Donald Trump incites against migrants – this woman saves their lives

She spots the men first. High up on a hill on the Mexican side, she detects movement in the bushes. First by one person, then another, finally by a whole group dressed in camouflage uniforms.

“Agua,” she calls loudly in Spanish. “Agua, agua, agua. We have water and food.”

Gail Kocourek, 78, stands at the wall of the US-Mexico border in the Arizona desert, 20 kilometers from the nearest town. She is wearing a red T-shirt with a white cross on it and the imprint “Samaritan” and is looking through a hole in the wall that former President Donald Trump once had built. In her car she keeps water canisters, food, medication and water filters ready.

“Life-saving things,” she says casually. “I have already had to save hundreds of migrants in the desert.”

The ten men come closer and initially stand a few meters away. They check the situation. “Agua,” Kocourek calls again, “don’t be afraid” and hands out water bottles to the men. They put them in backpacks and a conversation ensues for a few minutes:

“Where are you from?” she asks.

“From Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras,” they answer.

“From Puebla,” says a woman dressed as a man, “Puebla in Mexico.”

“How long have you been traveling?”

“A few weeks. We waited in vain for an asylum appointment for months. Now we’re going over on our own.”

Kocourek is now stopping the questioning. She doesn’t want to know the details. It treats everyone equally, refugees and day laborers, regardless of whether they apply for asylum or come into the country illegally.

“Where do you want to go?” asks the reporter.

“Towards Tucson. We don’t know the exact route.”

“With smugglers?”

“Someone here knows his stuff,” one of the men replies diplomatically.

“You know how dangerous it is. Four days through the desert. Do you have enough water?”

“We each have two or three bottles.”

Kocuorek hands them two filters that are supposed to help clean brackish and rainwater. She wishes them “Suerte” – good luck.

The migrants go back to the Mexican side to cross the border further east, in an area that is difficult to control. Then they have to walk 60 kilometers through the Sonoran Desert, through cold nights and hot days. If they are caught, the border police will arrest them, deport them and punish them with an entry ban.

Gail Kocourek has been coming to this border point and many others for more than ten years. She has completed more than a thousand missions. Every day she or one of her colleagues from the aid organization Tucson Samaritans travels across an area the size of Hesse, looking for refugees, survivors – and sometimes corpses. She sees it as a humanistic mission and defends herself against criticism that she helps illegals make it into the country.

“Firstly, there are no illegal people. And secondly, no one can want them to die of thirst. I hope we can agree on that.”

The number of migrants has fallen sharply. In December 2023, up to 10,000 a day crossed the 3,000 kilometer border between the USA and Mexico, but now there are less than 2,000 a week.

This is primarily due to the measures taken by the Biden government and his presidential decree from the beginning of June: If more than 2,500 asylum seekers are apprehended per week, a two-week admission freeze will automatically begin until the numbers fall below the 1,500 mark again.

In practice, this amounts to a ban on asylum. Biden and Harris, faced with poor poll numbers, were forced to make radical changes to migration policy. The reform they negotiated with the Republicans had previously failed due to Donald Trump’s veto.

“This makes it even more dangerous for migrants,” says Kocourek. “Many are now stuck on the Mexican side for months. They are exposed to drug cartels and protection rackets, especially women.” Many are so desperate that they try to cross anyway. For fear of being caught, they took great risks and crossed the border at night, alone, in small groups. Only the strongest can make it.

“Did you just see the woman?” she asks. “She doesn’t look like she can keep up with the group. If she falls behind, no one will take care of her. She’ll die of thirst. It’s freezing cold at night, more than 50 degrees in the sun, there are rattlesnakes and cougars. More than 1,600 migrants have died here and many more have never been found. This is the place where dreams die.

Kocourek looks into the barren, mountainous interior. Her long, white hair blows in the dry wind. Her skin is deeply tanned after ten years as a cross-border commuter, her knees hurt and she drags her leg. It is 100 kilometers to the city of Tucson and 70 kilometers to the next settlement on Road 86. Four days on foot. In some places she has placed large water canisters, equipped with long poles and clearly visible flags, to signal that there is water here.

