Illegals flow into Arizona like water through a broken dam

LIKE MANY other southern Arizonans, I am deeply grateful to the few dozen vigilantes calling themselves Minutemen who set up camp along the Arizona-Mexico border last month. That few people around here were much impressed with a bunch of retirees in camouflage playing soldier, and that there turned out to be almost as many reporters as patriots on the ground, was irrelevant: We were just thrilled by the publicity. We’ve been trying to get the rest of the country to notice what’s going on down here for years.

U.S. immigration policy has turned the Arizona desert between Tucson and the border into a nightmare zone of suffering, death, destruction and terrible ironies, and the people who live here are sick to death of it. Human beings, fragile desert and a whole way of life are perishing, and no one out there seems to care.

For example: Ten days ago, the U.S. Border Patrol rescued 77 “illegal entrants” stranded in a barren stretch of desert 20 miles west of Tucson. After walking for five days, they’d overpowered their coyote (people smuggler), taken his cell phone, called 911 and written “Help” in big letters in the sand. Temperatures were in the 90s, and the group had run out of water the day before. Four people were taken to the hospital by ambulance for hyperthermia and dehydration; two stopped breathing while being examined. The story was so familiar, though, that the morning paper didn’t bother to run a follow-up.

The first thing to understand about the border is that the immediate problem isn’t so much the hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who flood into the United States from Mexico every year. It’s our government’s response to them. While President Bush and others are trying to shape a realistic, orderly guest-worker program, one that would be more humane and presumably free up law enforcement to chase smugglers and terrorists, policy on the ground is to keep everyone out.

From a free-market point of view, this movement of people looks like a classic example of the law of supply and demand. Mexico is poor, overpopulated, intensely corrupt and has a nearly limitless supply of cheap, willing labor. Thanks to the North American Free Trade Agreement, competition with inexpensive American corn has ruined tens of thousands of small Mexican farmers, while many of the light manufacturing plants just south of the border that drew so many northward a decade ago have moved operations to Asia. People are going hungry.

The United States, on the other hand, is rich and needs workers who will take jobs Americans don’t want, for lower wages than Americans will accept. (Try this thought experiment: Imagine suggesting that your teen-ager take a summer job picking melons for 12 hours a day in California.) If, by magic, the Minutemen’s dreams were granted overnight — if the border were sealed and the estimated 11 million people living in this country illegally were deported — America would most likely be unrecognizable, and not in a good way. Crops would rot in the fields, bathrooms would stay dirty, mothers of small children would be stuck at home. America is addicted to cheap labor, and withdrawal is beyond contemplation.

Still, we maintain the pretense that we don’t want a docile underclass of workers coming into the United States, and we keep trying to catch them as they cross an increasingly policed border.

The militarization of what had been a fairly porous border started in the 1980s with Ronald Reagan’s “war on drugs,” but began in earnest in 1994, when the Border Patrol mounted Operation Gatekeeper and started building a fence between San Diego and Tijuana, eventually closing the entire California-Mexico border except for one small, environmentally sensitive gap. Then Operation Hold the Line at El Paso and Operation Rio Grande further east shut down most of the Texas border. These changes did not stop the traffic; they simply funneled it into New Mexico and Arizona.

Operation Safeguard was implemented here in Arizona in the border town of Nogales, where a fence went up dividing the American and Sonoran sides of town and diverting migrants out into the desert. The theory on our side seemed to be that no one would be desperate enough to try to cross 50 waterless miles of the Sonoran or Chihuahan desert on foot.

This supposition has proved to be wrong. The Border Patrol’s apprehensions between Oct. 1, 2003, and Sept. 30, 2004, in the Tucson sector totaled 491,771, or 1,347 per day, but the population of undocumented immigrants “has been growing robustly during most of the period of ‘concentrated border enforcement’,” according to the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. The crossing has not become impossible, just more expensive and dangerous. Since 2000, more than 750 migrants have been found dead in the Arizona desert, according to county medical examiners. And from January 1995 through May 2004, more than 2,600 people have died along the whole border — roughly one death per day, 10 times the rate before operations began. These are just the documented deaths. No one knows how many more lie out there unknown, unrecovered and unrecoverable — after skeletons bleach in the sun long enough, cows and other animals eat them for the calcium.

Driving around the spectacular country south of Tucson, it’s hard to get your mind around the drama taking place just out of sight. A precarious trail along the slopes of the Baboquivari Mountains to the southwest, for instance, became a popular route last year because it’s so hard to patrol. Looking up at the shining white scopes of the National Observatory on Kitt Peak, at the towering sacred monolith of Baboquivari Peak further south, it’s hard to believe that dozens of human beings could be risking their lives on those rugged slopes even as you watch. Anyone who takes a bad fall along that trail is unlikely ever to be found.

