theintercept--2020-10-13--Facebook Contractor Downplays Coronavirus Risk for Content Moderators

with sifting through some of the most heinous and traumatizing content on the internet faced a new hurdle this week when they were told to return to company offices to do their work in person as a pandemic runs rampant around them .
Audio obtained by The Intercept suggests that their employer , Accenture , is downplaying the risk of indoor exposure to Covid-19 .
When the United States began a patchwork national lockdown in March , Facebook contractors , paid a relatively low hourly wage with few of the generous perks afforded to the company ’ s full-time staffers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dispensable to the $ 750 billion company .
Beginning this week , as first reported by The Verge , these contractors must now resume working in the same facilities that Facebook ’ s full-time can safely avoid , having been told that they ’ ll be permitted to work from home through July 2021 .
“ Based on guidance from health and government experts , as well as decisions drawn from our internal discussions about these matters , we are allowing employees to continue voluntarily working from home until July 2021 , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Facebook has said that the contractors in question , who must wade through so-called priority zero content encompassing the worst of child sexual abuse and graphic violence , can ’ t safely do this work from home .
Three Facebook moderators employed through Accenture who spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity , because they are not permitted to speak with the press , expressed a profound worry that the company , and their ultimate bosses at Facebook HQ , are once again ignoring their safety in the name of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ An October 2 virtual meeting , a recording of which was obtained by The Intercept , did little to lessen moderators ’ dread over resuming indoor work at previously shuttered Facebook offices in Texas and California .
Accenture moderators were told that the company considers them “ essential workers ” and therefore not subject to any state or local “ stay at home ” orders in effect .
After providing an overview of coronavirus precautions Accenture would be taking — including reducing the number of workers allowed in the office , mandatory use @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — an Accenture manager began to address questions submitted by the contractors .
“ Some of the questions we ’ re getting are what happens when I get sick , or what happens when somebody in the office gets sick , ” the manager said .
“ So now I ’ m going to dive in to , you know , how Accenture handles these situations .
Some of you have been in buildings where there have been notifications sent that somebody has tested positive , and that is a reality of where @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that will happen as people test positive , and it ’ s not necessarily something to worry about ” — audio cuts out briefly — “ been in direct contact.
” The executive then described the steps Accenture would take to contact and “ take care of ” any infected contractor , as well as conduct contact tracing to determine further exposure .
The workers in question were left less than reassured .
“ They ’ re getting talking points straight from Trump , ” one Accenture moderator told The Intercept .
Although @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spaced out at least six feet from one another and required to wear masks when not eating or drinking , such steps minimize but do not eliminate the risk of contracting the virus .
Accenture managers on the call touted the use of thermal fever-scanning cameras , as well as Facebook ’ s ability to track employee movements via their ID badges as a means of contact tracing to alert workers who are potentially exposed .
They made no mention of any added air filtration efforts that could remove viral particles as they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was the potential use of plexiglass barriers , increasingly popular to reduce the circulation of virus-carrying particles in indoor environments .
Accenture spokesperson Rachel Frey declined to answer specific questions about moderator concerns , but told The Intercept , “ We prioritize the safety and well-being of our people , and we ’ ll continue to proactively communicate with them about these measures and answer any questions they have.
” In a written statement , Facebook spokesperson Drew Pusateri told The Intercept , “ Since March , we ’ ve increased our use @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of our reviewers to work from home .
But considering some of the most sensitive content can ’ t be reviewed from home , we ’ ve begun allowing reviewers back into some of our sites as government guidance has permitted .
Our focus on reopening any office is on how it can be done in a way that prioritizes people ’ s health and safety .
We are putting strict measures in place , making sure they ’ re followed , and addressing any confirmed cases of illness.
” Moderators who asked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ avoid a logjam of people waiting for an elevator were told that the answer was probably no .
Accenture similarly demurred on the subject of routine testing ; when asked if moderators would need a negative test result to enter the office , a company manager replied , “ It ’ s a great question .
We don ’ t require you to test negative when you come to the office .
What we do ask is that everyone does that internal check before they show up : How do I feel ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ contact with somebody who is Covid-positive or exhibiting symptoms ?
” The call provided moderators with little in the way of concrete specifics in case they or a co-worker contracted Covid-19 , or what they ought to do if their personal or household health made in-office work too great a risk .
“ We will work with you , ” the moderators were told repeatedly , a claim met with skepticism given what contractors say is a yearslong record of deception and neglect by Accenture and its HR teams , specifically when it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one person tests positive , they get assigned an HR case manager , ” explained an Accenture manager on the call .
“ I ’ m actually one of the HR case managers , you and I would be buddies .
… You would get assigned to us and we would work with you to determine proper quarantine , health concerns , etc.
” When asked what would happen in case of a genuine outbreak among the Facebook moderators , an Accenture manager said only that “ there are different protocols set up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anyone asked to quarantine in case of such an event would not have to use their vacation days .
There was no indication from the call that Accenture or Facebook would actually shutter these work sites entirely in case of infections , instead relying on notifying people determined to have been at risk of exposure .
“ It ’ s absolutely sloppy , ” one Accenture moderator told The Intercept of the company ’ s pandemic outreach so far .
“ They didn ’ t give us anything in writing.
” Accenture also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pay for those forced back into offices , a galling omission to many of these contractors who for years have complained of second-class treatment and inadequate compensation given the psychologically brutalizing nature of their work .
An employee petition , first reported by Motherboard , called for a 50 percent increase in hourly wages for Facebook contract workers risking exposure by working on-site .
By comparison , Facebook ’ s full-time employees , not only assured they can work from home through the middle of next year , will receive an additional $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Business Insider reported .
Per the meeting recording , Accenture said it will reimburse workers for the cost of taking an Uber or Lyft into the office , though that of course carries its own additional risks of virus transmission .
Some moderators said this friendly , informal pledge of accommodation from Accenture is already showing cracks , telling The Intercept that high-risk workers who ’ ve presented the company with doctors ’ notes requesting to continue safely teleworking from home have been denied , with HR saying that the contractors in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ medical records to the company so that they can be vetted .
“ There are people with immediate health concerns and they were told to contact HR , ” said one moderator .
The relationship between moderators and Accenture HR has been fraught , particularly with regards to sensitive health information ; in August 2019 , The Intercept reported that Accenture moderators alleged the company had pressured in-office therapists to divulge patient data .
“ I ’ m angry that they think so little of our lives , ” the moderator added .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to give us hazard pay in a pandemic .
”

Facebook contractors tasked with sifting through some of the most heinous and traumatizing content on the internet faced a new hurdle this week when they were told to return to company offices to do their work in person as a pandemic runs rampant around them. Audio obtained by The Intercept suggests that their employer, Accenture, is downplaying the risk of indoor exposure to Covid-19.
When the United States began a patchwork national lockdown in March, Facebook contractors, paid a relatively low hourly wage with few of the generous perks afforded to the company’s full-time staffers, began to feel even more acutely dispensable to the $750 billion company. Beginning this week, as first reported by The Verge, these contractors must now resume working in the same facilities that Facebook’s full-time can safely avoid, having been told that they’ll be permitted to work from home through July 2021. “Based on guidance from health and government experts, as well as decisions drawn from our internal discussions about these matters, we are allowing employees to continue voluntarily working from home until July 2021,” a Facebook spokesperson explained to Business Insider.
