In the Shadow of the Wall: From Gaza to Arizona | 30th Anniversary Capsule

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Posted on Jan 14, 2026

Over a dark blue textured background with a gold border, a white graphic of the world map peeks out between ripped orange chainlink fences. (Graphic by Lissa Deonarain)

In dozens of countries around the world, millions of people live beside border walls. These heavily militarized and closely watched areas can be dangerous places to be. On this edition, from Palestinian farmers struggling to make a living next to the Israeli wall, to shootings at the fence that divides the US and Mexico.

This episode, originally produced in 2013, is presented as part of the Making Contact Anniversary Capsule: celebrating 30 years of social justice journalism. The miniseries takes us from protests on the streets of Seattle to an Indiana family fighting for their daughter’s gender affirming care. It explores a racial reckoning in the world of romance writers, and tells the story of border walls from Gaza to Arizona. These shows embody how Making Contact has been digging into the story beneath the story since 1994.

TRANSCRIPT

Jessica Partnow: This show is part of the Making Contact anniversary capsule, celebrating 30 years of social justice journalism. The capsule takes us from protests on the streets of Seattle to an Indiana family fighting for their daughter’s gender affirming care. It explores a racial reckoning in the world of romance writers and tells the story of border walls from Gaza to Arizona.

These shows embody how Making Contact has been. Digging into the story beneath the story since 1994. You can listen to the full Making Contact anniversary capsule at focmedia.org.

George Lavender: This week on Making Contact: more than two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, what have we learned about barriers that separate people in dozens of countries around the world. Millions of people live beside border walls. These heavily militarized and closely watched areas can be dangerous places to be.

[Audio Clip] Border Patrol Stop:  “Turn off your vehicle.” / “Why is that?” / “I’m asking you to turn it.” / “Why is that?” / “Cause we’re gonna inspect your vehicle. This is no right to do that, so that’s alright. It’s our land. It’s not yours.”

George Lavender: On this edition from Palestinian farmers struggling to make a living next to the Israeli war to shootings at the fence that divides the US and Mexico living in the shadow of the wall. I’m George Lavender and this is Making Contact, a program connecting people vital ideas and important information.

The US-Mexico border runs over 2000 miles. Some of that border is open, some has fences, and some has a high wall separating the two countries. Construction of the wall has been a high profile and costly step that the government says is aimed at securing the borders and stopping undocumented immigration. But the October, 2012 fatal shooting of a Mexican teenager on the border led many to question whether the militarization of the border has gone too far. Reporter Caroline Jackson brings us this story,

Caroline Jackson: The street corner in Nogales, AZ, where 16-year-old Elena Rodriguez was shot, is marked with bullet holes. Across the street is an imposing border wall constructed in 2011 that snakes its way across the terrain separating Mexico from the US. The teenager was shot dead by a US border patrol agent who later claimed that Rodriguez had been throwing rocks at them.

But some, like Isabelle Garcia, questioned that story. 

Isabel Garcia: He had to have stuck his rifle in there and sprayed him and he was blown away. Let me tell you, by 12 shots or you know, we don’t know who the shooter is and they’re gonna keep quiet for how long? 

Caroline Jackson: Garcia’s co-chair of Derechos Humanos and has been speaking out against border abuses in the Tucson area since 1976. Elena Rodriguez was shot just a few blocks from his home on the Mexican side by an officer standing on the US side of the border. At least 16 people have been killed by border patrol since 2010. Many of them were alleged to be throwing rocks. The border Patrol denied a request to be interviewed, but in an emailed statement said:

CBP Statement: “Customs and Border protection law enforcement personnel are trained to use deadly force in circumstances that pose a threat to their lives, the lives of their fellow law enforcement partners, and innocent third parties.”

Caroline Jackson: Garcia says that the situation on the border has deteriorated ever since. Responsibility for immigration control was handed to the Department of Homeland Security back in 2003. 

Isabel Garcia: It’s a whole different thing now to get things from Department of Homeland Security, so everybody is viewed through the lens of a potential threat to Homeland Security, so therefore they think they can kill ’em. 

Caroline Jackson: Apart from the shootings, she says the border costs many people their lives. 

Isabel Garcia: Our policies are just brutal. Whether it’s the brutal kind that we’re hiring agents that are totally outta control and killing people, or whether it is the more quiet way that we don’t feel so responsible, we just push them all out into the desert and then they die a horrific death as well.

