The border between the United States and Canada does not have to do with a river, or some other geographical feature. It has to do with a parallel, the 49th parallel. That is sort of an invisible line.
That line, to many Native people who live in the north, or really the heart of Turtle Island, is called the Medicine Line. Great Walkers, Sitting Bull, Little Shell, Little Crow, and Chief Joseph all crossed the Medicine Line to save their people from the cavalry and the big guns. There was a belief that crossing the Medicine Line would be to a place of sanctuary.
To the south, there is another Medicine Line, the one between the U.S. and Mexico.
At that border, people also seek to cross for safety, for protection. Most of the people who come across do so because they are running from something. They are climate refugees from Haiti, political refugees from El Salvador, refugees from violence, whose families or husbands have “disappeared.
” They come to the border. They come to the Medicine Line. People do not come to the southern border willingly.
They are, by and large, driven to the border by forces beyond their control. They will keep coming. About 21 million people become climate refugees annually from the big storms and droughts, according to earthday.
org. By 2050, 1.2 billion people will be climate refugees, the Institute for Economics and Peace thinktank predicts.
I was recently at the southern border, crossing from San Diego to Tijuana. I came with the Kellogg Foundat.