Human Rights.

The most frequent abuse reported by BNHR communities is that local police demand papers when they detain people for speeding or some other traffic violation, even when they are not authorised to do so. But the reports go beyond abuse by police and immigration agents. A promoter indicates that "Many young people do not go to high school because of discrimination and gangs. They get disillusioned because they say they will never go to college." One young BNHR member would seem to agree: "Today, the only thing we can do is work in agriculture and other jobs where we would be paid minimum wage." Some young children have been denied entry into public elementary schools, reports a member whose 6-year-old nephew was kept out of school for a year because he did not have papers. BNHR reports that access to health services is also a problem, not only because of non-existent medical insurance for undocumented people but also because of the conditions in which these often impoverished people live and work.

Fernando García, BNHR's Director, explains that other social organisations existing in the late 1990s in the El Paso region only fulfilled immediate needs without trying to detain abuse, change practices, or educate the immigrant community. "Our organizing tool is not based on solving every one of our problems," he says. "The main tool is education about human rights and the rights included in the U.S. Constitution." When García arrived in El Paso in 1998, he worked with the American Friends Service Committee's Immigration Law Enforcement Monitoring Project. There, he realised that lack of knowledge of immigrants' own rights was a key problem. For example, immigrants would run when they saw a Border Patrol, an action which legally justified their detention, and they did not know that they could remain silent when asked questions by an immigration agent. "What we are fighting is a history of oppression, racism and abuse that has created a culture of fear and violence."

Reflecting on several years of work, BNHR admits that immigration policy still remains to be changed, but suggests that BNHR members no longer are so afraid: "Now no one runs [from the Border Patrol]," claims García. Further, he says, instead of paralysing people, the anti-immigrant policies imposed after September 11 2001 moved immigrants to action: "Many social spaces fell apart at that time, but that is when the Border Network grew most." BNHR documentation indicates that illegal entries by immigration agents into homes of immigrants have been reduced by 70% in communities where BNHR committees exist. In 2004, BNHR carried out a brief survey through the Human Rights Committee of Vado, NM, on the status of illegal entries and checkpoints for the area of Vado, Berino, and El Cerro NM. Community members and BNHR organisers reported that during 2003 the checkpoints within these communities were discontinued and that the number of reports on illegal entries dropped sharply in 2003-2004.