Thread: Rancher calls protest at border a good sign

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... y0604.html

Rancher calls protest at border a good sign

Susan Carroll
Republic Tucson Bureau
Jun. 4, 2006 12:00 AM


PALOMINAS - The cowboy stood at the edge of a crowd gathered for an anti-illegal-immigration rally outside the old trading post, holding the reigns for his big, black horse, Dash.

Ray Bouton isn't usually the political rally kind of guy. He lives on ranch near Palominas, shoeing horses, and dreaming of being able to run cattle, if only the smugglers would stop cutting his fences. But after 10 years of what he described as an "invasion," the 51-year-old cowboy got on his horse Saturday morning, and rode to the trading post, to say "Thank you" to the roughly 65 protesters, many from out of town, who came to Palominas to call for closing the U.S.-Mexican border.

"I wanted to come down, to try and give my support to these people, and to help protect the sovereignty of the United States of America against what I consider to be an invading force," Bouton said, giving Dash an apple treat.

As Congress prepares to reconcile conflicting House and Senate immigration reform bills, organizers from Ohio hoped to draw thousands to the rally in Palominas, and 18 simultaneous protests outside Mexican consulates across the country. The Arizona rally included people from Ohio, New Jersey and Los Angeles, but fell far short of the organizers' goals.

Bouton said he was just happy anyone was paying attention. For years, ranchers along remote stretches of Arizona's borders have complained of having their fences cut, their wells vandalized, their trucks stolen. And for years, many say, most people outside of the border towns ignored them, as the tide of illegal immigration through the state swelled to record numbers. Arizona's Tucson and Yuma sectors of the U.S. Border Patrol accounted for more than half of the 1.1 million arrests along the Southwest border last year.

But amid growing political pressure, the federal government has announced plans to send an estimated 6,000 National Guard troops to the border to help the understaffed Border Patrol until more agents can be hired. Fifty-five troops from Utah arrived in Yuma on Saturday as part of the first reinforcements since President Bush's announcement of a new strategy to help secure the border.

For Bouton, illegal immigration isn't just political. It's personal.

"I used to live right down on the border right along the San Pedro River in one of the most beautiful areas you could ever imagine," he said. "I tried to raise some horses and had plans to put some cattle down there, and I couldn't do it. They'd come through and cut my fences every night of the week. Not just one spot. Four spots. ... It was completely impossible to do anything."

Bouton said that one night nearly 10 years ago, his little ranch house came under attack by bandits from Mexico.

He moved the day after the shooting, and later sold his land right on the border and moved farther north. And while he's thankful for the national attention on border security, he's a little bitter it's come so late.

"I've always said people that live across the rest of the United States don't care about what goes on down here . . . but when it starts affecting their wallet, then they'll start to take notice," he said. "And now it's affecting their wallets. And they've woken up a little bit."

This story received no coverage in any Tucson media even though the event took place in Southern Arizona. It is also a shame that there were only 65 people there to form the chain.

People and the media are too apathetic about this issue that is ruining this country.