http://www.sptimes.com/2005/07/03/World ... line.shtml

Don't cross the line

In the Arizona desert, illegal immigrants make the often-deadly attempt to enter the country. Stopping them is the job of the U.S. Border Patrol, but a group of citizens has assembled "to help."

By DAVID ADAMS, Times Latin America Correspondent
Published July 3, 2005
[Times photos: John Pendygraft]

Bob Alley, 72, scans past the border into Mexico from his spot near Naco, Ariz. Alley bought his own night-vision binoculars before he drove from Michigan to participate in the Minuteman Project.


A border patrol agent searches an illegal alien who was picked up in Naco.



Illegal immigrants wait to be processed in a holding cell at the Naco, Ariz., Border Patrol station. Last year almost 600,000 undocumented migrants were caught trying to cross Arizona's 379-mile border with Mexico.


Minuteman member Bruce McDaniel, 68, settles in for an all-night patrol on the border near Naco, Ariz.



Border Patrol Agent Joe Armstrong drives along the border fence in Naco, Ariz. The fence is made of surplus landing pads that were formerly used by the U.S. military.


NACO, Ariz. - In the moonlight, the silhouette of a man with binoculars looms against the desert sky. He peers across a barbed-wire border fence, watching Mexico.

He believes it's his duty to help protect the borders of his country from "invasion."

Bob Alley belongs to the Arizona-based Minuteman Project, whose volunteer members began patrolling the border in April. President Bush says they are vigilantes. Civil rights campaigners call them racists who misunderstand the role of jobless Mexicans in the U.S. labor market.

The Minutemen describe themselves as patriots who refuse to put up any longer with the number of illegal immigrants who cross the border every day.

"I was a combat soldier, and our Border Patrol is facing the same conditions I saw on the battlefield," said Alley, a 72-year-old retiree from Michigan. "They are undermanned and outgunned."

Despite criticism, the Minutemen have struck a chord among those concerned about the impact of illegal migration. Many citizens complain about the burden on public services, leaving huge debts at public hospitals, overcrowded schools, and courts clogged with migrant cases.

"Arizona is in a bad way. It's just eating us up," said Jeff Flake, one of the state's Republican congressmen.

Last year almost 600,000 undocumented migrants were caught trying to cross Arizona's 379-mile long border with Mexico. Though it makes up barely 20 percent of the entire 1,950-mile frontier with Mexico, the Arizona border accounts for 51 percent of all U.S. Border Patrol arrests. There were no exact figures available on how many migrants successfully cross into the state.

Arizona's influx is largely due to Border Patrol efforts in California and Texas over the past decade. High steel fences erected in most border towns and cities have made once-popular crossings in San Diego and El Paso less feasible.

Critics say border policy has funneled migrants away from populated areas and into more dangerous terrain. Some humanitarian organizations are at the borders as well, offering assistance. A faith-based group in Tucson called No More Deaths funds a camp providing food and water to migrants on the Mexican side of the border. Women cook hot meals on a campfire as volunteers take turns patrolling surrounding desert for migrants in need of aid.

Border Patrol efforts now are focused on what is known as the "Tucson Sector," a desolate, 261-mile stretch of semiarid Sonora Desert. Summer temperatures in the desert soar to more than 110 degrees, making conditions treacherous for anyone on foot. Rattlesnakes, cactuses and thorny mesquite bushes add to the perils.

The Tucson Sector accounts for the vast majority of border activity. That also explains the presence of the Minutemen, whose headquarters is a few miles up the road in Tombstone, scene of the legendary showdown at the O.K. Corral.

About 20 volunteers gathered earlier this month on Toughnut Street outside the tiny offices of the Tombstone Tumbleweed newspaper, owned by Minuteman Project founder Chris Simcox.

The group claims to have several thousand members across the country, with branches that patrol the border in New Mexico and Texas. It takes its name from the elite militia of the Revolutionary War who supposedly could turn out for service at a minute's notice.

With an average age of 61, today's Minutemen may not be as able-bodied as their 18th century ancestors. Alley is wearing Department of the Army suspenders to hold up his pants. The revolver on his hip is only for self-defense, he insists. His brother, Richard, 65, sits silently in a folding chair mounted in the back of the Ford 350 Super Duty pickup they drove across the country.

It turns out to be a quiet night for Alley and the other volunteers strung out along a two-mile stretch of the border. The only things moving in this patch of desert scrub are jackrabbits and quail darting between mesquite bushes.

* * *

The Minutemen like to think they have made a contribution to dissuading migrants from crossing. Border Patrol agents credit the Minutemen with attracting media attention to the border, but little else. Both groups eye each other with suspicion. Agents do not interfere with the Minutemen, but keep a close watch.

A more likely explanation for the lack of illegal activity is a dramatic increase in Border Patrol resources. Some 2,400 agents now patrol the Tucson Sector.

Border fences made of military surplus landing mats were erected in the small border towns of Douglas and Naco. Day and night, cameras mounted on 80-foot towers scan the desert for Mexicans hiding in the scrub. The nighttime infrared cameras can pick up body heat, illuminating the migrants against the cooling desert, where nighttime temperatures drop into the 60s.

Seismic sensors in the ground also alert agents in a command center to suspected border crossing activity. Remote controlled drones are being tested for aerial surveillance. Agents also patrol the highways, looking out for vans and trucks waiting for migrants at pick-up spots prearranged by "coyotes," as the smugglers are called.

"In the past they (undocumented migrants) had more of an advantage over us. They had us beat by sheer numbers," said Joseph Armstrong, a Border Patrol supervisory agent at the Naco station. "Now the technology we received has put the advantage back on our side."

