They say you should walk in a mile in someone's shoes before you judge them. Yesterday, 50 activists hailing from the United States, Central America, Mexico and Canada took this challenge and began the same long journey across the Sonoran Desert that many undocumented immigrants take into Arizona.

"It's very sad to note that we continue hearing the same stories again and again," Todd Miller, co-founder of the Migrant Trail initiative, said at a press conference according to EFE.

The 74-mile on-foot journey began in Sonora, a state in Mexico. By Sunday, they will cross the border and arrive in Tucson, Arizona. According to Miller, when the Migrant Trail initiative began 11 years ago, the founders hoped it would not take long for it lead to immigration reform.

"Unfortunately, that hasn't happened," he said.

Amongst this year's 50 walkers is a woman who tried to emigrate illegally from Sonora with a group in the past.

"On the third day, the water and food ran out," Miller said of the woman's tribulation. "On the fifth, she said that she could only describe it as if 'the mountain talked to them.' On the sixth, her nose began to bleed profusely, and she suffered convulsions."

The woman was taken to a hospital thanks to the U.S. Border Patrol. These horror stories are not rare in the world of illegal immigration. According to EFE, since October, a minimum of 62 people died while trying to make the walk across the Sonoran Desert

A bipartisan immigration reform bill was approved in Senate almost a year ago but has since been blocked by the U.S. House of Representatives, according to EFE. This week, it was reported that Texas is seeing a growing number of undocumented immigrants coming through its southern border. According to The Associated Press, the Border Patrol made over 148,000 arrests in the most southern part of Texas from Oct. 1, 2013, through May 17, 2014. The Rio Grande Valley area received 1,100 arrests per day on average from May 11-17. Mexicans represented the fourth biggest number of those arrests, after Hondurans, El Salvadorians and Guatemalans.
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Follow Scharon Harding on Twitter: @ScharHar.

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