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  1. #1
    Senior Member vegasvic's Avatar
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    A heart, smile for immigrants (ILLEGALS)

    http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/ ... 43289.html

    QUEEN CREEK, Ariz.

    The 46-year-old president of United Immigrant Families of Nevada is in a good mood this already warm May morning, despite spending most of the previous day in a U-Haul truck crammed with donated clothing and food, driving 300 miles from Las Vegas.

    He's looking forward to learning a thing or two about the plight of some of his less lucky fellow members of "La Raza" -- those of Mexican ancestry -- and maybe helping out a few of them in the process.


    He also taught Barrientos about community activism.

    "My father was a union organizer for the farmers," says Barrientos. "We went to marches, strikes. It felt good to be involved in the struggle, to know I could contribute to the future."

    Those roots set deep in Barrientos and, he says, led to a strong sense of community and commitment to his people.

    This year, in the face of contentious immigration reform debates in Congress, they inspired him to help organize several pro-immigrant rallies and marches that drew thousands to Las Vegas' streets.

    They also took Barrientos to where he's standing this day, surveying the riverbed's collection of half-empty water jugs, droopy tents and sandy bedrolls that make up makeshift homes for dozens of men fresh from crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

    Barrientos had heard that entire families were being evicted from cheap apartments nearby, left with no choice but to camp along the dry riverbed. Maricopa County landlords, he'd been told, were worried about becoming targets of aggressive illegal immigration law enforcement in the area. They were afraid of repercussions for renting to illegal immigrants.

    Barrientos and his friend Guido Mantilla had spent the better part of a week using their ties at Spanish-language radio station KRLV-AM, 1340 to round up the truckload of donations. Barrientos sells on-air advertising time at the station, and Mantilla produces and hosts several Las Vegas radio shows.

    Once they arrived, however, they learned that only men -- dozens of day laborers -- were living at the site near Queen Creek, southeast of Phoenix.

    Though many of the men say they've heard of the evictions, no one claims to be or know anyone who is homeless as a result of them.

    Instead, most say they simply don't earn enough as day laborers at local construction and landscaping sites to rent rooms and still have money left to send home to family members in Mexico -- the reason they risked illegally crossing the border in the first place.

    Just a week ago, Luis Alberto Santana paid $800 to a coyote -- someone who smuggles people across the border -- to help him make it safely through the desert into Arizona.

    He took along only the clothes he was wearing, worn jeans and a dingy T-shirt, a thin blanket and a Disney Lion King bedsheet.

    "I hope to send about $200 a week back," Santana, a father of two from Sonora, Mexico, says as he prepares to hide his belongings beneath a bush before heading out to look for the day's work.

    Santana's story, individualized by slight variations, is echoed by dozens of other men here.

    Daniel Nuñez, also from Sonora, has been living near the dry riverbed for months. The 26-year-old crossed the desert border with a group of friends in February.

    But he's beginning to wish he hadn't.

    "There hasn't been much work," he says while standing near Barrientos' U-Haul, now parked in an empty lot where the men gather in hopes of getting work for the day. Like Santana, he speaks in Spanish.

    "People think they can just cross the desert and get everything they want, but it isn't true. You have to suffer."

    Nuñez sends any money he has left after buying food to his parents back home.

    Barrientos asks him why he doesn't move to a state that is more accepting of illegal immigrants. Maricopa County police have for months been arresting not only human smugglers but also illegal immigrants for "conspiring" to smuggle themselves into the United States. Controversial Sheriff Joe Arpaio recently added hundreds to a volunteer posse that searches for immigrants crossing the desert.

    Barrientos tells Nuñez he should go to New Mexico or Utah, where, he says, people are more willing to help workers.

    He doesn't recommend Nevada, where scores of "immigration violators" were arrested last week in what officials described as the largest ever local operation targeting illegal immigrants who failed to comply with deportation orders.

    "If I go any further, I'm afraid I wouldn't go back," Nuñez, fighting back tears, tells him. "My dad's getting older and isn't well. He could go any day now. I want to be close to home."
    .....
    Local volunteers from Inmigrantes Sin Fronteras, (Immigrants Without Borders) the primary organizers of recent immigration-driven marches in Phoenix, tell Barrientos they are trying to get someone to donate a vacant house so that the men have a place to bathe and cook.

    For his part, Barrientos pledges to continue to do what he can to help. He plans to be back soon with another U-Haul.

    "Next time, we'll bring more food," he says, smiling.
    By damaging us, you damage yourselves!

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  2. #2
    Senior Member vegasvic's Avatar
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    There you have it! An organization for immigrants without borders!
    Does this guy have a big heart or is he and the organization just aiding illegals?
    Perhaps, he should be arrested along with the others.

    Kinda makes me wonder what will happen when employers are fined and these millions are left jobless and homeless....
    By damaging us, you damage yourselves!

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  3. #3
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    Can we assume the Good Samaritan is also looking for folks whose ethnicity is NOT of his own who are also down-and-out so that he can assist them also?

  4. #4

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    Can we assume the Good Samaritan is also looking for folks whose ethnicity is NOT of his own who are also down-and-out so that he can assist them also?
    If ya do, I have a bridge for sale that you may be interested in.
    Knowledge is Power Power corrupts Study hard Be Evil

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