'Because we are all human': Arizona farmworker gives food, water to migrants at border wall
Standing in front of his white truck, a man with a goatee and straw hat had an easy smile, and bore the lines and tan of someone who looked like he worked in the fields his whole life.
On the other side of the approximately 6-inch-wide, rust-colored steel posts, two children ran around while their parents, looking exhausted, waited for U.S. Border Patrol agents to return and process them early Friday morning in a remote area of San Luis.
They were sitting in a square dirt lot surrounded on three sides by the thick steel posts with the vast Mexican desert on one side and Yuma’s agricultural fields on the other.
Luis Ames, 66, is well-known in that corner of San Luis for distributing food and water to migrants waiting to be processed for custody who could wait for hours or days, according to some migrants.
He works on the land that borders the wall overseeing irrigation of Lee Farms fields.
He will never forget the first day he started bringing food and water to migrants waiting to be processed by the U.S. Border Patrol.
On Dec. 1, 2021, Ames was checking the fields as he usually does.
As he approached the border wall, he saw hundreds of migrants sitting in the square dirt lot.
“When I was passing by, I was surprised to see a lot of hands coming out through (the slats of) the wall,” Ames said.
With hands reaching out of the slats, people were crying out for help. He recalled hearing desperation in their voices. They had been waiting there for some time without food or water.
He saw many children, women, pregnant women, and elderly people among the anguished crowd.
Ames sped away, rushing to the nearest store and bringing back truckloads of bread, sandwich ingredients, water, Gatorade, soda, and anything else he could get quickly. He made a few other trips, rushing back and forth, to get enough food and drink for everyone.
Once they were fed, a tranquility blanketed the group.
“That made me realize a lot of things, everything these people suffer when they leave their country. They travel through corrupt countries where they get robbed of their money and everything they own,” Ames said. “Most people arrive without anything.”
This activity has now become part of his daily routine.
Every morning after overseeing the farmworkers who work under him, Ames checks the fields closest to the wall and sees if anyone has been brought there overnight and is in need of food and water.
He has a love of the fields and of helping people
Ames has worked for Lee Farms for 40 years, moving to Yuma County from San Luis Rio Colorado, Mexico, where he grew up ranching with his father.
He thinks he gets his love of giving to others from his father, who grew zucchini and corn in Mexico and frequently gifted some of his crops to others.
“I learned a lot from talking to my dad,” he said. “He taught me to do things well and correctly."
One of 14 children, Ames eventually made his way to Yuma at 28 years old and has lived there ever since.
He loves working in the fields, appreciating the change of the different harvests and the active lifestyle his work allows him.
He has made friends with local humanitarian aid volunteers who also drop off food and water to migrants and the local Border Patrol agents he sees every day.
Ames also sees how depressed the migrants can be. When he drops off food, he also tries to lift their spirits and self-esteem: "I go to them, talk, try to say anything that might help them feel better."
He remembered one Cuban woman who had been kidnapped and beaten up. He wanted to lift up her spirits.
“You have gotten to a safe country where this won’t happen to you,” he recalled telling her. She is now in Kentucky and still talks to him and thanks him for that moment.
Although he received a plaque for his efforts in April from the humanitarian organization SOS Busqueda y Rescate, he said he doesn’t do this work for recognition.
“Everything I do, I do for humanity. Because we are all human. We all feel the same, and so we have to help,” he said.
Reach the reporter at sarah.lapidus@gannett.com.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona farmworker gives food, water to migrants at border wall