The strategy of driving border crossers out into the wilds has also been hell on the people who live north of the line. Ranchers’ land has been covered with trash, their fences cut, livestock scattered, water tanks fouled and property destroyed. Some have given up and left, but it’s hard to sell out because people already know about the trouble. Residents of small, isolated towns have been faced by sudden buildups of equipment and personnel. The Border Patrol set up a “Special Operations” base over the ridge from the tiny settlement of Arivaca without informing inhabitants that 10 large trailers, 10 to 30 trucks, generators, stadium lights and night operations involving helicopters were about to become a feature of their lives for the foreseeable future.

At an emotional meeting held in the Arivaca civic center recently, several people who own land along the ridge poured out their frustration. You build your house next to a wildlife refuge, you tend to think your peace is guaranteed. The Border Patrol was invited to the meeting but did not attend.

The worst and most lasting damage to the landscape, though, is in the 90 percent of the border land that’s owned and theoretically protected by the U.S. government. A chain of wildlife preserves and other protected areas, including Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, is being destroyed, first by the footpaths and litter left by the migrants; second, and more seriously, by quasi-military activities of the Border Patrol.

The Border Patrol is flying Black Hawk helicopters and driving all-terrain vehicles and motorcycles around rare, beautiful desert lands, and no amount of complaint from locals, land managers or environmentalists has slowed them down. It is illegal to take vehicles off-road in national parks and preserves, and illegal for citizens to pull off the awful dirt roads of the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge anyplace where the soil is undisturbed, or to drive at all when the ground is wet. Cabeza Prieta, home to the last 40 Sonoran pronghorn antelope in the United States, is the wildest and driest of American deserts. The Border Patrol has a major base of operations within the refuge. The remaining traces of the centuries-old Camino del Diablo, the Devil’s Highway, have been obliterated, and miles of delicate desert turned to moonscape.

In spite of the collateral damage, what happens next will be more of the same. This March, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Robert C. Bonner announced that the patrol is more than doubling the number of helicopters and planes along the Arizona border and bringing in 534 more agents.

Local opinion on the buildup ranges from outrage among social activists who want an open border all the way to approval from those who think “those people don’t belong here.” Recent immigrants from the Midwest who don’t know or care that Tucson has always been a “brown town” and the desperate ranchers along the border are pleased, if not convinced. Others are horrified that the government, finding that what it’s doing isn’t working, simply proposes to do more of it, and to do it here. The majority just want the whole mess to go away.

And so we who love this beautiful, dying region now live in a sort of occupied zone within our own nation, pinioned by politicians’ indifference and officials’ lack of imagination. We expect another bad summer.

Renee Downing is a freelance writer who has lived in southern Arizona for more than 30 years.

The only thing I can conclude is that there is either some deal 'cut' with the Mexican government that nobody in Washington wants written down on paper or that Washington is acquiescing to some specific THREAT made by the Mexican government like, "We'll cut off all oil deliveries".

There is something going on here because the situtation is out of control and detrimental to the future health of this country.

~A Former Southern Californian

Your conclusion has merit.
But I tend to think that the MSM drives most of what gets attention. M. Jackson gets more air time that the influx of aliens from Mexico. What does that say?
Most of what happens in DC is driven by the MSM, even in the Bush administration. He does what he can, and is reshaping the military and some other things very skillfully, but aliens on the Arizona border are not even on the radar scope. You can only fight so many battles at once.
BTW - I used to live in NM.

*** Most people east of the Mississippi have no idea what is going west of it. ***

Oh yes we do. Chicago has turned into Chicano.
In fact in Chicago, oops Chicano, ILLEGALS are now allowed to VOTE for the local school councils as there aren't enough CITIZENS in most neighborhoods. And Cook County is an illegal alien cesspool haven.

And in the 'collar counties' of DuPage, Will, Lake and Kane most of the violent CRIME is now committed by ILLEGALS. And these same ILEGALS have now managed to somehow scam the government to qualify for Section 8 Housing and as such are ruining the quality of life in towns and villages throughout the metro area.

And in IL in general the highways and streets after midnight aren't safe to drive do to all the drunken ILLEGALS killing innocent families on the roads. It's a safe bet that when you hear of a deadly accident at 2:00 am, an "undocumented Juan" is involved.

There is something going on here because the situtation is out of control and detrimental to the future health of this country.