The greatest danger is not from border officials, but from “vigilantes”, so-called vigilante groups – Trump fans who hunt migrants. “They shoot through the canisters so that the water runs out,” says Kocourek. “Or they pour gasoline in it. Nobody gets upset about that.”

When she’s out and about, she’s especially looking for vultures. “Wherever vultures are circling, you know that an animal or a person is dying. The vultures tell you what’s happening in the desert.”

Gail Kocourek gets into the car and drives along the border fence, which suddenly ends 35 kilometers east of the Sasabe settlement. Trump wants to continue building here if he is re-elected. In total there are still more than 2000 kilometers missing.

“It will never succeed,” says Kocourek. “It’s completely impossible. People dig holes underneath and climb over them, they burn holes in the wall with welding machines.”

As if to prove it, she points to a large hole about five meters wide. In total it counts 23 openings along the 35 kilometers. She also points to scraps of clothing that were tied together to climb over the wall.

“The wall is infinitely porous. It’s a bottomless pit. The construction only makes the drug cartels rich, who demand up to $10,000 in tolls per migrant. I just met Indians who had to pay $10,000. 5,000 here. 5,000 dollars at Arrive in Tucson.”

She calls the wall “America’s scar.”

Kocourek continues to a small border camp run by her organization, called “Little Havana” because so many Cubans once stopped here. It consists of a tent, cots, supplies of water, granola bars, energy drinks. “Migrants from Syria have come through here, from Guinea, Sudan, Bangladesh, Liberia and China,” she lists. “This week we had a new nation: Albanians.”

There are currently five migrants in the camp, a sibling and a family. They are suspicious of the helpers and are visibly afraid. They say they fled protection rackets. They come from the state of Morelos and have asked for an asylum appointment, but have been waiting in vain for months. “We couldn’t wait any longer,” says Eder, the leader.

The refugees are now all in this dilemma. They had to leave their homeland, but can’t get into the USA. “There’s a lot of fear on the other side of the border right now,” says someone named Canito.

“We want to get in quickly before Trump,” says Kari, his sister. You’ve all heard Trump calling migrants “murderers, rapists, terrorists” and warning that they are “poisoning the blood of the country.”

She drives over to the other side of the border, to Sasabe, Mexico, a ghost town. After a war between two drug cartels a year ago, all residents fled and are only slowly returning. The Tucson Samaritans had to close their own relief office in Sasabe, “Casa de la Esperanza,” the House of Hope.

“Everything is falling apart here,” she says as she stops at the house. Dogs roam around. The grass grows through the paving slabs. Plastic bags get caught in the fence. Window panes are smashed. She drives on quickly so as not to run into a gang member in the ghostly deserted streets.

Meanwhile, thousands of migrants are stuck in the next largest border city, Nogales. But not a single one dares to go to Sasabe. “That’s the biggest problem here,” says Kocourek. “Human smuggling is firmly in the hands of the drug cartels. If people want to cross the border alone, the gangs sabotage the escape. They force migrants to pay.”

It’s getting dark, she sets off home, three hours to Tucson, a lonely drive on which she hardly sees any cars. After a few kilometers she is stopped by the border police, the K-9 unit, the dog unit.

“Oh, it’s you Gail,” says the man. “Is everything quiet?”

“Everything is quiet,” she replies.

They know each other well. They value each other. “It’s a myth that we’re all enemies here,” says Kocourek. “The border guards are good guys. They just have to follow the law.”

She herself has been interrogated several times and accused of helping “illegals.” “There is no law that prohibits me from helping people,” she then replies. “I’m just not allowed to transport them. I’ve done it anyway, in emergency situations when they’re dying.” She was not arrested.

“I’ll take the risk,” she says as she drives on the long, straight highway through the starry night, always towards the illuminated Tucson sky. “I’m almost 80. Should I hand over my moral courage at the front door now?”