Facebook has said that the contractors in question, who must wade through so-called priority zero content encompassing the worst of child sexual abuse and graphic violence, can’t safely do this work from home. Three Facebook moderators employed through Accenture who spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity, because they are not permitted to speak with the press, expressed a profound worry that the company, and their ultimate bosses at Facebook HQ, are once again ignoring their safety in the name of keeping the social network running smoothly.
An October 2 virtual meeting, a recording of which was obtained by The Intercept, did little to lessen moderators’ dread over resuming indoor work at previously shuttered Facebook offices in Texas and California. Accenture moderators were told that the company considers them “essential workers” and therefore not subject to any state or local “stay at home” orders in effect. After providing an overview of coronavirus precautions Accenture would be taking — including reducing the number of workers allowed in the office, mandatory use of masks, and entry temperature checks — an Accenture manager began to address questions submitted by the contractors.
“Some of the questions we’re getting are what happens when I get sick, or what happens when somebody in the office gets sick,” the manager said. “So now I’m going to dive in to, you know, how Accenture handles these situations. Some of you have been in buildings where there have been notifications sent that somebody has tested positive, and that is a reality of where we’re at today, and that will happen as people test positive, and it’s not necessarily something to worry about” — audio cuts out briefly — “been in direct contact.” The executive then described the steps Accenture would take to contact and “take care of” any infected contractor, as well as conduct contact tracing to determine further exposure.
The workers in question were left less than reassured. “They’re getting talking points straight from Trump,” one Accenture moderator told The Intercept. Although Accenture said that returning moderators will be spaced out at least six feet from one another and required to wear masks when not eating or drinking, such steps minimize but do not eliminate the risk of contracting the virus. Accenture managers on the call touted the use of thermal fever-scanning cameras, as well as Facebook’s ability to track employee movements via their ID badges as a means of contact tracing to alert workers who are potentially exposed. They made no mention of any added air filtration efforts that could remove viral particles as they accumulate and spread indoors. Also unmentioned was the potential use of plexiglass barriers, increasingly popular to reduce the circulation of virus-carrying particles in indoor environments.
Accenture managers touted the use of thermal fever-scanning cameras, as well as Facebook’s ability to track employee movements via ID badges as a means of contact tracing.
Accenture spokesperson Rachel Frey declined to answer specific questions about moderator concerns, but told The Intercept, “We prioritize the safety and well-being of our people, and we’ll continue to proactively communicate with them about these measures and answer any questions they have.” In a written statement, Facebook spokesperson Drew Pusateri told The Intercept, “Since March, we’ve increased our use of technology and enabled an overwhelming majority of our reviewers to work from home. But considering some of the most sensitive content can’t be reviewed from home, we’ve begun allowing reviewers back into some of our sites as government guidance has permitted. Our focus on reopening any office is on how it can be done in a way that prioritizes people’s health and safety. We are putting strict measures in place, making sure they’re followed, and addressing any confirmed cases of illness.”
Moderators who asked if they could use building stairs to avoid a logjam of people waiting for an elevator were told that the answer was probably no. Accenture similarly demurred on the subject of routine testing; when asked if moderators would need a negative test result to enter the office, a company manager replied, “It’s a great question. We don’t require you to test negative when you come to the office. What we do ask is that everyone does that internal check before they show up: How do I feel? Have in been in touch or in contact with somebody who is Covid-positive or exhibiting symptoms?”
The call provided moderators with little in the way of concrete specifics in case they or a co-worker contracted Covid-19, or what they ought to do if their personal or household health made in-office work too great a risk. “We will work with you,” the moderators were told repeatedly, a claim met with skepticism given what contractors say is a yearslong record of deception and neglect by Accenture and its HR teams, specifically when it comes to personal health. “If one person tests positive, they get assigned an HR case manager,” explained an Accenture manager on the call. “I’m actually one of the HR case managers, you and I would be buddies. … You would get assigned to us and we would work with you to determine proper quarantine, health concerns, etc.”
When asked what would happen in case of a genuine outbreak among the Facebook moderators, an Accenture manager said only that “there are different protocols set up for that,” but clarified that anyone asked to quarantine in case of such an event would not have to use their vacation days. There was no indication from the call that Accenture or Facebook would actually shutter these work sites entirely in case of infections, instead relying on notifying people determined to have been at risk of exposure. “It’s absolutely sloppy,” one Accenture moderator told The Intercept of the company’s pandemic outreach so far. “They didn’t give us anything in writing.”
Accenture also declined to answer employee questions about hazard pay for those forced back into offices, a galling omission to many of these contractors who for years have complained of second-class treatment and inadequate compensation given the psychologically brutalizing nature of their work. An employee petition, first reported by Motherboard, called for a 50 percent increase in hourly wages for Facebook contract workers risking exposure by working on-site. By comparison, Facebook’s full-time employees, not only assured they can work from home through the middle of next year, will receive an additional $1,000 “for home office needs,” Business Insider reported. Per the meeting recording, Accenture said it will reimburse workers for the cost of taking an Uber or Lyft into the office, though that of course carries its own additional risks of virus transmission.
Some moderators said this friendly, informal pledge of accommodation from Accenture is already showing cracks, telling The Intercept that high-risk workers who’ve presented the company with doctors’ notes requesting to continue safely teleworking from home have been denied, with HR saying that the contractors in question must formally consent to releasing their medical records to the company so that they can be vetted. “There are people with immediate health concerns and they were told to contact HR,” said one moderator. The relationship between moderators and Accenture HR has been fraught, particularly with regards to sensitive health information; in August 2019, The Intercept reported that Accenture moderators alleged the company had pressured in-office therapists to divulge patient data. “I’m angry that they think so little of our lives,” the moderator added. “They couldn’t even bother to give us hazard pay in a pandemic.”


theintercept--2020-10-13--How Texas Republicans Paved the Way for Their Own Demise

of Texas was gradual .
First came the shocking upset of populist Democratic Gov .
Ann Richards in 1994 , who was upset by the party boy-turned-evangelical George W. Bush .
Two years later , the GOP flipped the state Senate .
It wasn ’ t until the midterms of 2002 , with Bush in the White House and riding a post-9/11 wave of popularity , that Texas Republicans achieved their trifecta .
The new majority went to work quickly on two primary objectives : to make Texas the most hospitable state in the country for business and the least @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , they delivered on both fronts .
Yet success on their first objective ended up , to Republicans ’ great surprise , undermining their second .
Texas did indeed become home to hundreds of thousands of new jobs as companies either launched or newly headquartered there with generous subsidies and low taxes .
The problem for Republicans is that the environment they built to attract those companies also drew people to the state who are not Republicans .
In 2003 , one of the new majority ’ s first acts of business was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fund , an incentive program offering “ deal-closing grants ” to certain businesses considering coming to the state , which has distributed more than $ 600 million in grants since it started , according to the body ’ s 2019 legislative report .
Grants would only be awarded when Texas was competing with another state to attract a company site .
