We didn’t realize how much migrants mattered. The numbers say they matter, statistically. North Carolina ranks sixth in the nation for numbers of migrant farm workers, but numbers are infamously forgettable. A run-in with a group of migrants hiding from the Border Patrol, however, is a little harder to forget. We encountered them in a stream bed in Mexico’s Sonoran desert, just a few hundred yards from the metal fence they would soon attempt to cross.

On the opposite side lay miles of dry desert that claim hundreds of lives annually. This experience was one of the many wake-up calls on our Border Issues service-learning trip to Arizona. Now envision a courtroom with seventy migrants in front of the judge. This is a daily process called Operation Streamline in which a selection of the recently caught migrants are pushed through a condensed process and sentenced to a misdemeanor or felony, removing the possibility of future legal entry. We met with a public defender who actively opposes this process.

She described it as unconstitutional because migrants are manipulated out of their right to a fair trial. Though North Carolina is not a border state, the millions of illegal immigrants within our state have faced the difficulties of the border. Through our experiences, we realized migrants are people and the issues at the border are  humanitarian. As citizens of this country, we should take the first step and get informed. We recognize there is no simple solution, but now we do know this: migrants matter.

Erin Lineberger, sophomore in natural resources