Humane Borders

06/05/2026

We 💙 our student trips! Thank you med students for joining us in the desert today. The highlight of our trip was seeing a diamondback rattlesnake (from a safe distance, whew). The future is bright with these future health care workers! 🩺🙏

06/01/2026

Recommended reading: what happens when human confinement becomes an industry?

The other day I watched footage from outside Delaney Hall in New Jersey as police directed protesters to a designated “First Amendment Zone.”

That phrase has been stuck in my head.

A designated First Amendment Zone.

As though constitutional rights exist only where law enforcement decides they may be exercised. That is not freedom. That is not what the First Amendment says.

And the more I learned about Delaney Hall, the more that phrase seemed to capture something much larger.

Because this isn’t just about a protest. It’s about a detention facility operated by a private corporation. It’s about detainees engaging in hunger strikes and labor strikes. It’s about a company that profits from incarcerating human beings.

Private detention creates a fundamental conflict of interest.

Delaney Hall is operated by GEO Group, one of the largest private prison and detention corporations in the United States.

A corporation exists to generate revenue. A detention facility generates revenue when people are detained.

The goal should be fewer people incarcerated. But the business model depends on keeping cells occupied.

Those are directly opposed to one another.

That is the uncomfortable question underneath all of this.

What happens when human confinement becomes an industry?

Because once confinement becomes a business model, care, staffing, food, medical treatment, and basic living conditions stop being purely human obligations.

They become expenses.

Across the country, detention capacity is expanding. New contracts are being awarded. New facilities are being opened. Billions of taxpayer dollars are flowing into detention, enforcement, surveillance, and incarceration infrastructure.

We already incarcerate more people than any other country on Earth.

And instead of moving away from systems of confinement, we continue investing in larger ones.

More detention beds. More contracts. More facilities.

That is not a correctional philosophy.

It is an economic model.

No corporation should profit from filling human cages.

And no society should ever build a business model around human captivity.

——

I wrote more about this on Substack because this conversation matters.

06/01/2026

This is the truth about the border wall: laws to protect water, air, wildlife, and cultural sites are waived or ignored. It’s expensive—$20 million a mile. Border communities don’t want them.

These images were captured in three different locations in Arizona: Guadalupe Canyon, the San Rafael Valley, and Walker Canyon. Contractors with fat profit margins are tearing down mountains and building double walls. The Santa Cruz River, the last free-flowing river in the SW borderlands, was filled and routed through culverts in what environmentalists call a “revolting crime against nature.”

We will continue bearing witness to what they don’t want us to see 😔 Photo credits: , and Humane Borders

05/29/2026

“All of this is avoidable.” Thank you, ACLU of Arizona for reporting on the (continuing) crisis of migrant deaths ✝️🙏

As migrant apprehensions remain at record lows, the death toll endures – pushing Humane Borders to continue preventing more loss in the Sonoran Desert.

05/26/2026

Day 1: Supporting Migrant Trail Walkers with fresh drinking water during their weeklong journey from the U.S./Mexico border to Tucson. The walk honors the thousands of men, women, and children who’ve died in the borderlands seeking safety and a better life. We stand in solidarity with the walkers and will continue to advocate for a border that reflects our values of dignity, justice, equity, and human understanding. Join us! 🥾💧

05/25/2026

Even the smallest act of kindness can help heal a broken world 💙

05/23/2026