Word: desertic
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...middle of Arizona's Sonoran Desert, the bright-blue flag and the 65-gal. water tank are hard to miss. This is no mirage; it's the work of a small volunteer group called Humane Borders, which last year began to erect emergency watering stations in the desert to help aliens stay alive as they try to enter the U.S. As the Rev. Robin Hoover hauls heavy plastic containers of water from his car, he explains its mission: "We want to take death out of the equation...
...three popular trails coming up from Mexico. "We are allies in that effort," says David Aguilar, the patrol's special agent in charge in Tucson. And no wonder. As border-patrol agents shut down safer avenues through cities and towns, coyotes and their charges are pushed farther into the desert to cross, taking greater risks. That has discouraged some immigrants from making the journey; it has also killed hundreds...
...been taking hold. Humane Borders wants to rekindle a long tradition of locals' quietly helping along northward-bound aliens with food, water and sometimes a little cash. Father Robert Carney, a priest in Douglas, Ariz., holds prayer vigils at border-crossing points and often goes out into the desert to dispense toiletry kits and water bottles to people crossing over. The Rev. John Fife, an activist in Tucson, has earned three felony convictions for harboring immigrants and now permits the newly arrived to bathe at his Presbyterian church...
...have the most satisfying job in Juarez," says Arturo Chavez. He drives what the locals call a pipa, or water pipe. For poor Mexican neighborhoods like Anapra, a desert slum of 5,000 families with no water or sewer lines, tanker trucks like Chavez's are the only source of water clean enough for drinking and bathing. So when pipa No. 415 pulls up over the dunes, it's a community event: families emerge from their shanties as if to greet a rich uncle bearing gifts. Chavez pumps 500 gal. of free water into concrete cubes called pilas, which...
...population of 1.3 million and 50,000 more arriving each year. Huge clusters of tiny workers' houses rise out of the sand and stretch in every direction. "It's instant urbanization," says Nestor Valencia, who directed El Paso's city planning for 11 years. "One year it's a desert. The next it's a city...