Agents in the Naco command center use the cameras to guide the agents on the ground.

"They caught us again," moaned Rogelio Sanchez, 45, moments after being arrested with seven other Mexicans about a mile from the border fence. The agents had no trouble snaring the group, following precise directions radioed from the command center. After getting as close as possible with a four-wheel drive vehicle, the agents dismounted and continued the pursuit through the brush.

It was Sanchez's fifth frustrated border crossing in as many months.

"We need jobs," he said. "Mexico is never going to get fixed. There's no future for us there."

Sanchez and the members of his group shrugged off the risk of crossing the desert in the summer. The Border Patrol reported 141 deaths in the Tucson Sector last year. That number is on pace to rise in 2005, with 103 already reported by June 27.

On a recent afternoon, a Border Patrol search-and-rescue vehicle responded to an emergency call from agents who came across a migrant "in distress" in the Altar Valley, a wide expanse of desert dotted with cattle ranches.

Agent Matthew Roggow, a trained medical technician, raced to the scene down country roads at speeds approaching 100 mph. In his vehicle, Roggow carried a potentially life-saving intravenous saline solution. But before he could get there, agents at the scene radioed an updated message:

"This guy is dead. No need to respond."

When Roggow arrived about 20 minutes later he found the body of a man in his early 40s lying on his back under a mesquite bush, mouth open as if gasping for air.

His heels had dug ruts in the hard earth from convulsions as his body tried in vain to breath, the last stage of dehydration before death.

"He's the fourth body we've found in the last month," said agent J. Arns. "We've been hammering this trail."

The dead man was little more than 20 miles north of the border, according to a satellite reading taken by agents. "It's not easy walking in this terrain," said Roggow, pointing to the mesquite and a notorious crippling cholla, or "jumping cactus" with clusters of tiny, barbed spines.

* * *

If they are lucky, migrants may come across water tanks installed along the border by humanitarian organizations.

"Some of the people who come through here have already walked 15 to 20 miles, and they haven't even reached the border yet," said No More Deaths camp organizer Tom Bassett, standing by a thicket of cottonwood trees in a dried up river bed. "The pick-up point could be a few hundred yards on the other side, or 70 miles from the border."

Bassett, 49, said he and the Minutemen surprisingly have a lot in common.

Both agree that government immigration policy is broken, but differ over how to tackle the problem.

"They vote for closing the border first, but we don't think that's practical," he said.

By and large, the Minutemen oppose the war in Iraq and accuse the Bush administration of treason for ignoring domestic security. "Americans doing the jobs Congress won't do," is their motto.

"They refuse to do it, so we, the people, will come down here and do it ourselves until they decide to become Americans again," said Minuteman Project operations manager Gary Cole.

The Minutemen maintain a strict "no contact" policy in their dealings with migrants, he said. "We are not here for any kind of confrontation. It's not about guns, or race or religion," said Cole. "It's about one thing only: securing our borders."

The group says it checks out its members carefully and has barred white supremacists.

On several occasions Cole lashed out at Mexican-Americans, complaining that the hyphen indicated allegiance to a foreign interest. Cole also accused undocumented Hispanics of involvement in all manner of criminal activity from document fraud to drug trafficking and sexual slavery.

The Minutemen are especially on the look out for what are known as OTMs, Border Patrol lingo for migrants from countries "other than Mexico." They fear the next terrorist attack could come across the vulnerable southwest border.

Border Patrol agents say they do see a fair number of OTMs, mostly from Central America as well as a few from South America. Undocumented migrants from the Middle East or Far East are a rarity.

"My fear is that a (U.S.) city could go up in smoke this summer," said Cole, who would like to see National Guard units deployed along the border.

Minutemen critics say Washington is already doing much of what the group demands. The Border Patrol has one of the fastest-growing federal budgets, tripling in the past decade from $451.5-million in 1995 to $1.4-billion this year.

Over the years, the Border Patrol has managed to bring parts of the border under greater control. Arrests of "illegal aliens" on the Mexico border have dropped about 30 percent in the past five years, from 1.64-million to 1.14-million, because of increased enforcement.

The latest Arizona initiative is beginning to have an effect. Detentions in the Tucson Sector are down from a high of 616,346 in fiscal year 1999 to 491,771 in 2004.

This year looks headed for another slight reduction. With three months to go, apprehensions have reached 345,616.

Still, it's hard to see how the flow can be stopped altogether.

"Those who say we are going to stop illegal migration with a fence or with 5,000 new agents are kidding themselves," said Flake, the congressman. "We have to recognize that people are coming for a reason. It's jobs, and we need them. Some of us don't like to admit that, but we do."

He recently co-sponsored comprehensive legislation to tackle the problem, backed by bipartisan support in the Senate from Republican John McCain and Democrat Edward Kennedy. Their proposal would allow 400,000 Mexicans to enter the country annually as "guest workers" with three-year visas. The law would allow the estimated 11-million undocumented Hispanics already in the country to legalize their status by paying fines.

Flake points out that more than 40 percent of undocumented migrants did not enter the country illegally, but overstayed their visas. Many of them have children who are U.S. citizens.

"If you are going to enforce the law, you have to have a law you can enforce," he said.

Others say that the only way to stop the flow of immigrants is to radically alter U.S. relations with Mexico, expanding the current North American Free Trade Agreement into a broader effort to raise living standards in Mexico.

"The only way is to make Mexico okay for Mexicans," said Beth Sanders, an organizer with No More Deaths. "They need jobs and we need their labor, but we are letting them die in the desert."

--David Adams can be contacted at dadams@sptimes.com
[Last modified July 3, 2005, 07:40:21]