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It was a blustery day in the Sonoran desert as a group of humanitarian aid volunteers hiked through a vast dusty canyon to leave gallons of bottled water and canned beans in locations where exhausted migrants could find them.
Empty plastic bottles, rusty cans and footprints heading north were among the signs of human activity strewn between the towering saguaro and senita cacti, in an isolated section of the Organ Pipe Cactus national monument – about 20 miles (32km) north of the US-Mexico border.
It’s grueling terrain with no cell phone coverage, which the climate crisis has helped turn into one of the world’s deadliest land migration passages. It has also become more perilous for humanitarian aid groups, trying to prevent migrants dying in the desert.
The volunteers are undeterred by the environmental conditions. But on the eve of the incoming second Trump administration, all requested to remain anonymous as humanitarian aid workers brace themselves for a new wave of reprisals by state forces and rightwing militia.
“The discourse on rightwing talk radio is chilling. Coming to the border as vigilantes is not just something people could do, but something they should do to prove that they are real Americans,” said one male volunteer, 36-year-old from the Pacific north-west who has been volunteering with the Ajo Samaritans and No More Deaths for eight years.
“I am also worried about more criminalization as local judges and courts get into Trumpy Republican hands. It’s clear we’re going down the path of courts being increasingly used against activists,” said a 29-year-old female volunteer from Pennsylvania who has also participated in peaceful protests against fossil fuel pipelines where scores of climate activists have been prosecuted and sued on trumped up charges.
The humanitarian movement has reason to worry.
In Trump’s first term, nine No More Deaths volunteers were prosecuted for carrying out humanitarian work including Dr Scott Warren, a border activist and academic geographer who spent three years defending multiple misdemeanor and felony charges. Humanitarian groups and others critical of the border wall construction and heavy handed enforcement were also targeted for surveillance and raids.
This time Trump and his allies have threatened to make life intolerable for migrants, asylum seekers and their American children. The Project 2025 blueprint and Trump’s campaign promises include mass detentions and deportations, family separations, even more draconian border enforcement – and further slashing access to asylum.
“We’re expecting border patrol and armed militia groups to be more emboldened and operate with more impunity, which could be even worse that the first Trump presidency,” said Aryanna Tischler, spokesperson for No More Borders, which was created in response to Bill Clinton’s failed prevention through deterrence border policy.
The threats and anti-migrant rhetoric appear to have already emboldened some vigilantes.
At a makeshift migrant encampment about 150 miles east in Sasabe, Arizona, volunteers report an uptick in civilian militia since Trump’s election. “They come dressed in military fatigues to harass people, and get in migrants’ faces,” said Sally, a retired nurse and volunteer with Green Valley-Sahuarita Samaritans. “As the rhetoric gets worse, so does the hate towards migrants and humanitarian workers.”
America’s broken immigration and asylum system was tweaked by the Biden administration. As a result, the majority of migrants currently at the border are either waiting for appointments under the CBP One program (which Trump has threatened to close on day one) or will seek asylum after handing themselves over to border patrol agents.
But many people have no path to asylum under the US’s increasingly restrictive system, and so pay coyotes (people smugglers) to cross the desert.
For some this means traversing the beautiful but arduous terrain of Organ Pipe national park, which shares a 30-mile border with Mexico. The two sides are separated by a wall of 30ft-tall steel slats that cost billions of dollars and caused significant environmental and social harm to construct. Yet the coyotes easily cut through the wall using commercially available saws, which contractors hired by the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) then patch up.
At one spot a few miles west of the Lukeville-Sonoyta border crossing, a small goat farm on the Mexican side appears to be a popular spot to cross through the wall. Repairs are dated in white paint. This location is known as station 1 – the first of six static water barrels installed by Humane Borders in the summer of 2023, after thousands of asylum seekers from across the world suddenly began crossing here. Items retrieved from a trash can include a laminated sticky note with the contact details of someone in New York City, a kayaking certificate and Egyptian pounds.
The numbers are way down, but there are signs of increased activity at the wall and in the desert.
In the weeks since the election, Tom Wingo, 77, a retired educator and Humane Borders volunteer, has been conducting reconnaissance missions in isolated parts of the desert, looking for footprints and other evidence of recent human activity that suggest migrants are passing through – and therefore will need water. “There are more people coming through the desert, I can read signs, and through more dangerous areas which are harder for us to reach.
“Whatever Trump does, we’re going to have to adapt because the bottom line is that we don’t want anyone to die out there,” said Wingo.
The desert is currently very dry. The mountains’ natural water baths known as tinajos, which are relied on by migrants – and wildlife – are dry, after a poor monsoon and virtually no rain so far this winter. The cactuses are parched and droopy, and the ground hard and dusty, making it tough for migrants who must walk around 60 miles from the border to reach the interstate.
Right now, winter winds blow spiky stems of the dastardly teddy-bear cholla cactus across the canyon, which are painful and tricky to remove from shoes and the body without pliers. After sunset, temperatures drop sharply, so anyone who gets sick and left behind could freeze. Still, this is the easiest time to be in the desert. The past few summers have been deadly hot, with 100F (38C) plus temperatures through October.
“The desert has always been dangerous for migrants, and it’s becoming harder for volunteers to do water drops safely in the brutal summer heat,” said Cheryl Opalski, a retiree who spends six months every year volunteering with Ajo Samaritans. “We don’t know what’s going to happen, but if Trump shuts the asylum system down, many more people may feel like the desert is their only option.”
Trump’s re-election comes at a time where humanitarian aid in the borderlands is becoming even more crucial.
The climate crisis is increasingly driving people from across Latin America and the globe to migrate and seek asylum in the US as drought, floods, heatwaves and other extreme weather events make their homelands intolerable. At the same time, the Sonoran desert is also more dangerous, with extreme heat and drought compounding three decades of militarization, which has forced people to take longer, more isolated routes.
Almost everywhere volunteers leave water in the desert, they’ve also found people who have died.
At least 4,329 sets of human remains have been found in the desert since 1981, according to a migrant death mapping project by Humane Borders and the Pima county medical examiner’s office. This includes 979 remains between 2020 and 2024 – compared to 707 in the previous five years. Humanitarian groups, as well as parks staff and CBP, regularly discover new remains, often after months or years of exposure. In total, almost 1,600 remains are yet unidentified, and it’s likely that many more bodies are still lost in the desert.
Most deaths occur in summer months in areas without cell phone coverage – places where it is hard for aid workers on water drops and search and rescue missions to reach. Humanitarian groups are forbidden from using any vehicles – no cars, bikes or even wheelbarrows – in Organ Pipe, Cabeza Prieta and other national parks in order to protect the environment. CBP vehicles are permitted to roam free.
“The last four years under Biden have not been great for migrants, but humanitarian aid workers were not targeted,” said a veteran Ajo Samaritans volunteer. “Under Trump, we’re back to being an enemy and the hateful attacks against migrants and activists has to make us more vulnerable.”
Barbara Jones, a retired truck driver who maintains water stations for Humane Borders, said: “We won’t be afraid, whatever Trump does, and whatever the vigilantes do. I am more worried about people dying in the desert.”
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The Guardian receives support for visual climate coverage from the Outrider Foundation. The Guardian’s coverage is editorially independent.
