Mexico Police Find 92 Migrants In Cooler Truck

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican police on Saturday intercepted a refrigerated tractor-trailer close to the Guatemalan border, carrying 92 illegal migrants, many of them showing signs of hypothermia.

Federal police stopped the truck on a highway in the state of Chiapas, and after questioning the driver, who said he was transporting flooring materials, discovered the illegal migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador in a refrigeration container.

Just three days ago, U.S. police discovered 18 dead immigrants among a group of 62 from Mexico and Central America, in an abandoned truck 125 miles southeast of Houston along the main highway from Mexico.

In what was one of the worst U.S. cases of alien-smuggling deaths, the immigrants, some dead and others severely sick or dying from the heat and stagnant air, were left in the trailer after the driver panicked on seeing the dead inside and fled.

The Mexico-Guatemala border is a crossing point for Central American illegal emigrants making their way to the United States.

Police in Chiapas arrested the 38 year-old truck driver and turned the illegal human cargo over to immigration authorities after providing medical attention.

Clear lesson - if you want to make it across Mexico to the US border, don't try to stiff the Mexican cops when they stop you. The Mexican cops stop these trucks many times as they move across Mexico and know exactly what the cargo is.

The cops pay off the PANistas and a chunk of each bounty goes to Presidente Fox and whichever of his senior officials "own" that line of business. The drugs and certain passenger trucks are not stoped because the fees have been paid at a higher level and a small cut passed downward.

There is good reason why the Nigerian and Bangladeshi governments send employees/diplomats-in-training to Mexico to learn how to really be crooked!

Here are some articles relevant to the illegal border crossers.

regards,
risa

National Guard inspectors' exit from border stokes worries
May 6, 2003
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/1898561

US is sued for deaths of crossers
Thursday, May 8, 2003
http://www.azstarnet.com/border/30508IMMIGRANTLAWSUIT.html

Wanted: Victims of border vigilantes' violence
05/08/2003
By Ignacio Ibarra / Arizona Daily Star
(must register-text below)
http://www.azfamily.com/news/local/KTVKLNews20030508.350de3eb.html

TUCSON -- Saying U.S. authorities have failed to take
action, a Tucson-based border advocacy group will
launch a media campaign in Mexico today aimed at
finding victims of border vigilante violence. The
Border Action Network, working with Mexico's Party of
the Democratic Revolution in Nogales, Sonora, will
begin placing posters and billboards around the city
and run daily radio ads asking victims to come
forward.

The organization will also make lawyers available to
help those who want to file criminal complaints. In a
news release written in Spanish, the network said it
and other groups want to turn up the heat on "racist
ranchers."

Last month, Jennifer Allen, the group's director, and
other group members gave Arizona Attorney General
Terry Goddard a petition with 2,000 signatures asking
his office to investigate border-watch groups. Allen
said Goddard told her he wanted to meet with other
community groups with strong views on immigration
issues before making a decision. His response is
tantamount to ignoring violations of law, Allen said.

In a written response, Goddard said, "It is simplistic
to think that this critical matter can be solved in a
few weeks. Our office is working steadily to help find
a way to protect all parties. "The attorney general is
committed to ensuring that Arizona's laws are not
broken, either by undocumented immigrants or
'vigilantes.'

To this end, we are working with the U.S. Attorney's
Office, have met with the Border Alliance Network and
plan to speak with local ranchers." Cochise County's
chief criminal prosecutor, Vincent Festa, said he has
received no complaints or seen a case supporting
criminal prosecution. "We've had numerous cases where
the Sheriff's Office has gone out and investigated.
And in nearly all of those cases, the witnesses had
been deported back across the border and were
unavailable to us," he said. "Even so, I'm not aware
of any case that rose to the level of criminality."

He said state law allows citizens to threaten deadly
force and use physical force to stop or deter an act
of trespass. Mexican Consul Miguel Escobar Valdez said
he has interviewed many of the illegal border crossers
involved in encounters with Cochise County residents
in which the illegal border crossers say they were
threatened and intimidated by guns and dogs. None of
them, he said, has filed a complaint.

I have no sympathy for someone "threatened and intimidated" while trying to come into this country illegally.
Make your bed, sleep in it.

There was a guy on Savage tonight, I think from that American Border Patrol?. He was discussing their use of sensors and drones. I thought it was great. He said it would be cheaper and more effective than current Border Patrol policies, and they are wanting to seriously propose this to use on all borders.
My thought was that this is what this country is all about- citizens seeing and solving a problem themselves, with their ingenuity. There are so many things that the government does half-assed because they are simply not interested enough, beyond some bland bureaucratic notion of 'helping' people. Fact is, you are far likelier to get better, faster and more effective results from people who have something at stake. That's my 2 cents anyway.

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