Caroline Jackson: Until 2009, crossing the border between the twin cities of Nogales didn’t even require a passport. Now there’s beefed up security and a new higher wall has replaced one from the 1990s, six days a week. Volunteers from Tucson based organization No More Deaths provide free phone calls and support to migrants who have been recently released from border patrol custody.

Operating out of a small concrete building on a cold day, it is warmer outside than in. A handful of the 25 or so migrants are gathered around a small space heater, swapping stories about La Migra. Martin says he attempted to cross the desert into America to find work as a carpenter, but turned himself into the border patrol because he could no longer walk 

Martin (in Spanish): este…yo tuve que entregarme porque…

Martin (in English): I asked for medical attention for my knees and they didn’t want to provide it. I don’t know why they didn’t wanna provide it. And then they were demanding that I walk, but because I couldn’t walk, they pulled me, kind of dragged me to move.

Caroline Jackson: A handful of women say they don’t know where their husbands are and are calling the consulate to get answers, but the consulate doesn’t have any information from border patrol. Another says he felt pushed into signing documents he couldn’t read because they were in English when they formed in 2004. No more death goal was to provide aid to migrants. But while working along the border, they heard stories of migrant abuse and border patrol detention facilities. They collected accounts and have put out two reports of their findings. Hannah Hafter was the co-author of those reports. She moved to Tucson with the intention of helping undocumented people.

Hafter sees stories about abuses and detention and the border shootings as related. 

Hannah Hafter: I think that any situation which allows for minor abuses, naturally leads to extreme forms of excessive use of force. So I think that something like people being pushed into a cactus shows a disrespect for human life and dignity that then comes out by shooting to kill in the face of rock throwing that may or may not have even happened, and certainly did not put anyone in danger if it was happening. 

Caroline Jackson: After his shooting, the family and friends of Elena Rodriguez carried his white coffin alongside the border fence in Nogales. His mother says she will not allow his death to be forgotten. Hannah Hafter says, many Americans don’t wanna know what’s happening on the border. 

Hannah Hafter: It’s very hard to admit that these things are happening in the name of our government and in our names. With our own tax money. And so I think a lot of people don’t want to believe just how bad it is and just how little accountability and oversight there is in Border Patrol…

Caroline Jackson: Isabel Garcia agrees and says, public conversation in the US. 

Isabel Garcia: …has been poisoned, especially in Arizona since 1994, particularly against the immigrants. So it’s become a real toxic place. So when you demonize people and then they’re killed, well, who cares? So that’s what permits it. We permit it. We’re all responsible. I’m responsible. You’re responsible. We ultimately are all responsible for this kind of injustice that’s going on. It’s our government. 

Caroline Jackson: And as long as the US government maintains a militarized border with Mexico, groups like no more deaths and directs, Humanos say they will work to build solidarity across the walls for making contact. I’m Caroline Jackson in Arizona. 

George Lavender: Joining us now is Alex Soto, activist and musician from not far from the US Mexico border. He’s a member of the Autumn Solidarity Across Borders Collective and an MC with the hiphop duo Shining Soul. Alex Soto, could you describe what life is like for people living in the border area?

Alex Soto: As far as the autumn, you know, autumn, you know how it is, you know where I’m from, you know, it’s a desert, you know, it’s not developed. It’s just wide open plains, wide open desert, you know, mountains, you know, all of the beauty of the land, the beauty of the desert. And one way it seems like there’s nothing going on ’cause it’s so calm.

This naturally has natural order of things. But along with that though, we have a huge presence of border patrol agents, a huge presence of this, the overall militarization of our communities, and that right there, is disturbing that piece. 

[00:08:34] George Lavender: On this program, we’ve heard about the militarization of the border, and in particular allegations of abuse by the border Patrol. How has the border affected you and your community? 

[00:08:46] Alex Soto: I’m only 27 years old and when I was younger, these areas — which is the international line — I remember going there as a young, young man, a young, a young person with my grandparents, and they would have trade with the Mexicans on the other side, and there was no border wall.

There was nothing there. It was just that maybe at best, a chicken wire fence that was only for cattle. And fast forward 15 years later, now that area you can’t even gather like that. You have to have your tribal ID. So on that level it affects us because now we have to have some type of identification, an ID paper, something that’s supposed to give us permission just to be our own land.

