Posted on 08/31/2004 8:56:57 AM PDT by gubamyster
El Paso-based group dropping water bottles to entrants in desert
By Michael Marizco
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
DOUGLAS - The Cessna soared 700 feet over the desert floor as passenger Armando Alarcon scanned the ground, looking for illegal entrants to send down a bottle of water to.
He's the founder of Paisanos al Rescate - Countrymen to the Rescue - the latest humanitarian group working to stop the deaths of illegal entrants in the Arizona desert. At least 178 people have died crossing into Arizona since Oct. 1, according to a compilation of records by the Arizona Daily Star. The Border Patrol has tallied 122 illegal entrant deaths in all of Arizona since Oct. 1.
The Paisanos are joining at least six other groups whose members spend their time in the desert looking for and helping illegal entrants as they come across.
For the Paisanos, the idea is to drop a 1-liter bottle of water tied to a parachute to illegal entrants from about 500 feet in the air.
The group started its volunteer work in July in El Paso, and members have delivered more than 80 bottles of water to illegal entrants. Saturday, they came to Arizona, flying out of the Douglas airport in a Cessna plane carrying about 15 water bottles.
No illegal entrants were found during the group's flight Saturday.
And while the idea is still in its developmental stages, the plans are elaborate. The group hopes to one day use an on-board camera and laptop computer to watch the ground below and to have two more planes available to fly out from Tucson and Calexico, Calif., in addition to El Paso.
For now, group members are happy to have the water bottles intact when they hit the ground.
"We lifted our idea from the Mars rover," Alarcon said as he brandished the first Paisanos prototype: a 1-liter bottle wrapped in Bubble Wrap to protect it from the impact on the ground. It is emblazoned with a stick figure of a man and a crudely written "Paisanos" underneath.
Then, group members tried small-size Air Force parachutes, but those, attached with tape, would separate from the bottles in the air, and the bottles would fall like water bombs - with predictable results.
"The bottles would burst when they hit the ground, and people would just give us the finger," said Alarcon, who lives in El Paso.
For prototype No. 3, the bottles were attached to a simple Army flare parachute. An attached sticker instructs illegal entrants to lift one hand up if they're OK or lie on the ground if they're in distress.
Assuming the entrants are injured or ready to give up, Alarcon can use a cell phone to call the U.S. Border Patrol and give it the coordinates to the entrants.
For its part, the Border Patrol has not heard of the program in the Tucson Sector but maintains there isn't a problem with people dropping off water to illegal entrants, said agency spokesman Andy Adame.
"On its face value, it does sound like a humanitarian effort," he said. "If there's a guy out there dropping water off, that's probably one of the better programs out in the area."
But adding this latest border group to those already along the Arizona border is creating a "unique situation" for agents, he said.
Between the Samaritans operating desert encampments; Humane Borders, with its water stations; the American Border Patrol, with its remote-control planes; civil defense militias; and numerous border watch groups, agents are running into new aid groups that they don't always know about, he said.
Armed militias create a potential for violence, while on the other end of the spectrum, humanitarian groups create their own kind of problems for agents.
"They can serve as a false perception for these undocumented immigrants, enticing people to enter through Arizona," he said.
Another Cochise County border group not limited to the ground predicts the Paisanos are going to get in trouble sooner or later.
Calling the effort the "aiding and abetting of the wholesale invasion of the United States," American Border Patrol founder Glenn Spencer wondered if the effort couldn't quickly be corrupted by pilots who use airplanes to quickly supply whole groups of illegal border crossers and then charge the smugglers for their efforts.
"What troubles me more than anything is, this thing is beginning to escalate," he said. "Eventually, this is going to backfire on somebody. It's not a stretch of the imagination to see this go from the humanitarian to exploitation."
Alarcon, who was brought into Texas across the Rio Grande in an inner tube at the age of 1 from Culiacan, Sinaloa, says he's worried only about the deaths of illegal entrants, and this is his way of trying to stop the fatalities.
With 25 people in Paisanos al Rescate, the group is able to patrol the U.S.-Mexican border for several hours three days a week. The 36-year-old trucking company sales manager says he's simply tired of reading about migrant deaths.
"It's like every year they're on television, in the newspapers, and there's no solutions," he said. "Maybe we can keep one person from dying, and that's going to be enough."
So in July, he bought the Cessna for $74,000 and spent an extra $11,000 on supplies and equipment for the Paisanos program.
He said he visited the No More Deaths camps this summer and was turned off when the group brought two Hondurans to tell the story of their journey to the United States.
Now he doesn't want to be affiliated with the group, he says, because he feels it spends too much time publicizing the work it does for illegal entrants.
"It's not so much a question of publicizing humanitarian work as much as making public our displeasure with the administration's border policy, which results in hundreds of deaths," said Margo Cowan, a volunteer attorney with the group, responding to the criticism.
The Border Patrol has taken to monitoring the group ever since No More Deaths came out announcing that it transports illegal entrants to local hospitals and churches, agency spokesman Adame said.
By watching the camps, the agency hopes to intercede when No More Deaths volunteers try to transport someone and, instead, wants ailing illegal entrants to be cared for by trained Border Patrol medics, he said.
Cowan said the group is not doing anything wrong. "What we do is transparent. It doesn't matter whether they watch us or not," she said.
œ Contact reporter Michael Marizco at 573-4213 or mmarizco@azstarnet.com.
ping
Aiding and abetting illegal aliens is a crime. When will they be arrested?
Here's NEXT week's story. The lawyer for the family of an illegcal who was killed by a water bottle dropped from a plane, announced that he was filing suit for $10 million in damages against Poland Springs, who bottled the water, and Cessna, who manufactured the aircraft..
I'd like to volunteer my services. Will I be allowed to THROW the BOTTLES AT the ILLEGALS?
Also, is the Sierra Club denouncing their actions as polluting the desert?
If they would use steel bottles, they would not have to use parachutes.
> ... wondered if the effort couldn't quickly be corrupted by ...
Heck, all it would take is a rumor that the bottles are
poisoned. Once that becomes urban myth in Mexico, the entire
drop effort becomes a complete waste of time.
Um............LOL!!
According to the FARs, throwing anything out of an aircraft is a felony.
LOL! THere ya go!
Just add this to the 'ever growing list' of US laws that DO NOT apply to illegals. (and those that aid & abet them)
At least 178 people have died crossing into Arizona since Oct. 1, according to a compilation of records by the Arizona Daily Star. The Border Patrol has tallied 122 illegal entrant deaths in all of Arizona since Oct. 1.Sounds like a natural deterrent to me.
Mother Nature does the job the inept INS says is "impossible." Way kewl!
Wondering if the bottles have a label on them that say
'VOTE FOR KERRY, A VIET NAM VET"
TITLE 8 > CHAPTER 12 > SUBCHAPTER II > Part VIII > Sec. 1327.
Any person who knowingly aids or assists any alien inadmissible under section 1182(a)(2) (insofar as an alien inadmissible under such section has been convicted of an aggravated felony) or 1182(a)(3) (other than subparagraph (E) thereof) of this title to enter the United States, or who connives or conspires with any person or persons to allow, procure, or permit any such alien to enter the United States, shall be fined under title 18, or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both
TITLE 8 > CHAPTER 12 > SUBCHAPTER II > Part VIII > Sec. 1324.
Any person who.... encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such coming to, entry, or residence is or will be in violation of law.... be fined under title 18, imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.
sounds like 5 to 10 to me.
The parachutes were bought from Acme Manufacturing...
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