The effectiveness of those funds in creating new jobs is up for debate , as several companies receiving grants already had plans to come to the state , said University of Texas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ studies state business incentive programs .
But it was emblematic of the GOP ’ s approach .
No longer were Texas populists battling the barons on behalf of the little man .
The full power of the state would now be aimed at making businesses in Texas more comfortable and attracting as many from out of state as possible .
In Austin , the Republican-controlled legislature used the last two decades to create a business haven in the state , creating billions of dollars in corporate incentives and tax breaks .
Texas has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is one of nine states without one .
The state also has generally low taxes , a low cost of living , and relatively high quality of life .
It also has land — lots of it .
As housing prices soared in the 2000s , particularly in California , life in Texas , where a large home could be bought on a reasonable salary , people came in droves .
New developments sprang up as the suburbs of Dallas-Fort Worth , Houston , and Austin exploded .
Each new suburban development or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ activity , a virtuous circle that helped feed what became known as “ the Texas miracle.
” That miracle was concentrated in Texas ’ s major cities while poorer and rural areas saw declines .
Texas still has one of the highest poverty rates in the nation , and while the average rate declined slightly in recent years , almost 4 million people fell below the poverty line between 2016 and 2018 , the Houston Chronicle reported .
In their first year controlling the chamber , GOP legislators , guided by national Republicans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ did away with Democrats .
Because the state legislature had been divided the previous session , redistricting hadn ’ t been completed .
It was stuck in the courts , but the newly empowered Republicans decided to do it themselves , putting a radical gerrymandering on the House floor .
Democrats fled the state to try to deny quorum .
Holed up in Oklahoma , they became known as the “ Killer Ds.
” But Republicans got the map through anyway and cemented their majority .
Democrats clawed back slightly but were crushed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2010 , leading to a fresh new gerrymander .
Texas has also led the way when it comes to voter suppression — despite a rapidly growing population and the spike in turnout in 2018 , the state still ranks near last in voter turnout .
Texas ’ s slowly shifting political demography , from red to purple , is often attributed to its three fast-growing metro areas , which have drawn in Democratic voters from around the country .
A record number of voters in Texas have registered so far this year .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ and a backlash to Donald Trump among Republican voters in the state , could make 2020 the year Democrats take control of the state House for the first time since 2002 and possibly vote for a Democrat in the race for the White House and the U.S. Senate .
The success of Texas in luring so many well-educated workers predisposed to vote Democrat happened , in part , in spite of the Republicans , not because of them .
“ I wouldn ’ t ascribe that to the Republican Party or certainly not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” said former Democratic presidential candidate and Texas Rep. Beto O ’ Rourke .
“ A lot of this just has to do with ingenuity and innovation of everyday Texans who are making this a more and more attractive state.
” Some of that ingenuity is centered in the state ’ s major cities , which the Texas Republican lawmakers are regularly at war with .
“ The Texas business success is a complex story , and business incentives are probably a very small part of it , ” Jensen said , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ already operating in the state or planning to expand there .
“ That being said , we offer really large incentives , in particular for a successful state.
” Other factors contributing to Texas ’ s population boom are its size and physical infrastructure , Jensen said , including having a large market and its own power grid , a robust renewable energy sector , and major shipping and airports .
In just the last two years , Apple , Uber , Tesla , and Facebook all announced plans to expand offices in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republican Gov .
Greg Abbott about relocating trading systems to the Dallas-Fort Worth area , the Dallas Morning News reported last week .
Companies like Uber and Tesla typically offer higher-paying jobs concentrated in cities , Jensen explained , and the state isn ’ t seeing even development in the state ’ s more rural areas .
Those areas have simultaneously had dips in population .
“ A lot of our really high-end , really great investment that ’ s coming here has been clustered around just a handful of cities .
Again @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s easy to say , ‘ Well , Texas is a great business environment.
’ It ’ s more like there ’ s few cities in Texas that have been very good at attracting [ business ] .
” For example , he said , the high quality of life in Austin attracts people on their own .
“ In some sense , it ’ s attractive for workers and that makes it attractive for companies that are trying to attract kind of a global workforce.
” grew by more than 3.5 million @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 14 percent increase .
About 40 percent of Texans are Latino , compared to 18 percent nationally , and the state has a slightly younger population than the nation as a whole — a quarter of people are under the age of 18 .
People of color make up close to half of Texas ’ s eligible voting population and estimates show that Latinos will represent a plurality of the state population by 2021 .
Those changes created a much more competitive landscape last cycle , eventually pushing six GOP members of Congress @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a seventh , John Ratcliffe , was confirmed as director of national intelligence in May .
Trump ’ s election in 2016 changed the future of Republican politics in the state for the worse and foreshadowed a slow erosion .
Trump won the state by a much smaller margin than Mitt Romney had in 2012 , and slightly less than John McCain did in 2008 .
Another six House Republicans retired ahead of the 2018 midterms , compared to two Democrats , including O ’ Rourke , who challenged Republican Sen. Ted Cruz @ @ @ @ @ @ @ additional people have registered to vote in Texas since 2016 , and Democrats are nine seats away from taking control of the state House for the first time in 20 years , sights set on breaking a long-held Republican trifecta ahead of redistricting in 2021 .
Those trends , combined with spikes in voter turnout in recent years and efforts by local groups to engage working-class and low-income voters , laid the groundwork for O ’ Rourke to come within 3 points of unseating Cruz in 2018 .
That year , voter turnout @ @ @ @ @ @ @ since 1970 .
Democratic candidate Lizzie Fletcher defeated nine-term Republican Rep. John Culberson by 5 points in Houston that year , and Colin Allred ousted former Republican House Rules Chair Pete Sessions by 7 points in Dallas .
( Sessions is running in November in the open race for the 17th District , where Rep. Bill Flores announced his retirement last year . )
Twelve Democratic candidates ran in this year ’ s March Senate primary , with labor organizer Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez coming in third with more than 246,000 votes .
If @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suburbs hold , it ’ s a matter of when , not if , Texas flips blue .
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden “ has his foot in the door ” in Texas , O ’ Rourke and Tory Gavito , Texas activist and co-founder of the progressive fundraising group Way to Win , wrote in a Washington Post op-ed last week , “ and needs to kick it open for a quick end to the election.
” A “ pattern of underestimating Democratic candidates shows Biden can win Texas , ” they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ campaign booked a $ 6 million digital ad buy in the state , the largest such investment there from any Democratic presidential nominee in more than 20 years .
But the campaign appeared to scale back some of those efforts , the Dallas Morning News reported Friday and canceled some of the planned ads .
Jill Biden and Douglas Emhoff , husband of the Democratic vice presidential candidate , California Sen. Kamala Harris , traveled to the state in recent weeks ahead of the first day of early voting on Tuesday .
Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ March primary .
The Lone Star state ’ s major corporate incentives and property tax abatements have helped attract major tech companies , and their employees , who tend to be younger and more highly educated .
The state ’ s urban hubs have shifted further blue , and national Democrats are paying more attention to Texas in the final weeks leading up to Election Day — a notably late investment .
But even as more and more voters are engaging each year , voter suppression tactics by Republicans could block Democratic progress @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ongoing pandemic .