So that’s how it’s one area. That spans not just in that particular border crossing, but overall deeper — more north on the US side, just traveling home or going down the state highway, potentially pulled over, harassed. If we’re not doing nothing other than just driving either home or to work or, you know, for what basically, you know, everyday, uh, traveling that anybody would do anywhere else.

So, um, we have to deal with the scrutiny of border patrol agents and then also having checkpoints, uh, off all major routes off the reservation. We have one that’s in the northern part that goes before you get off, where they have pretty much like a mini base with cameras and all types of surveillance type of gear, a row of cameras when you get to the checkpoint, a row of cameras after the checkpoint, which we are totally unaware exactly what’s the purpose of this other than tracking us and harassing us.

So these many factors are definitely a hurdle. They’re definitely attacking us every day to be who we are. 

George Lavender: And your group, Shining Soul wrote a song that was about many of these issues. Let’s take a listen to a clip from that now 

Shining Soul (Song Clip): “…up in the city reservation. Red light blue light keeps still checking for ID. You get the ideal who your family be where your papers at. Don’t sound like a chop screw track. Feds on my back taking photos. Border patrol equals the stop, bro. They have to catch. I’m just minding my biz officer. Tripping like a lamby. His pop quiz, how did we let it get this far? Spy drums got me on radar. Star Trek lights at night minus Bacard up in my backyard. The National Guard and the Frontier We Under attack, trying to do with life being Machu and fight back. It’s like that.”

George Lavender: That was a clip from the track Papers by Shining Soul. Alex Soto. Tell us why it was important for you to write that song.

[00:11:47] Alex Soto: Myself, as you know, I currently live in Phoenix, AZ. As was mentioned, I’m from the community itself, but I’ve also spent a great time of my life living in Phoenix, AZ. And you know, for that I was able to be introduced to hip hop culture in particular. And, keeping it as real as I can be to myself and to my community and my people. So that’s why I felt the need to, in that particular song, describe some of what I’ve already been describing today on this broadcast every day, a glimpse into what we face and what we have to, I would say, maybe prepare ourselves to do or take action on.

A lot of people don’t know about our struggle. A lot of people don’t know about what we’re seeing every day, feeling every day. And for the power of hip hop, I wanted to convey that to be able to share not just to my own people, to other young people and other autumn so they can be empowered to speak out, but also to people off the reservation. That was why I wrote that along with my other mc in my group who’s Chicano. He wanted to also share his part of it because as a person who is Mexican or Chicano, the show that solidarity and that support to be able to relate that it’s bigger than just the border is bigger than just SB 1070 or Sheriff Joe or these issues that attack us.

George Lavender: Alex, you are also part of a group called the O’odham Solidarity Across Borders Collective. Tell us why that group formed. 

Alex Soto: O’odham, our land is, is not just on the O’odham Reservation. That’s one tribe of O’odham. ’cause traditional O’odham land spans from the Phoenix area down to the O’odham Nation along the border and passed the border all the way by Hermosillo into the ocean of Rocky Point. The reason we felt the need to establish this group was to show that common link between us as O’odham translates to “the people of the desert.  But the O’odham who live by Phoenix and Salt River and Hill River, they’re the O’odham, they’re the river people.

And in our ways, our cultures, of course we’re in different areas geographically, but language is the same. Our stories are very similar. That’s our tribe. So that’s why we felt the need to have a group, a space to show solidarity where a lot of times our people sometimes get caught up in these borders beyond the international, but more so like, “Oh, you’re from the O’odham reservation,” or “You’re from Hill River,” or you’re from all these different tribes or different areas. And it’s like, well, we’re all the same. We speak the same language, literally, you know? Yhat’s why we formed that group to hopefully address the bigger picture. For example, the border obviously affects that in our reservation. 79 miles. We’re affected by that, but there’s a bigger context of why they’re trying to insert themselves into our land on an everyday basis.

George Lavender: And what kind of organizing does the O’odham Solidarity across Borders collective do? 

Alex Soto: What we do is basically support our elders, our youth. There’s a lot of community events that go on. For example, there’s the Unity Run, All Unity Run, which is a a seven day run where it runs from Phoenix to Mexico, as was mentioned, that connection.

