Thread: Word spreads in Mexico: The Guard is on the border

http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/ ... 154927.htm

Posted on Sun, Jul. 30, 2006

Word spreads in Mexico: The Guard is on the border

BARBARA BARRETT
McClatchy News Service

LOS ALGODONES, Mexico - Not five minutes after the boatload of migrants slipped across the Colorado River at dusk, the "dog catchers" arrived.

First, Border Patrol trucks, tearing down a dirt road and cutting their headlights. Then the helicopter with its deafening blades, dipping and circling, casting spotlights across the water and the mountainside, again and again and again.

On the Mexican side, above the town of Los Algodones, Francisco Lopez watched and listened. For a month, he said, he has been waiting. He sleeps under the shade of trees, scrounges food. Three times he almost crossed.

"They're here day and night," said Lopez, 42, who traveled from the state of Michoacan, Mexico, hoping to reach Long Island. "When I got here, I was surprised to see so much force on the other side."

The show of force now includes Operation Jump Start, which President Bush announced in May. About 6,000 National Guard troops are coming to reinforce the Border Patrol, including 200 from North Carolina who started work last week in Arizona.

The deployment is meant to discourage migrants from risking the dash into the United States. The security is pushing migrants into remote areas, including harsh desert and mountains, forcing them to use the services of smugglers and leading those who are caught to make repeated attempts that sap their strength and money each time. Many walk for days with little food or water.

"Short-term, you might see more deaths, because they think they can beat the system," said Lt. Col. Randy Powell, commander of the N.C. Guard's 252nd Combine Arms Battalion. Over time, he said, the death toll should drop.

Death in the desert

But even before the N.C. Guard arrived, an 11-year-old girl was found in the remote Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation in cardiac arrest on a 108-degree day. Olivia Nogueda, wearing pink sneakers and traveling with her older sister to Atlanta to meet their parents, was declared dead on July 22 at the reservation hospital. Since then, in two counties in eastern Arizona, another seven have died, including two women and a 12-year-old boy.

Last year, as the Border Patrol increased enforcement around urban areas, more than 460 migrants died trying to cross the border, nearly half in Arizona.

"The more difficult you make it for people to cross, the more people will die," said Joseph Nevins, spokesman for Tucson-based No More Deaths, a coalition of humanitarian border groups.

And word has spread throughout Mexico: The Guard is coming.

"I read the newspapers," said Hector Encinas, 29, who lives in the Mexican town of San Luis Rio Colorado, just south of San Luis, Ariz. He used to cross routinely to work in America, paying $300 a trip. Now the price is $1,500. He used to help others, but no more.

"It's more hard right now," said Encinas, standing in the shade near an opening in the border wall where three Border Patrol trucks were parked. "Because, you know, they got a fence, more soldiers, more Border Patrol."

Of the Guard, he said, "They're cool. They're cool." He knows the troops aren't allowed to make apprehensions, just to call in border agents.

Changing culture

Still, in the more urban Mexican crossing points south of Arizona, something has changed.

In Los Algodones, tucked in the crook of the Mexico border with California and Yuma, Ariz., Fabiola Salazar, 25, figures the "polloeros" - chicken herders - make up 30 percent of summer business at her family's grocery. Every morning, the smugglers buy water and food for the traveling chickens - "pollos" - who gather at dusk in the park.

Lately, she said, business is way down.

Guadalupe Murrieta, 45, washing dishes in her home in the shadow of the corrugated border fence in San Luis Rio Colorado, never liked the migrants who wander through at night, making her fearful for her children and grandchildren. It's quieter, she said, and the constant helicopter is little bother.

And in Nogales, Mexico, the coyotes shake their heads at the busloads of migrants returned daily from the United States.

Driven to extremes

What sends migrants farther out are the images of the National Guard standing watch. The North Carolina troops are scattered in strategic spots along the western half of the Arizona border, including some posts so distant they're best reached by helicopter.

In San Luis, the North Carolinians work under camouflage nets, setting up observation points every quarter mile on the levee above stretches of dirt and fields of tall, swaying grasses.

The scrutiny is pushing migrants toward a land so vast that travelers can walk three days before crossing a paved road. During heat like last week's, with temperatures climbing toward 115 degrees, the migrants can't carry enough water.

The Sonoran Desert is littered with their castoffs: empty water bottles, shoes, jackets. The daytime heat is blistering, and only a very brave man would walk at night, said the Rev. Robin Hoover, founder of Tucson-based Humane Borders Inc.

During a bumpy, four-hour drive to fill four remote water stations west of Tucson, he pointed out all the cacti lying in wait: the towering cartoon-like saguaro, the prickly pear, the jumping cactus, whose quills seem to leap at any poor fool brushing past it.