While most states have expanded mail-in voting , some doing so even before the start of the coronavirus outbreak , Abbott , the Texas governor , has repeatedly refused to do so , most recently on October 1 .
The GOP has also erected barriers to early voting ; early Tuesday morning , a panel of three Trump-appointed federal judges overturned a lower-court ruling allowing counties to use multiple drop boxes to make voting easier during the pandemic , upholding Abbott ’ s October 1 order that counties could have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ likely because they know that shifts in the voting population don ’ t bode well for them .
“ Texas is arguably the most voter-suppressed state in the union , ” O ’ Rourke said , during a break from a 12-hour phone bank with his voter outreach group , Powered by People , on Monday , when they registered 18,000 volunteers to help call 1 million people .
“ No state tries harder to keep its own people from voting — and specifically Black Texans , Latino Texans , Texans from communities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we were 50th , dead last , in voter turnout , ” O ’ Rourke said .
The share of Latino voters who turned out during the state ’ s 2018 midterms nearly doubled from 2014 , reaching 1.87 million voters , the Corpus-Christi Caller-Times reported .
Groups like the Texas Organizing Project , MOVE Texas , and Jolt , which Ramirez founded , focusing on grassroots organizing and activating the state ’ s young , Latino and working-class voters , helped make that possible .
“ All that was really the prologue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ Rourke said , adding that turnout during presidential cycles tends to favor Democrats .
On top of that , he said , Texas is dealing with “ miserable leadership from Republicans nationally and certainly in the state of Texas where we have 16,500 Covid deaths disproportionately impacting communities of color.
” As of Tuesday , that number surpassed 17,000 .
Democrats haven ’ t won a statewide office in Texas since the early ’ 90s , but they ’ re within reach of flipping the state House before redistricting takes place next @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is expected to add at least three new congressional districts .
State Democrats need to flip nine seats to take the House and are targeting 22 seats where Republicans won by less than 10 points .
The state Democratic Party has capitalized on that growth , O ’ Rourke said , listing candidates for the state House running to flip districts in Houston ’ s suburbs like Akilah Bacy in District 138 , a local attorney and former assistant district attorney in Harris County , and Natali Hurtado in District 126 , who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republican state Rep. Sam Harless after losing to him last cycle by just under 10 points .
Other state House districts most likely to flip from red to blue are clustered around the metro areas of north Dallas , including Districts 108 , 66 , and 112 , and in Houston and its western suburbs in Districts 26 and 134 .
“ There ’ s a real chance Democrats could flip the Texas house this year .
Just imagine that for a second , ” said Rita Bosworth , founder and executive director @ @ @ @ @ @ @ founded after Trump ’ s election focused on flipping state legislatures blue .
“ Beto won nine seats in 2018 , nine of these seats in a Republican house .
It ’ s not like this is Democrats and their pipe dream .
This is actually a possibility , ” she said .
O ’ Rourke carried nine of 17 districts represented by Republicans that year .
For all its growth in recent years , Texas still follows the federal $ 7.25 minimum wage and has some of the highest numbers of uninsured @ @ @ @ @ @ @ maternal mortality crisis disproportionately impacting Black women , and a county jail system as the largest provider of mental health care , O ’ Rourke said .
Following national trends , unemployment as a result of the pandemic has disproportionately hit the state ’ s Black and Hispanic residents , the Texas Tribune reported , exacerbated by the state ’ s already unequal economic expansion .
Focusing on those issues is what ’ s resonating with voters , O ’ Rourke said .
“ There are a lot of things that make it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to live in Texas .
And I think that is creating an opportunity for Democratic challengers who can connect the dots.
” Unlike other major states preparing for delayed election results due to expanded mail-in voting , Texas is expected to know the winner of the presidential election on November 3 .
If the state goes blue , it could be decisive in determining the overall results of the election on the very same day , O ’ Rourke said .
“ You could wait days or weeks for Pennsylvania to come in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be contested in the courts , and Donald Trump ’ s gon na seek to invalidate this or that state ’ s returns , or individual ballots , in a kind of nightmare reminiscent of the year 2000 in Bush v. Gore .
Or we could decide this with Texas .
And then it is mathematically , psychologically , and in every other way that matters , impossible for Donald Trump to claim victory .
And we as a country can avert the kind of crisis that he would seek to create if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ results .
”

The Republican takeover of Texas was gradual. First came the shocking upset of populist Democratic Gov. Ann Richards in 1994, who was upset by the party boy-turned-evangelical George W. Bush. Two years later, the GOP flipped the state Senate. It wasn’t until the midterms of 2002, with Bush in the White House and riding a post-9/11 wave of popularity, that Texas Republicans achieved their trifecta.
The new majority went to work quickly on two primary objectives: to make Texas the most hospitable state in the country for business and the least hospitable for Democrats. By most measures, they delivered on both fronts. Yet success on their first objective ended up, to Republicans’ great surprise, undermining their second. Texas did indeed become home to hundreds of thousands of new jobs as companies either launched or newly headquartered there with generous subsidies and low taxes. The problem for Republicans is that the environment they built to attract those companies also drew people to the state who are not Republicans.
In 2003, one of the new majority’s first acts of business was the creation of the taxpayer-funded Texas Enterprise Fund, an incentive program offering “deal-closing grants” to certain businesses considering coming to the state, which has distributed more than $600 million in grants since it started, according to the body’s 2019 legislative report. Grants would only be awarded when Texas was competing with another state to attract a company site. The effectiveness of those funds in creating new jobs is up for debate, as several companies receiving grants already had plans to come to the state, said University of Texas at Austin professor Nate Jensen, who studies state business incentive programs. But it was emblematic of the GOP’s approach. No longer were Texas populists battling the barons on behalf of the little man. The full power of the state would now be aimed at making businesses in Texas more comfortable and attracting as many from out of state as possible.
In Austin, the Republican-controlled legislature used the last two decades to create a business haven in the state, creating billions of dollars in corporate incentives and tax breaks. Texas has never levied a state income tax and is one of nine states without one. The state also has generally low taxes, a low cost of living, and relatively high quality of life. It also has land — lots of it. As housing prices soared in the 2000s, particularly in California, life in Texas, where a large home could be bought on a reasonable salary, people came in droves. New developments sprang up as the suburbs of Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and Austin exploded. Each new suburban development or relocated headquarters created its own expanded economic activity, a virtuous circle that helped feed what became known as “the Texas miracle.” That miracle was concentrated in Texas’s major cities while poorer and rural areas saw declines. Texas still has one of the highest poverty rates in the nation, and while the average rate declined slightly in recent years, almost 4 million people fell below the poverty line between 2016 and 2018, the Houston Chronicle reported.
In their first year controlling the chamber, GOP legislators, guided by national Republicans Karl Rove and Tom DeLay, also did away with Democrats. Because the state legislature had been divided the previous session, redistricting hadn’t been completed. It was stuck in the courts, but the newly empowered Republicans decided to do it themselves, putting a radical gerrymandering on the House floor. Democrats fled the state to try to deny quorum. Holed up in Oklahoma, they became known as the “Killer Ds.” But Republicans got the map through anyway and cemented their majority. Democrats clawed back slightly but were crushed again by the tea party wave in 2010, leading to a fresh new gerrymander.
