David Zweig spent 34 years installing Madison’s telephones with his business, Grant Communications, before retiring 8 years ago. Now, he spends his winters going to Arizona every other week to help refugee migrants from Mexico and Central America.
As a member of the Green Valley Samaritans, a group of about 150 volunteers, Zweig works to seek out migrants in the Arizona desert who are in trouble, providing them with food, water and shelter at ‘El Comedor.’
“We try to save lives in the desert, that’s our goal,” Zweig said. “Once in a while we find somebody, once in a while we find somebody who’s in trouble.”
Zweig said migrants from Mexico and Central America can sometimes spend 20 days in the Arizona desert. They face harsh winter nights, vigilante groups and border patrol. Some die, and some get deported yet return to cross the border again and again, he said.
He sees migrants of all ages come through El Comedor, even children without parents. In some instances, Zweig has seen deportation tear families apart.
“I remember one mother I talked to was from New Jersey … she got picked up on a traffic violation, got deported with her daughter and so her daughter and her were in a comedor getting clothes and help, her husband and other children were still in New Jersey,” Zweig said. “They’d broken that family up.”
Zweig said women taking the train from Central America to cross the American border are also at risk of rape and abduction by prostitution rings.
One time, he said, he and other Samaritans were talking to some women from Guatemala who were going to stay with a different group. That night, someone found them and murdered them, and Zweig said they were probably recruiting them as prostitutes.
“They were there one day, and gone the next,” Zweig said.
El Comedor sees the most migrants in the summer, when Zweig said they can see up to 150 people a day, compared to the 120 total in the winter.
Many factors play into why the migrants leave, he said, including gangs and political corruption in their native countries. The migrations come more from Central America than they used to, and in some areas, Zweig said people claim all the men have gone.
The dangers these young men face in Central America face them to choose between staying in that hostile environment or leaving for another, Zweig said. Some choose to escape on ‘the beast,’ Zweig said, a train that travels through Mexico up to the border and is an extremely dangerous method of transportation, killing many of its passengers.
The Samaritans are founded solely on donations and volunteer work, Zweig said. The clothes they give come from the workers themselves, and even the gas that fuels the search vehicle comes out of the Samaritans pockets.
Though not everyone supports his work, Zweig said it is his “passion.” Eight years ago he stumbled upon the idea of it, and now, it gives him something worthwhile to do.
“Not everyone is in agreement with me. Down there a lot of people are anti-migration. That’s the way it is,” Zweig said. “I feel strongly about it, and so we do what we can.”