I have been pondering this situation myself. I think it has to do more with arrogance. Bush, Clinton, McCain, the WSJ, and the myraid other open borders/free trade crowd simnply just can't envision the destruction of our culture and the erosion of our society. They believe the power and strength of the U.S. is immutable. It's just not possible for them to believe that their actions and decisions will be ever be detrimental to the U.S.

The republicans see themselves as both benevolent to immigrants and providing a source of labor for industry (such as it is these days). The left, of course, is only advocating illegal immigration to create a class of people who feel beholden to them so they can return to power.

In any case, neither side can look into the future far enough to imagine a U.S. that has been ruined. Both have evolved into political parties that believe that they are not bound by the history of human societal evolution: They each believe their way will be the first in the histoyr of man to triumph.

Our "leaders", both political and corporate, today are so insulated from the world of the common man that they think their insulation extends to the rest of us. They have enough wealth and power to protect themselves from any societal destruction that they simply cannot imagine it happening at any level of U.S. society.

There is historical precedent to show that when the top of society becomes to heavy it becomes unbalanced and is that much easier to topple. The U.S. is becoming more and more top heavy every year. Soon, external and internal forces will cause it to topple. Unless something is done to change the direction our "leaders" are taking us.

I think it was designed to be this way.

This supply of cheap laborers helps to keep the inflation down which we need desperately, because heavy gov spending encourages inflation. If these illegals were all professionals and trained people pouring into the US, then they would encourage inflation, but the fact that they are not makes the whole situation different. They actually help our economy (as long as they DO NOT CAUSE more gov spending).

I agree...it is arrogance...and reliance on 1) cheap labor for campaign contributors and 2) the political consequences of being branded a racist or xenophobe for doing anything that remotely tightens the flow.

We just need to make our voices heard and change the calculus from making it political suicide to oppose illegal immigration to political suicide not to oppose it.

"...If, by magic, the Minutemen’s dreams were granted overnight — if the border were sealed and the estimated 11 million people living in this country illegally were deported — America would most likely be unrecognizable, and not in a good way. Crops would rot in the fields, bathrooms would stay dirty, mothers of small children would be stuck at home. America is addicted to cheap labor, and withdrawal is beyond contemplation...."

As long as people believe this bullcrap, illegal immigration will continue and current illegals will not be deported. In reality, as the cheap labor market shrinks, pay will go up and the unemployed LEGAL workers will take the jobs and benefit from the increased pay. When we no longer have to pay for free medical care, education and incarceration of illegals, our expenses (and crime) will go down. What doesn't wash we can handle, and our borders will be protected.

Great. But go on the offensive. Tell DC that you've had enough. The people in MA think that Chicago is west of the Mississippi. Take the country back. We can't do it in places like NY or MA, which is why I send my money to candidates in other states which effect change. The only connection between Kerry/Kennedy and another ethnic group is via their servants.
I'm trying as hard as I can in MA to alert people to these hypocrites. The wind generator they are putting up on rt 93 is a great example. The beautiful people don't want it near their 2 month a year summer homes. (The good news this time is the unions are on the offensive!)

Agree...illegal immigration needs to be the type of issue that drives campaigns (like abortion, taxes, "values," etc.). Until the politicos know that their election swings in the balance, they will continue to do nothing.

No doubt it will be an uphill fight. The very fact that our opponents are ready, willing and able to drop the race card every step of the way will make it tough. We have to make people understand that this has nothing to do with RACE or ethnicity and everything to do with security, jobs and wages for the middle class. We'll take immigrants...let's just not take the ones who flaunt the laws of this country. We need to control our borders.

I usually hate to engage in any conspiracy theories here at FR so please forgive the 2 points in my previous post. However, there IS something going on here that I have yet to get a satisfactory answer to, either from our Gub-mint or the MSM.

"....Our "leaders", both political and corporate, today are so insulated from the world of the common man that they think their insulation extends to the rest of us......"

I agree! The explanation could be as simple as yours (ie. right in front of us).

Huh I guess the same can be said of the Founding Fathers, then. Weren't they also arrogant ones who thought they could triumph?

Basically you are a fatalist, and so are most on the anti-immigrant, anti-business column.

To clairfy, I think most of us are not anti-immigrant, per se. It just drives us crazy that the government will do nothing to stop the illegal flow of people coming into this country...just legalize it or enforce the laws.

The is no question that the system now is broken and out of control. Yes, wages being driven through the floor is not necessarily a bad thing if the price of goods and services comes down as well. But the current system is completely out of control, and that is unacceptable to many.

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