The success of Texas in luring so many well-educated workers predisposed to vote Democrat happened, in part, in spite of the Republicans, not because of them.
Texas has also led the way when it comes to voter suppression — despite a rapidly growing population and the spike in turnout in 2018, the state still ranks near last in voter turnout. Texas’s slowly shifting political demography, from red to purple, is often attributed to its three fast-growing metro areas, which have drawn in Democratic voters from around the country. A record number of voters in Texas have registered so far this year. That, paired with its population boom and a backlash to Donald Trump among Republican voters in the state, could make 2020 the year Democrats take control of the state House for the first time since 2002 and possibly vote for a Democrat in the race for the White House and the U.S. Senate.
The success of Texas in luring so many well-educated workers predisposed to vote Democrat happened, in part, in spite of the Republicans, not because of them. “I wouldn’t ascribe that to the Republican Party or certainly not those who are in power right now,” said former Democratic presidential candidate and Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke. “A lot of this just has to do with ingenuity and innovation of everyday Texans who are making this a more and more attractive state.”
Some of that ingenuity is centered in the state’s major cities, which the Texas Republican lawmakers are regularly at war with. “The Texas business success is a complex story, and business incentives are probably a very small part of it,” Jensen said, explaining that some receiving companies were either already operating in the state or planning to expand there. “That being said, we offer really large incentives, in particular for a successful state.” Other factors contributing to Texas’s population boom are its size and physical infrastructure, Jensen said, including having a large market and its own power grid, a robust renewable energy sector, and major shipping and airports.
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In just the last two years, Apple, Uber, Tesla, and Facebook all announced plans to expand offices in Texas. Nasdaq is in talks with Republican Gov. Greg Abbott about relocating trading systems to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, the Dallas Morning News reported last week.
Companies like Uber and Tesla typically offer higher-paying jobs concentrated in cities, Jensen explained, and the state isn’t seeing even development in the state’s more rural areas. Those areas have simultaneously had dips in population. “A lot of our really high-end, really great investment that’s coming here has been clustered around just a handful of cities. Again, not uncommon. But it’s easy to say, ‘Well, Texas is a great business environment.’ It’s more like there’s few cities in Texas that have been very good at attracting [business].” For example, he said, the high quality of life in Austin attracts people on their own. “In some sense, it’s attractive for workers and that makes it attractive for companies that are trying to attract kind of a global workforce.”
President Donald Trump tours an Apple manufacturing plant in Austin with Apple CEO Tim Cook and Ivanka Trump, the daughter and adviser of President Donald Trump, left on Nov. 20, 2019. Photo: Evan Vucci/AP
The state’s population grew by more than 3.5 million people between 2010 and 2018, a 14 percent increase. About 40 percent of Texans are Latino, compared to 18 percent nationally, and the state has a slightly younger population than the nation as a whole — a quarter of people are under the age of 18. People of color make up close to half of Texas’s eligible voting population and estimates show that Latinos will represent a plurality of the state population by 2021. Those changes created a much more competitive landscape last cycle, eventually pushing six GOP members of Congress to announce retirement last year, and a seventh, John Ratcliffe, was confirmed as director of national intelligence in May.
Trump’s election in 2016 changed the future of Republican politics in the state for the worse and foreshadowed a slow erosion. Trump won the state by a much smaller margin than Mitt Romney had in 2012, and slightly less than John McCain did in 2008. Another six House Republicans retired ahead of the 2018 midterms, compared to two Democrats, including O’Rourke, who challenged Republican Sen. Ted Cruz that year. More than 1.8 million additional people have registered to vote in Texas since 2016, and Democrats are nine seats away from taking control of the state House for the first time in 20 years, sights set on breaking a long-held Republican trifecta ahead of redistricting in 2021.
If Democratic gains in the Houston and Dallas suburbs hold, it’s a matter of when, not if, Texas flips blue.
Those trends, combined with spikes in voter turnout in recent years and efforts by local groups to engage working-class and low-income voters, laid the groundwork for O’Rourke to come within 3 points of unseating Cruz in 2018. That year, voter turnout in the state reached its highest point since 1970. Democratic candidate Lizzie Fletcher defeated nine-term Republican Rep. John Culberson by 5 points in Houston that year, and Colin Allred ousted former Republican House Rules Chair Pete Sessions by 7 points in Dallas. (Sessions is running in November in the open race for the 17th District, where Rep. Bill Flores announced his retirement last year.) Twelve Democratic candidates ran in this year’s March Senate primary, with labor organizer Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez coming in third with more than 246,000 votes.
If Democratic gains in the Houston and Dallas suburbs hold, it’s a matter of when, not if, Texas flips blue. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden “has his foot in the door” in Texas, O’Rourke and Tory Gavito, Texas activist and co-founder of the progressive fundraising group Way to Win, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed last week, “and needs to kick it open for a quick end to the election.” A “pattern of underestimating Democratic candidates shows Biden can win Texas,” they argued. Days later, the Biden campaign booked a $6 million digital ad buy in the state, the largest such investment there from any Democratic presidential nominee in more than 20 years. But the campaign appeared to scale back some of those efforts, the Dallas Morning News reported Friday and canceled some of the planned ads. Jill Biden and Douglas Emhoff, husband of the Democratic vice presidential candidate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, traveled to the state in recent weeks ahead of the first day of early voting on Tuesday. Biden and Harris have not visited since the March primary.
The Lone Star state’s major corporate incentives and property tax abatements have helped attract major tech companies, and their employees, who tend to be younger and more highly educated. The state’s urban hubs have shifted further blue, and national Democrats are paying more attention to Texas in the final weeks leading up to Election Day — a notably late investment.
But even as more and more voters are engaging each year, voter suppression tactics by Republicans could block Democratic progress.
A worker puts a ballot into a lock box at a drive-thru mail ballot hand delivery center in Austin, Texas, U.S., Oct. 2, 2020. Photo: Sergio Flores/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Voter suppression in Texas has been exacerbated by the ongoing pandemic. While most states have expanded mail-in voting, some doing so even before the start of the coronavirus outbreak, Abbott, the Texas governor, has repeatedly refused to do so, most recently on October 1. The GOP has also erected barriers to early voting; early Tuesday morning, a panel of three Trump-appointed federal judges overturned a lower-court ruling allowing counties to use multiple drop boxes to make voting easier during the pandemic, upholding Abbott’s October 1 order that counties could have only one box.
That’s likely because they know that shifts in the voting population don’t bode well for them. “Texas is arguably the most voter-suppressed state in the union,” O’Rourke said, during a break from a 12-hour phone bank with his voter outreach group, Powered by People, on Monday, when they registered 18,000 volunteers to help call 1 million people. “No state tries harder to keep its own people from voting — and specifically Black Texans, Latino Texans, Texans from communities of color. Prior to 2018, we were 50th, dead last, in voter turnout,” O’Rourke said. The share of Latino voters who turned out during the state’s 2018 midterms nearly doubled from 2014, reaching 1.87 million voters, the Corpus-Christi Caller-Times reported. Groups like the Texas Organizing Project, MOVE Texas, and Jolt, which Ramirez founded, focusing on grassroots organizing and activating the state’s young, Latino and working-class voters, helped make that possible.