But that’s is the essence of the group is to basically support and provide solidarity as much as we can. We put ourselves out there more so to pretty much. Hopefully push the dialogue or just where the struggles that [we face]. As an example, in 2010, we were part of the border patrol occupation in Tucson, AZ at the border Patrol station at the Air Force base out there.

News Clip: “Rights activists protesting in the militarization of the border are targeting the Tucson Border Patrol headquarters. Jenn joining us live from outside the gate of the East Side headquarters.”

Alex Soto: Myself and five others. I was part of that action along with other Latinx queer youth, anarchists, Chicanos. It was an action to bring that awareness about the bigger struggle of militarization. And that was in light of the SB 1070, a state law that was passed months before and, um really got the immigration activist community going. But the thing was about what their mobilizing and their organizing was projecting was not in any way in solidarity with the first people of the land, in particular where I’m from: Tohono O’odham. Because a lot of the Main Street immigration organizing caters towards reform.

It caters towards policies that may grant “citizenship” to undocumented people — if you agree with that term, undocumented — but at what expense? The trade off would be we have to militarize or secure the border, meaning militarization. So that was an action that we did to fiercely push back on not just the state, but also overall the Left, a little more progressive, more reformist elements of the struggle. 

George Lavender: And how successful do you think the group has been at bringing together these struggles for indigenous sovereignty and against immigration controls?

Alex Soto: We have a long way to go in in terms of that discussion. I have to always remind myself along with the few volunteers that we have. It’s one of those things where we definitely, um, know what needs to be done. We definitely know the bigger context of these struggles, as you know, I’ve been sharing.

But a lot of it also comes back to this community empowerment. It’s one of those things in the community. We all know what needs to be done, but it’s another thing to also implement that. We try our best to just really literally destroy all borders. And if it’s between more progressive reformists forces out there. We’ve always been able to provide that space to say, “Hey,  all these things are connected. All these things, if we come together we can do more than what’s out there.” I really feel it’s happening. It is just taking that time and progress to really become stronger. 

George Lavender: We’ll hear more from Alex Soto later in the program. We go now to Gaza where high security fences and walls surround the entire strip, which is home to more than one and a half million people. An Israeli controlled buffer zone surrounds the wall on the Palestinian side. That off limit zone occupies a large part of Gaza’s scarce farmland. In the ceasefire that followed the November, 2012 conflict between Israel and Gazan militants reporter, Rami Almeghari went to talk with some of those living and working near the Israeli controlled border.

Rami Almeghari: With the help of local youth from a town in the north of the Gaza Strip, 50-year-old Majed Wahdan is cultivating his farmland for the first time. In four years,

Majed Wahdan: I haven’t been able to approach this area before, and no one else has been here either. As everyone who approaches it could be shot and killed. Under the ceasefire, we’ve managed to come back here to sow grains.

Rami Almeghari: Majed is still as Israeli army soldiers in watch towers set just 400 meters away from his long abandoned farmland between 2008 and 2012. Majed says he was not able to farm his land because the Israeli army enforced a buffer zone 300 meters from the fence.

Majed Wahdan: Even after the ceasefire, they continued shooting at people next to the border. For example, yesterday, an Israeli military Jeep approached some shepherds who happened to be about 100 or 200 meters away from the border fence and forced them to leave.

Rami Almeghari: Often the consequences for people in the buffer zone can be much worse in June, 2012. 24-year-old Mohammed Qudiah had half of his right leg and the three of his fingers blown off when an Israeli drawn fire domicile into his farmland 900 meters from the fence,

Mohammed Qudaih: they used to open fire in the area while we were working with our olive trees, forcing us to hide. But this time they hit me with the rocket

Rami Almeghari: This story is not uncommon. Gazen health ministry officials estimate that since 2001, dozens of people have been killed near the Israeli enforced buffer zone. Many of them were farmers. Israel has been developing the fence and buffer zone since 1967. Now it’s a 40 kilometer long electric fence that surrounds Gaza to the north and east. The Israeli army will shoot anyone who touches the fence or enters the buffer zone. 

Dr. Nabil Abu Sahammalla: When we speak to the buffer zone, we don’t speak only to the 300 meter from, uh, the borders or the fence. 

Rami Almeghari: That’s Dr. Nabil Abu Sahammalla, director General for planning at the Gaza Agricultural Ministry. 

