Posted on 09/29/2003 12:35:07 PM PDT by Spiff
BY BILL HESS
Sierra Vista Herald/Review
SIERRA VISTA, AZ -- Protesters who say Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Kolbe is doing nothing to stop illegal immigrants from dumping trash in Cochise County left a message at the congressman's office front door in Sierra Vista -- 22 bags of trash.
This morning, Bernadette Polley, Kolbe's Sierra Vista office manager, saw the trash for the first time, although she knew about the incident Sunday night.
It was a political message because of Kolbe's desire to find new ways to address the illegal immigrant problems, Polley said.
The trash was removed from the front door by Sierra Vista workers before 8 a.m. today so Polley and Shay Saucedo, who also works for Kolbe, could enter the office. There is only one door to the office, at which the trash bags were piled more than three feet high.
The bags were left late Saturday night, and by this morning, the odors coming from the containers were ripe and pungent. The bags included plastic water bottles, clothing, shoes, feminine hygiene products and used food cans.
The protesters wrote messages on an unfilled Cochise County UDA Cleanup trash bag that had been taped to the outside of an office window.
"We are still being invaded! Here is some proof," one message stated with a frowning face drawn on the bag.
Other comments on the bag, that are given by the county to people interested in cleaning up illegal immigrant sites, said: "From a grandma to you," "From a Tucsonan and advid (sic) hunter" and "From a father to you."
Another message on a piece of cardboard was more direct with a message to Kolbe. It stated, "Mr. Kolbe It is your duty to uphold the constitution. Close our borders. Protect U.S. citizens and our environment." There was an arrow drawn to the word constitution.
Kolbe disagrees that he is doing nothing to address trashing of the environment by illegal immigrants. He also said the bill introduced in the House of Representatives by him and Arizona Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake and Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain in the Senate will help reduce the number of illegal immigrants crossing the border into the United States from Mexico.
"I am just as concerned about the serious amount of trash left behind by illegal immigrants crossing the Arizona-Mexico border, and I believe that the temporary worker bill that I have introduced is a new way of solving the problems that come with illegal immigration," Kolbe said in a statement released by his Washington, D.C., office this morning.
Saying he has obtained federal funds to help cleanup the environment in Arizona, Kolbe said he "will see to it that there will be more money."
He said he has obtained nearly $2 million specifically earmarked for environmental cleanup in Southern Arizona.
Kolbe has had a number of town hall meetings in Cochise County pushing the proposed guest worker bill and support from people who live in the county has been small. Even his brother Walter Kolbe is against the proposed bill.
Sunday night a Sierra Vista police officer, who asked not to be identified, said he knows leaving the bags of trash was an anti-Kolbe message. Initially, the officer saw the scene as a site of illegal dumping.
He thought it was strange that the protesters picked up trash illegally dumped by immigrants and then the protesters illegally dumped the trash at Kolbe's office.
By doing what?
Some enterprising activists decided to make a late night delivery to the RINO's office bearing their frustration over his mishandling of the border issue. His town halls are downright hostile in Cochise County.
However, Tucson and Green Valley seem to love him and his big government socialist stances on just about everything. The Republican establishment loves him too.
Playing the game the way it is normally played won't work. We have to jar people's attention to the problems at hand and to Kolbe's unworthiness for office. It is going to take stuff like this. Some eggs are going to have to be broken to make this omelette.
What?
Look, Kolbe's constituents have hammered him in every Town Hall (about an even dozen) that he has held in his district over the last year. And the best he could do was come up with a blanket amnesty plan under the guise of a Guest-Worker Program.
In the meantime, the water bottles, back packs, and human feces pile up in our back yards.
So, I ask you again. What concrete legal measures do we take right now? Measures that don't involve an armed citizen's revolt? Because like it or not, that's where we're headed. And it's going to happen within weeks, not sometime after the next election.
Well said. Ya think he's smart enough to recognize it?
And I answer again...Get someone else elected. Start NOW!
If he remains, it's because your issue is a "single issue" that other voters don't see as important.
That Dem tactic didn't work on Arnold either.
The arrogant Illegals I meet around Anchorage H A T E any white that is not a liberal-socialist sympathizer bearing free handouts.
They have found that fighting for what they can get up here in the U.S. is a whole lot easier than fighting for what they want down in their own country.
We're just gonna have to change their minds... Cowboys and Mexicans, indeed.
There's an additional picture inside that shows a note next to Kolbe's Congressional Seal that says, "Mr. Kolbe It is your duty to uphold the constitution. Close our borders. Protect U.S. citizens and our environment."
And if you haven't signed the online petition "claiming responsibility" for this act of protest, you may want to do so.
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