http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/120140

Published: 03.15.2006

Washington to hear foes of tougher border rules
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
A delegation of local immigration, environmental and indigenous advocates is in Washington, D.C., this week to urge legislators to discard proposals for increased enforcement along the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona.

"We can't militarize our way to a better situation on the border, and yet that's what we still hear out of Washington," said Daniel Patterson, desert ecologist and program director with the Center for Biological Diversity.

The Coalition to Bring Down the Walls formed in 2003. A five-member delegation from the coalition that features representatives from Derechos Humanos, the Center for Biological Diversity and Tohono O'odham communities in Sonora plans to meet with 20 legislators today through Friday, according to organizers. Meanwhile, the coalition also will send representatives to meet with state legislators in Phoenix.

The coalition says increased enforcement by the government has inflicted more damage on people and the environment than the illegal entrants themselves.

The delegation will tell legislators to abandon the enforcement-only plans and consider changes that take into account the need for immigrant labor.

Isabel Garcia, co-chair of Derechos Humanos, said legislators need to craft laws so that the thousands of illegal entrants who come for work can legally cross at points of entry instead of the desert.

"Our economy depends on the immigration labor force; why can't our policies reflect that?" Garcia said.