Dr. Nabil Abu Sahammalla: We speak about more than one kilometer because for us, the buffer zone, it is not the zone that the ex is, is totally forbidden. But there is some buffer zone. Agricultural activity is restrictive. That mean it is not allowed for farmers to plant trees. For example, 

Rami Almeghari: Gaza’s agricultural sector has lost between 50 to $60 million as a result of the fence and buffer zone, which annexes some of the most productive agricultural land in the Gaza Strip. According to Dr. Abi Sahammalla, 6,000 acre of farmland have been abundant since 2001, representing a 20% of all the agricultural land in Gaza. 

Dr. Nabil Abu Sahammalla: The eastern area of Gaza Strip is very suitable for field crops and for food crops, so I think our objective is to minimize the further importation. The second objective is to increase our, uh, food, to improve our food security through food self sufficiency. We will sustain our food, self sufficiency from the red feed area in this, uh, uh, red feed, the crops in this area, some of this area, especially in be and be grazing area. So there. Uh, the axis of this area will improve the grazing, grazing area and will enhance the animal production sector in Gaza Strip.

Rami Almeghari: For now, Gaza is far from agricultural self-sufficiency. Since the Israeli blockade began, Gaza has relied on a product from Israel. Many farmers are struggling just to feed their own families. Zahra Abu Daqqa, a local farmer in her late fifties, also struggles to survive beside the wall. She has been farming all her life and is the sole provider for her 10 member family. 

Zahra Abu Daqqa: I used to plant field crops and vegetables or citrus. I had my olive and citrus trees uprooted by the Israeli army back in 2008. For the past seven years, I’ve been unable to access my farmland. Even now. After the ceasefire, I came back to the farmland, but when I saw the military Jeeps on the border, I was afraid and returned home.

Rami Almeghari: Zahra supports six grown children, including two university students, and says that farming is needed in order for her and to have children to get by despite the risks. Some farmers continue to work on their lands and they are calling on other Palestinians and international supporters to join them. Bank on Majed Wahdan’s land, Palestinian and international activists work with him to plant the wheat. Their presence, a show of solidarity, as well as a deterrent against Israeli attack. Among them is Saber Za’aneen, a frequent figure in the struggle. He says he’s hopeful that eventually Gaza’s farmers will be able to work without fear.

Saber Za’aneen: Our aim is freedom, justice, and peace. We call upon all free people around the world to help us attain this. My message to all those resisting apartheid and for the sake of freedom is that all forms of resistance are legitimate. And we should not stop resisting racism and apartheid. All apartheid walls will eventually be removed.

George Lavender: That was a report by Rami Almeghari in Gaza. Still with us is Alex Soto, Tohono O’odham activist and musician, Alex Soto do you see a connection between the struggles against the walls in Gaza and on the US Mexico border. 

Alex Soto: Yes. Just like what’s going on in Gaza, I mean, what’s happening is it all comes down to colonization, colonialism, imperialism, implementing policies like that. So, I mean, of course here in the States we were as Native people, we know directly how that feels…

George Lavender: and we know that some of the same companies were involved in building both walls as well as supplying them with the security and surveillance infrastructure. What’s your opinion on that? 

Alex Soto: To me that this reveals the bigger struggle, which is out of global capitalism — in this case a corporation profiteering off the militarization of native land — let alone sacred land in that area — with no remorse. It’s just, “Hey, we’re gonna make money.” And then along with that infrastructure that they’re placing is also a means to also create or protect more capital or more infrastructure. A border wall is for regulation. I can speak on out here. Why are they building the wall? Besides the fact about, “Oh, we wanna not have people cross,” all the more of the mainstream dialogue.

It’s pretty much regulate trade. There’s definitely a connection there between capital and why they’re doing this. And I’m sure — I mean, I don’t know all the exacts in that area, but of course it just comes down to land, it comes down to resources, it comes down to the various things that the state wants compared to this  letting be and respecting.

I mean, just the fact that you have a corporation that’s building a wall where I’m from and just in a Native community, let alone thousands of miles away in Israel. I mean, I don’t think that’s a coincidence. That’s very clear that these people are attacking the heart of this humanity.

George Lavender: Alex Soto, thank you for speaking with Making Contact. 

Alex Soto: Thank you.

George Lavender: And that’s it for this edition of Making Contact. I’m George Lavender. Thanks for listening to Making Contact.

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