“All that was really the prologue or preview of 2020,” O’Rourke said, adding that turnout during presidential cycles tends to favor Democrats. On top of that, he said, Texas is dealing with “miserable leadership from Republicans nationally and certainly in the state of Texas where we have 16,500 Covid deaths disproportionately impacting communities of color.” As of Tuesday, that number surpassed 17,000.
Democrats haven’t won a statewide office in Texas since the early ’90s, but they’re within reach of flipping the state House before redistricting takes place next year, a process during which Texas is expected to add at least three new congressional districts. State Democrats need to flip nine seats to take the House and are targeting 22 seats where Republicans won by less than 10 points. The state Democratic Party has capitalized on that growth, O’Rourke said, listing candidates for the state House running to flip districts in Houston’s suburbs like Akilah Bacy in District 138, a local attorney and former assistant district attorney in Harris County, and Natali Hurtado in District 126, who’s running a second time against Republican state Rep. Sam Harless after losing to him last cycle by just under 10 points.
Other state House districts most likely to flip from red to blue are clustered around the metro areas of north Dallas, including Districts 108, 66, and 112, and in Houston and its western suburbs in Districts 26 and 134. “There’s a real chance Democrats could flip the Texas house this year. Just imagine that for a second,” said Rita Bosworth, founder and executive director of Sister District, a grassroots group founded after Trump’s election focused on flipping state legislatures blue. “Beto won nine seats in 2018, nine of these seats in a Republican house. It’s not like this is Democrats and their pipe dream. This is actually a possibility,” she said. O’Rourke carried nine of 17 districts represented by Republicans that year.
For all its growth in recent years, Texas still follows the federal $7.25 minimum wage and has some of the highest numbers of uninsured people in the country, a massive maternal mortality crisis disproportionately impacting Black women, and a county jail system as the largest provider of mental health care, O’Rourke said. Following national trends, unemployment as a result of the pandemic has disproportionately hit the state’s Black and Hispanic residents, the Texas Tribune reported, exacerbated by the state’s already unequal economic expansion. Focusing on those issues is what’s resonating with voters, O’Rourke said. “There are a lot of things that make it very hard for a lot of people to live in Texas. And I think that is creating an opportunity for Democratic challengers who can connect the dots.”
Unlike other major states preparing for delayed election results due to expanded mail-in voting, Texas is expected to know the winner of the presidential election on November 3. If the state goes blue, it could be decisive in determining the overall results of the election on the very same day, O’Rourke said. “You could wait days or weeks for Pennsylvania to come in, and that’s gonna be contested in the courts, and Donald Trump’s gonna seek to invalidate this or that state’s returns, or individual ballots, in a kind of nightmare reminiscent of the year 2000 in Bush v. Gore. Or we could decide this with Texas. And then it is mathematically, psychologically, and in every other way that matters, impossible for Donald Trump to claim victory. And we as a country can avert the kind of crisis that he would seek to create if there’s any confusion about the results.”


theintercept--2020-10-13--Border Patrol Leaves Migrants in Remote Town as Deaths Rise

approaching levels not seen in years , humanitarian aid volunteers in southern Arizona say that the U.S. Border Patrol is using Covid-19 as a pretext to quietly dump large numbers of immigrants in one of the most remote and potentially dangerous communities in the Sonoran Desert .
Volunteers who have visited the dusty community of Sasabe , in the Mexican state of Sonora , in recent weeks , say that they have witnessed U.S. immigration agents continually off-loading large groups of people throughout the day , overwhelming the town ’ s limited immigration resources and placing individuals at significant risk @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ We believe that Border Patrol is getting away with these horrible deportation numbers because no one knows , ” Dora Rodriguez , a Tucson-based humanitarian aid volunteer , told The Intercept .
“ It is really easy for them to just dump people there and that ’ s it .
Nobody says anything.
” Rodriguez and a growing group of humanitarian volunteers began turning their attention to Sasabe in mid-September , making biweekly visits to bring food and water to migrants after learning of the explosion in arrivals to the resource-strapped @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2,500 and a single town store , the port of entry at Sasabe has long been described as one of the quietest official crossings in the state .
There is no migrant shelter in the town , and the influence and power of organized crime in the area is well known .
In recent visits , Rodriguez has been joined by Sister Judy Bourg , a nun with the Sisters of Notre Dame , and Gail Kocourek , a volunteer with the Green Valley Samaritans , one of Arizona ’ s longstanding humanitarian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that they have personally seen groups of migrants numbering in the dozens gathered outside of Sasabe ’ s tiny immigration office .
Through a visit to a local stash house and conversations with local contacts , the women were told that the Border Patrol is dropping upwards of 100 to 120 people in the community each day .
“ We totally didn ’ t expect this , ” Kocourek , a longtime volunteer in the Sasabe area , told The Intercept .
“ We ’ ve got hungry people being dumped into this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that Border Patrol enforcement activity in the area is unlike anything she has ever seen before .
“ It ’ s just tremendous right now , ” she said .
“ I ’ ve never seen so much activity in that area.
” Operating under an order issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , in March the Border Patrol began rapidly expelling migrants at the border in the name of defending against the spread of Covid-19 .
As the Wall Street Journal recently reported , however , pressure to enact @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health officials , but instead from Stephen Miller , the president ’ s ultra-hardline immigration adviser .
Miller , who recently contracted Covid-19 himself , has long sought to connect immigrants to disease as means to close off immigration at the border .
It ’ s not only Mexican nationals who are being dropped in Sasabe , Rodriguez said , noting that she had she met Salvadorans , Hondurans , and a father from Guatemala , who had been expelled with his 16-year-old son , during recent visits .
“ I understand when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and in Tijuana and in Sonoyta , ” she said , referring to more well-known border communities where the Border Patrol often deposits migrants .
“ But they have resources — even if they ’ re limited , there are some resources .
But in Sasabe , it ’ s nothing.
” Rodriguez and the other advocates say that the expulsions are making an already dangerous situation worse .
Following a blistering hot summer — in Phoenix , the hottest in recorded history — more human remains have been recovered in the Arizona @ @ @ @ @ @ @ since 2013 .
On top of the rising death toll , the expulsions have come at a time of escalating tension in the desert , with the Border Patrol executing two militarized raids on a humanitarian aid station in the region in three months , federal agents arresting and tear-gassing Indigenous activists protesting border expansion on sacred lands , and the state ’ s for-profit immigration detention centers becoming some the nation ’ s leading hot spots for Covid-19 .
Generally lasting no more than a couple hours from encounter to removal , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ altered the shape of migration and immigration enforcement along the border .
The Border Patrol has long relied on a deterrence strategy that funnels migrants into the border ’ s deadliest terrain , pushing its land checkpoints deeper into the interior of the country and forcing migrants to walk further into the desert in the hopes of linking up with a ride .
Agents will sometimes track a group of migrants for days before making an arrest , allowing physical exhaustion to assist in their apprehension efforts .
Now , with the expulsions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be swiftly booted from the country .
