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In the hazy dawn light, over 20 volunteers clad in hiking gear piled into several cars, their backpacks filled to the brim with canned goods, water and Gatorade meant to help migrants survive the trek across the mountains.
They made their way down winding roads surrounded by Mediterranean-style mansions and kept going when the paved street was suddenly interrupted by a path of rough gravel. In the distance, rugged ridges east of San Diego began to appear over the horizon. Tijuana was just a few miles away, on the opposite side of the border.
“It’s very strange to be considering how people may be passing away in these areas when if you just look over that hill, you have these beautiful homes,” said Osvaldo Ruiz, 31, volunteer coordinator with the nonprofit organization Border Angels, as the group arrived at a wide stretch of stony road where it would start its hike.
For almost 40 years, Border Angels has been one of many organizations along the U.S.-Mexico border that has worked to ease the harsh realities faced by migrants who cross into the United States. With their water drop program, they strategically place basic necessities along commonly traveled paths.
As Donald Trump’s inauguration nears, the group is bracing for what the future might bring under a president who has vowed to send military troops to the border and launch mass deportations on Day One. Despite these challenges, the San Diego-based group’s volunteers are driven to show up in these barren regions along the border to help protect lives. For many, the work is deeply personal.
“I know this border because I grew up here and I’ve heard these stories,” said Jazmín Barajas, a 25-year-old volunteer, as she rode along in the back of a large van. “Especially when you’re Mexican yourself, you’re not far from someone who understood or experienced it themselves.”
In the chilly 43-degree weather, the volunteers prepared for a treacherous haul into the mountains’ desolate crevices and summits. The route they would take offered a stark reminder of the stakes — they would pass the site where a migrant named Oscar had died in a heat wave over the summer. They adjusted their hats, fixed the straps of their boots, and piled on their heavy backpacks carrying up to 50 pounds.
Volunteers like Wilfredo Chavez, 39, said trekking through the thick bushes and branches is an effort to understand his own family’s trip across the border.
“My journey started when I was a young child. My parents, my brother, myself, we all crossed these exact terrains that we’re walking in right now,” he said as he heaved himself up a boulder.
In April 1987, when Chavez was 2 years old, he left Peru with his family to join their aunt in San José. They crossed the border from Tijuana to San Diego the day before his dad’s birthday.
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1. Various items in a water drop crate left by Border Angels volunteers this month. 2. A hand-written message that says “Do not destroy” was left with humanitarian supplies. 3. Volunteers headed into the mountains east of San Diego this month. (Hayne Palmour IV/For De Los)
“I don’t have any memory of it,” Chavez said. “My only memory is kind of gaining information from my parents’ stories that they have always told us about the night that we crossed.”
Every month, he leaves his home in Los Angeles around 3 in the morning to make the drive to San Diego. He joined Border Angels for his first water drop in July of last year, recalling how the scorching heat of 115 degrees in the desert gave him perspective.
Hiking along the trails, it’s common to come across a child’s shoe, a pile of backpacks or an empty toothpaste bottle — palpable remnants of the migrants who have passed through.
“In the beginning I thought about my family a lot,” Chavez said. “I consider this to be a full-circle moment for me to come back out there and just try to make sure that for any other parents that are trying to cross to give their children a better future, I can hopefully do my part to help them.”
San Diego became one of the busiest corridors for migrants last year, with people from a wide range of nations such as Haiti, Venezuela and Morocco apprehended at the border. But in recent months, the overall number of migrants has dwindled. About 44,000 people were apprehended on the U.S.-Mexico border in December, some of the lowest monthly migration levels since July 2020.
The U.S. Border Patrol estimates that about 8,050 people died crossing the U.S.-Mexico border from 1998 to 2020. Migrant rights groups believe the number is many times higher.
The numbers, advocates say, are the legacy of “prevention through deterrence” policies meant to crack down on migration long before Trump came on the political scene. In 1994, the Clinton administration implemented Operation Gatekeeper, a strategy that militarized many areas along the U.S.-Mexico border with surveillance technology and border security. The tactics pushed migrants to try to cross illegally in the most desolate areas, like the Sonoran Desert in Arizona or the mountains east of San Diego, where they might be able to cross undetected. Migrants can spend up to five days traversing the terrain, Ruiz said.
Trump has vowed to double down on a militarized approach, saying he will move thousands of troops who are currently stationed overseas to the border. He has also said he will implement a sweeping set of executive orders on Inauguration Day, including efforts to launch mass deportations and target sanctuary cities like Los Angeles.
“He’s going to do a lot of those things as soon as he gets in the office,” said Kia Hamadanchy, a senior federal policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union. “We’re going to be ready to make sure to protect the right to dissent.”
The Border Angels and other migrant advocates have long worked under challenging conditions. Over the years, volunteers said, they have found water bottles slashed after drops and cans of food that were shot up. During the first Trump administration, activists in Arizona from another humanitarian aid group, No More Deaths, were arrested and charged in federal court with harboring migrants and other alleged crimes. Some were sentenced to fines, probation and penalties. Another faced felony charges and was later acquitted.
“What we’re doing is not illegal; leaving humanitarian aid is not illegal,” said Kathryn Garcia, 27, a San Diego native and volunteer. “Migration is a human right that’s internationally recognized.”
Ruiz, the volunteer coordinator, grew up in Imperial Beach, about 30 minutes from Tijuana. He recalls going across the border to see family every weekend, with the commute between both countries becoming a constant in his life.
For nearly a decade, he has scouted new routes to drop aid, trained volunteers and explained to newcomers the harmful impacts that he sees as the result of various immigration policies. Last year, Ruiz said they dropped about 221 gallons of water.
“It just gave me a sense of purpose,” Ruiz said. “It’s difficult to walk away when there’s people who depend on you and there’s still a lot of work to be done.”
Whoever is president, whatever their policies, he said he’ll keep dropping the water and food as long as migrants might need it to survive.
“We’re gonna continue to do these until there is no need,” Ruiz said to the volunteers. “We don’t know what the next four years will be, so the fight continues.”
The Pasadena Community Job Center is a gathering spot for day laborers. As fires burned across the region, workers and staff launched a fire relief brigade.
As the volunteers descended the mountain, they shed their winter hats for baseball caps and stripped their fleeces down to their T-shirts. With the sun beating down on the group, Ruiz signaled them to gather in a circle.
They gave a summary of their efforts: in 5 hours and 33 minutes at an increasing elevation of 1,250 feet, they made five drops over more than five miles. After exchanging personal reflections on the day, they gathered up their things and headed home.
The group will be back next month.
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