Thread: Following the Amnesty Trail

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/Curre ... ?oid=92554

***This is a long article with great pictures. Please see original post for the complete article.

Leo W. Banks follows one of Arizona's most popular illegal alien crossing routes and finds piles of garbage, trampled public lands, angry residents and the suspected presence of a vicious gang
By LEO W. BANKS

In the coming weeks, as President Bush and the Democrat-controlled Congress take up immigration reform, and the political talk turns to amnesty, everyone living along border smuggling routes will hunker down to wait for the worst. They know their lives will get miserable in a hurry.
The word amnesty possesses remarkable power on the Mexican side of the line. It has the same effect as a starter's pistol.

Bang! Let the land rush begin.

It happened after Jan. 7, 2004, when Bush floated his idea for a temporary worker program. The idea was broadly viewed in Mexico as amnesty, and the Border Patrol's own survey proved it. In the weeks following the proposal, the agency quietly questioned crossers apprehended at the southern border and found the president's plan had caused a big spike in illegal crossings. Forty-five percent said they'd entered our country "to get Bush's amnesty."

Nowhere will the coming stampede be more evident than on the smuggling routes that begin at the border at Sasabe, 65 miles southwest of Tucson, curl up through the Altar Valley and continue all the way to the Ironwood Forest National Monument, a full 75 miles north of the border.

The dozens of trails that course through this wide swath of land have one thing in common--they cross Ajo Highway, also known as State Highway 86. The illegals moving north know that Border Patrol enforcement falls off significantly north of 86, just as it does north of Interstate 10, another major east-west thoroughfare across Southern Arizona.

Breach Highway 86, and they win amnesty--that's what illegals working this popular trail believe, as Border Patrol agents and residents have reported to me.

I recently walked and drove major portions of the Amnesty Trail. I talked to people who live along the path of this remorseless invasion, borrowed some photographs of its effects, and took some of my own. Together, these words and pictures provide a documentary account of the ongoing catastrophe on Arizona's border and beyond.

Those who walk the Amnesty Trail enter the country through the Sasabe Corridor, a roughly 10-mile-wide stretch of land between the San Luis and Baboquivari mountains. In 2004, an estimated 250,000 illegals crossed into the U.S. along this corridor, and about the same number crossed in 2005.

The Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge has 5 1/2 miles of border within the corridor. Its land has been badly staggered by illegal immigration and drug smuggling, and visitors can see evidence of it within moments of arriving. The parking lot is surrounded by steel rails and a locked gate, and the office has bars on the windows and expensive security doors.

It looks like a building in a dangerous inner-city neighborhood, not an 118,000-acre preserve in some of Arizona's most picturesque land.

But the measures were necessary following six break-ins at staff housing in January and February 2006, and the theft of five vehicles from the parking lot in the same period. Refuge Manager Mitch Ellis sounds almost forlorn talking about it. "I feel like I'm in jail sitting in my office," he says.

He has reason to be saddened. There are now 1,500-2,000 miles of illegal trails on Refuge land. Illegal crossers left 500 tons of trash for staff and volunteers to pick up in 2004, and about the same amount in 2005. "I know it sounds unbelievable, but we cranked the numbers," says Ellis.

The open border has also brought violent death to the Buenos Aires. The refuge in 2005 recorded four homicides likely committed by border bandits preying on illegals, and three more illegals had to be rescued after being shot.

The hardest-hit area is below Garcia Road, a dirt track running east to west about a mile north of the border. This parcel became such a hotbed of criminal activity that in October, Ellis ordered 3,500 acres off limits to the public--American land effectively taken out of American hands by the invaders.

"I essentially moved the border back a mile," says Ellis. "I had to. It was too dangerous to have my security people and volunteers there repairing the fence every day."

The vehicle barriers (shown in the top photo, with two Border Patrol agents alongside) run along the international border in the refuge's closed section. These heavy steel Xs, with a horizontal bar welded between them, are designed to stop drug drive-throughs. Installation of the barriers began last fall, and they now stretch for a mile and a half.

long story but well worth the read

I can't even imagine having my house broken into 16 times!! No matter how bad we think we have it, the people who live on the border have it a million times worse. They are actually the reason I got interested in illegal immigration in the first place. Leo W Banks has done a phenomenal job reporting on illegal immigration. Check out the author archives for more great stories like this.

These are the people who should be allowed to testify before congress on illegal immigration!!! the definitly have a right t voice their opinon!!

Bob says the number of load-outs in the Ironwood increased last spring before and after demonstrators took to the streets in Tucson and elsewhere to demand a rewrite of American law to accommodate illegal aliens and their corporate partners. The atmosphere, including talk of amnesty, created an explosion in traffic. In April, the Copings counted eight load-outs in one day.

When the National Guard was sent to the border, the free-for-all ended abruptly, if briefly. "We saw helicopters overhead, military-type aircraft, and we didn't a see a load-out for two weeks," Bob says. "The traffic probably dropped 90 percent."

But the numbers have risen again significantly, and in recent e-mails, the Copings have told me the big load-outs have returned with a vengeance. Cindy's e-mails have the tension and immediacy of dispatches written from a war zone--because, in fact, she and Bob live in one.

This is just one of many stories..."living in a war zone"...in the United States.! How many people really know about this, or even care? Once the National Guard arrived, traffic stopped, showing that a manned border would actually help reduce the flow of traffic, or even stop it. The talk of amnesty, or God forbid, actual amnesty, will bring illegals in droves.
How can our government live with themselves? Maybe I will just print this story and hand it out to every person who is in favor of illegal immigration, so they can see how devastating it really is.

How can our government live with themselves?

Too bad they're not in the real world living this invasion day in and day out.