According to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection , the government has expelled more than 147,000 people along the southwest border using the order .
While Mark Morgan , the senior official performing the duties of the commissioner of CBP , has described the expulsions as a “ game changer , ” advocates say that the expulsions rob migrants of due process rights and subject them to extreme danger when their removals involve being dumped in unfamiliar and remote communities with entrenched organized crime .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ providing humanitarian on the border , told The Intercept that the expelled migrants whom she met on a recent visit to Sasabe looked physically depleted .
“ They came in beat-up looking , ” she said .
Their eyes were red and glassy , she added .
“ They didn ’ t just cross and walk for half a day.
” In the past week , The Intercept has repeatedly requested a breakdown of the Border Patrol ’ s data on expulsions in the agency ’ s Tucson sector , as well as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ explain how determinations are made as to which ports migrants will be expelled through .
The Border Patrol has provided neither .
In April , an agency spokesperson acknowledged that Sasabe was seeing a “ mild uptick ” in expulsions but provided no numbers to assess the claim .
While the Border Patrol ’ s expulsion protocol remains unclear , what is evident is that 2020 has been a particularly deadly year for migrants attempting to cross the Sonoran Desert .
For years , the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cases with Humane Borders , a humanitarian group that charts the data on an interactive online map .
As of this week , the medical examiner ’ s office has logged 181 cases of suspected migrant deaths recovered in its area of operations this year .
The last time the office saw a higher total was in 2013 , when 186 sets of human remains were recovered .
The record for most human remains recovered in a single year was set in 2010 , when 224 were found .
With two and a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ year , advocates worry that 2020 could exceed that grim milestone .
“ I think by the end of year , it ’ ll be the highest since 2010 , ” Mike Kreyche , the mapping coordinator with Humane Borders , told The Intercept .
“ I hope we don ’ t get up that high , but I think we ’ re going to approach it.
” What ’ s particularly alarming about this year ’ s data , Kreyche explained , is the column of information labeled “ postmortem interval , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an individual ’ s death and the discovery of their remains .
In recent years , that number has generally been more than six to eight months — in some cases , remains discovered in the field could be years old .
This year , however , there has been a marked increase in the recovery of remains indicating a recently deceased individual , particularly in the brutally hot summer months .
In September , roughly two thirds of the recoveries recorded by the medical examiner ’ s office suggested a death in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the 2020 data show that more than half of the recoveries of suspected migrant remains — 107 of 181 cases — indicate a death that occurred at some point less than six to eight months prior .
“ There have been a lot more deaths , ” Kreyche said , “ particularly recent deaths.
” Montana Thames , a volunteer with the humanitarian organization No More Deaths , said the past several months have been “ very active ” for volunteers providing aid on the ground .
With temperatures continuously breaking 100 degrees @ @ @ @ @ @ @ need aid , ” Thames told The Intercept .
“ There have been a lot of people who haven ’ t made it.
” Last week , the Border Patrol raided No More Deaths ’ humanitarian aid station outside of Arivaca , Arizona , approximately 25 miles northeast of Sasabe , for the second time in three months .
The first raid was launched in the middle of a heat wave and featured members of the Border Patrol ’ s tactical team , known as BORTAC , pointing rifles while agents slashed through @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , confiscated sensitive medical records and dumped out gallon jugs of water .
Efforts to engage in a dialogue with the Border Patrol since then went nowhere , Thames said , and last Monday night BORTAC was again deployed in a heavily militarized operation that involved agents in night-vision goggles trashing the organization ’ s belongings .
Twelve migrants were arrested , including some who were chased through Arivaca before being taken into custody .
While the raid was “ shocking ” and unacceptable , Thames noted , “ This is literally the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in general.
” Rodriguez visited Sasabe the morning after the raid on the No More Deaths camp .
She described witnessing multiple rounds of expulsions and said that at one point , as many as 50 people were gathered outside the overwhelmed Mexican immigration office .
She was told that some of the migrants in town that day were among those arrested in the raid the previous night .
Rodriguez spoke to one young man from El Salvador .
His shoes were tattered , and his toes poked through at the ends .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ days in the desert .
Rodriguez , who nearly died crossing the border as an asylum-seeker herself in 1980 , was both moved and troubled by the young man ’ s story .
“ They are putting these people in the most horrible danger , ” she said .
“ They have nothing.
” Driving back into the U.S. last Tuesday , Rodriguez and the other advocates encountered an enormous Border Patrol caravan heading south .
“ That road always has a lot of Border Patrol , but this was exceptional , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was “ like a war zone , ” adding , “ They ’ re running their own show over there and it ’ s a secret.
” Although humanitarian aid volunteers are now coordinating food and water supply runs sufficient to support 700 people in Sasabe each week , Rodriguez said more must be done .
She believes the Border Patrol ’ s expulsions into the town need to stop .
“ It ’ s like a playground for BP , ” she said .
“ No one is making them accountable for @ @ @

With migrant deaths approaching levels not seen in years, humanitarian aid volunteers in southern Arizona say that the U.S. Border Patrol is using Covid-19 as a pretext to quietly dump large numbers of immigrants in one of the most remote and potentially dangerous communities in the Sonoran Desert.
Volunteers who have visited the dusty community of Sasabe, in the Mexican state of Sonora, in recent weeks, say that they have witnessed U.S. immigration agents continually off-loading large groups of people throughout the day, overwhelming the town’s limited immigration resources and placing individuals at significant risk of being targeted by organized criminal groups.
“We believe that Border Patrol is getting away with these horrible deportation numbers because no one knows,” Dora Rodriguez, a Tucson-based humanitarian aid volunteer, told The Intercept. “It is really easy for them to just dump people there and that’s it. Nobody says anything.”
Rodriguez and a growing group of humanitarian volunteers began turning their attention to Sasabe in mid-September, making biweekly visits to bring food and water to migrants after learning of the explosion in arrivals to the resource-strapped community. With a population of approximately 2,500 and a single town store, the port of entry at Sasabe has long been described as one of the quietest official crossings in the state. There is no migrant shelter in the town, and the influence and power of organized crime in the area is well known.
View of the border between Mexico and the U.S in the community of Sasabe in Sonora state, Mexico, on January 13, 2017. Photo: Alfredo Estrella/AFP/Getty Images
In recent visits, Rodriguez has been joined by Sister Judy Bourg, a nun with the Sisters of Notre Dame, and Gail Kocourek, a volunteer with the Tuscon Samaritans, one of Arizona’s longstanding humanitarian groups. The women told The Intercept that they have personally seen groups of migrants numbering in the dozens gathered outside of Sasabe’s tiny immigration office. Through a visit to a local stash house and conversations with local contacts, the women were told that the Border Patrol is dropping upwards of 100 to 120 people in the community each day.
“We totally didn’t expect this,” Kocourek, a longtime volunteer in the Sasabe area, told The Intercept. “We’ve got hungry people being dumped into this community by the hundreds.” Kocourek added that Border Patrol enforcement activity in the area is unlike anything she has ever seen before. “It’s just tremendous right now,” she said. “I’ve never seen so much activity in that area.”
