ORGAN PIPE CACTUS NATIONAL MONUMENT, Ariz. — Eight church volunteers recently trudged across a dry creek bed just north of the Mexican border hauling plastic jugs of water, taking care to sidestep the deceptively named teddy bear cholla cactus, whose fuzzy needles can pierce a leather boot.
They headed for two blue tanks marked "AGUA," where they heaved the jugs and poured in the water. From a nearby ridge, the Rev. Robin Hoover called out to ask how empty the 65-gallon tanks had been.
"This tank was about half down and that one was totally empty," said Stan Curd, a volunteer.
Mr. Hoover and his posse of volunteers are part of a fledgling religious group called Humane Borders that is building makeshift oases in the hope of keeping at least a few illegal Mexican migrants from dying of thirst as they make their way north in search of work. Fourteen Mexicans died in May in the wildlife refuge just west of here in an incident that received national attention, but on average every day the desert claims two more Mexicans whose bodies never make the news.
Jeff Topping for The New York Times<
Humane Borders aids illegal Mexican immigrants entering the Arizona desert by providing tanks of water and flags to call attention to them.