"The closer you get to the border, the more complicated this shit becomes."

-- Brett Stalbaum (Personal Interview)

It is not just the code that is complicated. In fact, by Stalbaum's terms the code is relatively straightforward. Instead, he was referring to the seeming paradoxes and contradictions that pile up on both sides of the political stage of the border.

The water caches along the border, for example, is placed by two groups. Border Angels, founded and directed by Enrique Morones, and Water Stations, Inc., founded and directed by John Hunter. While the Border Angels website devotes an entire section to debunking popular myths about illegal immigration, the site for Water Stations emphasizes, "We do not encourage illegal crossing. We have no political or religious affiliation."  This coalition of actors has brought together volunteers from the poles of this debate around the central issue of human survival under a call to service.

The Transboder Immigrant Tool likewise reframes the issue of border crossing within the context of aiding those whose lives are in peril.  However, unlike these nonprofits that downplay their political agenda in the name of serving basic needs, the Tool uses the fulfillment of basic needs as an opportunity to needle the demagogs so dead-set on using the undocumented for political gain.

The code, like the overall project, operates to serve these needs in a manner that is blameless, that is without overt political overtures, and yet by its mere operation, by the use cases it suggests, the Tool agitates and irritates those who wish to frame border crossers as threats to the United States.

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