Operating under an order issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in March the Border Patrol began rapidly expelling migrants at the border in the name of defending against the spread of Covid-19. As the Wall Street Journal recently reported, however, pressure to enact the order did not come from public health officials, but instead from Stephen Miller, the president’s ultra-hardline immigration adviser. Miller, who recently contracted Covid-19 himself, has long sought to connect immigrants to disease as means to close off immigration at the border.
“We’ve got hungry people being dumped into this community by the hundreds.”
It’s not only Mexican nationals who are being dropped in Sasabe, Rodriguez said, noting that she had she met Salvadorans, Hondurans, and a father from Guatemala, who had been expelled with his 16-year-old son, during recent visits. “I understand when there are tons of people in Nogales and in Tijuana and in Sonoyta,” she said, referring to more well-known border communities where the Border Patrol often deposits migrants. “But they have resources — even if they’re limited, there are some resources. But in Sasabe, it’s nothing.”
Rodriguez and the other advocates say that the expulsions are making an already dangerous situation worse. Following a blistering hot summer — in Phoenix, the hottest in recorded history — more human remains have been recovered in the Arizona desert this year than at any point since 2013. On top of the rising death toll, the expulsions have come at a time of escalating tension in the desert, with the Border Patrol executing two militarized raids on a humanitarian aid station in the region in three months, federal agents arresting and tear-gassing Indigenous activists protesting border expansion on sacred lands, and the state’s for-profit immigration detention centers becoming some the nation’s leading hot spots for Covid-19.
Generally lasting no more than a couple hours from encounter to removal, the so-called Title 42 expulsions have radically altered the shape of migration and immigration enforcement along the border. The Border Patrol has long relied on a deterrence strategy that funnels migrants into the border’s deadliest terrain, pushing its land checkpoints deeper into the interior of the country and forcing migrants to walk further into the desert in the hopes of linking up with a ride. Agents will sometimes track a group of migrants for days before making an arrest, allowing physical exhaustion to assist in their apprehension efforts. Now, with the expulsions in effect, those exhausted migrants can be swiftly booted from the country. According to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the government has expelled more than 147,000 people along the southwest border using the order.
While Mark Morgan, the senior official performing the duties of the commissioner of CBP, has described the expulsions as a “game changer,” advocates say that the expulsions rob migrants of due process rights and subject them to extreme danger when their removals involve being dumped in unfamiliar and remote communities with entrenched organized crime. Bourg, who has spent a decade providing humanitarian on the border, told The Intercept that the expelled migrants whom she met on a recent visit to Sasabe looked physically depleted. “They came in beat-up looking,” she said. Their eyes were red and glassy, she added. “They didn’t just cross and walk for half a day.”
In the past week, The Intercept has repeatedly requested a breakdown of the Border Patrol’s data on expulsions in the agency’s Tucson sector, as well as an interview with an official who could explain how determinations are made as to which ports migrants will be expelled through. The Border Patrol has provided neither. In April, an agency spokesperson acknowledged that Sasabe was seeing a “mild uptick” in expulsions but provided no numbers to assess the claim.
Immigrants walk in line through the Arizona desert near Sasabe, Sonora state, in an attempt to cross the Mexican-U.S. border, on April 6, 2006. Photo: Omar Torres/AFP/Getty Images
A Grim Milestone
While the Border Patrol’s expulsion protocol remains unclear, what is evident is that 2020 has been a particularly deadly year for migrants attempting to cross the Sonoran Desert. For years, the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner has shared its data on suspected migrant death cases with Humane Borders, a humanitarian group that charts the data on an interactive online map.
As of this week, the medical examiner’s office has logged 181 cases of suspected migrant deaths recovered in its area of operations this year. The last time the office saw a higher total was in 2013, when 186 sets of human remains were recovered. The record for most human remains recovered in a single year was set in 2010, when 224 were found. With two and a half months yet to go in the year, advocates worry that 2020 could exceed that grim milestone.
“I think by the end of year, it’ll be the highest since 2010,” Mike Kreyche, the mapping coordinator with Humane Borders, told The Intercept. “I hope we don’t get up that high, but I think we’re going to approach it.”
This year, there has been a marked increase in the recovery of remains indicating a recently deceased individual, particularly in the brutally hot summer months.
What’s particularly alarming about this year’s data, Kreyche explained, is the column of information labeled “postmortem interval,” the estimated amount of time between an individual’s death and the discovery of their remains. In recent years, that number has generally been more than six to eight months — in some cases, remains discovered in the field could be years old. This year, however, there has been a marked increase in the recovery of remains indicating a recently deceased individual, particularly in the brutally hot summer months. In September, roughly two thirds of the recoveries recorded by the medical examiner’s office suggested a death in the prior three months. Overall, the 2020 data show that more than half of the recoveries of suspected migrant remains — 107 of 181 cases — indicate a death that occurred at some point less than six to eight months prior.
“There have been a lot more deaths,” Kreyche said, “particularly recent deaths.”
Montana Thames, a volunteer with the humanitarian organization No More Deaths, said the past several months have been “very active” for volunteers providing aid on the ground. With temperatures continuously breaking 100 degrees, “people need help, people need aid,” Thames told The Intercept. “There have been a lot of people who haven’t made it.”
Last week, the Border Patrol raided No More Deaths’ humanitarian aid station outside of Arivaca, Arizona, approximately 25 miles northeast of Sasabe, for the second time in three months. The first raid was launched in the middle of a heat wave and featured members of the Border Patrol’s tactical team, known as BORTAC, pointing rifles while agents slashed through the organization’s tents with knives, confiscated sensitive medical records and dumped out gallon jugs of water.
Efforts to engage in a dialogue with the Border Patrol since then went nowhere, Thames said, and last Monday night BORTAC was again deployed in a heavily militarized operation that involved agents in night-vision goggles trashing the organization’s belongings. Twelve migrants were arrested, including some who were chased through Arivaca before being taken into custody. While the raid was “shocking” and unacceptable, Thames noted, “This is literally the everyday reality of migrants and undocumented communities in general.”
Rodriguez visited Sasabe the morning after the raid on the No More Deaths camp. She described witnessing multiple rounds of expulsions and said that at one point, as many as 50 people were gathered outside the overwhelmed Mexican immigration office. She was told that some of the migrants in town that day were among those arrested in the raid the previous night. Rodriguez spoke to one young man from El Salvador. His shoes were tattered, and his toes poked through at the ends. He said that he had spent 15 days in the desert. Rodriguez, who nearly died crossing the border as an asylum-seeker herself in 1980, was both moved and troubled by the young man’s story. “They are putting these people in the most horrible danger,” she said. “They have nothing.”
Driving back into the U.S. last Tuesday, Rodriguez and the other advocates encountered an enormous Border Patrol caravan heading south. “That road always has a lot of Border Patrol, but this was exceptional,” Bourg said. Rodriguez said the area was “like a war zone,” adding, “They’re running their own show over there and it’s a secret.”
Although humanitarian aid volunteers are now coordinating food and water supply runs sufficient to support 700 people in Sasabe each week, Rodriguez said more must be done. She believes the Border Patrol’s expulsions into the town need to stop.
“It’s like a playground for BP,” she said. “No one is making them accountable for this.”