Yet, people get through. Some 60 miles north of the border lay evidence of a recent pickup. Two dozen backpacks were discarded among the cacti.

Because more men are staying in the United States, more are sending for their families. More women and children are crossing.

In 2003, Hoover said, apprehensions showed that 11 percent of migrants were women. Yet they accounted for 25 percent of the deaths.

In eastern Arizona, the bodies go to the Pima County medical examiner, where Bruce Parks holds onto them until they're identified.

Last week, he had about 120, some dating to 2004. He keeps some in a refrigerated truck, though the county is working to build a morgue annex.

"It's obviously a terrible tragedy for relatively young people to be dying under these circumstances," said Parks, chief medical examiner, hours after an autopsy on 11-year-old Olivia. "This may be the year we see a downturn. That would be nice."

"The more difficult you make it for people to cross, the more people will die," said Joseph Nevins, spokesman for Tucson-based No More Deaths, a coalition of humanitarian border groups.

Actually, the more difficult we make it, the less people will try.

Dixie wrote:

Actually, the more difficult we make it, the less people will try.

Shout it from the rooftops.

It's Called Common Sense!!!

So, Ms. Barrett, you expect your readers to feel sorry for illegals? Do you expect your readers to demand open borders? You expect your readers to believe that Mexicans were forced to go North? You expect your readers to just "lose it," and go into a fit of rage and call the Congress?

Aw boo hoo, these poor mistreated MS-13s, rapists, sexual preditors and dangerous disease borne illegals.

If you would read this [ALIPAC] website regularly, you will improve your writing style.

Here's your reading assignments, Ms. Barrett:
http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... highlight=
and
http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... highlight=

Do you think you can set aside your TEDDY KENNEDY, KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON bias now, Ms. Barrett? Huh?

COTO - You are mean-spirited and cruel

Oh yeah? http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... highlight=

Coto:

Who the heck called you mean-spirited and cruel??? Must've been someone with absolutely no objective viewpoint.

Anyone who touts just the benefits of having immigrants here (legal or illegal) is refusing to face facts.

One of those facts is called culture clash.

Americans have defined a way of life that suits us.

1. We are careful not to breed like rabbits, for example, so that we can leave a better legacy for our children.

2. We are concered about educating our children, so they, too, can have a decent life.

3. We don't approve of sex with girls of 14 (just because it can be done).

4. Most Americans, I believe, (and I admit I have to qualify this with MOST) are racially pretty tolerant.

5. The vast majority of Americans are as hard-working as any other peoples. As a matter of fact, so many of our younger people are so "career driven" that they're almost obsessive out it.

I could go on and on and on. But the bottom line is this, the cultures of these two countries are very different. From my view, our culture is predicated more on the European one, which promotes self-discipline, education and hard work. I think someone once labeled it the "Protestant work ethic". It's about being self-sufficent and not expecting someone else "to take care of you".

Those who come here illegally make no bones about the fact they feel someone "should take care of them" simply because they came.

Someone on this board once asked:
"If we are all racists here, then why come to this country?

That is a more than fair question!!!

the cultures of these two countries are very different. From my view, our culture is predicated more on the European one, which promotes self-discipline, education and hard work. I think someone once labeled it the "Protestant work ethic". It's about being self-sufficent and not expecting someone else "to take care of you".

CW: Well said! Ditto!

Coto: re: mean-spirited...the mean-spirited folk are those who refuse to face the truth, and are willing to destroy our country and our futures with it.

"The more difficult you make it for people to cross, the more people will die," said Joseph Nevins, spokesman for Tucson-based No More Deaths, a coalition of humanitarian border groups.

If you REALLY CARED about the DEATHS.........you'd get your tush to the other side of the border and stop them before they die........you hypocrite!
Humanitarian group? I think not!!

It is the fault of the parents, that their young daughter died in the heat! What kind of parents go of and leave their children to fend for themselves trying to reunite with their folks? her death is on their conscience, not ours. I cannot understand the lack of family values these people have.this is another reason we don't need these people in America, the America who use to believe that family was everything.

Oh my, I'm gone for a little while and 2nd has a really hissy fit.

I agree with you both (Nitty & 2nd). What kind of parent would do that? And yet the Shrub's video claims they have great family values.

We're back to what's he smoking??

2nd, nitty, and CheyenneWoman,

In Fl., (don't know about Washington state yet), if a parent causes harm to the child, the state interferes. After investigating, perhaps the child will go to another family member, or God forbid, into the foster care system. If the child dies, the parent or boy/or girlfriend...whoever caused the death gets charged criminally and the other spouse/friend gets charged as an accessory to the crime. A dentist went to jail, because he forgot he had his baby in the car, and the child died because the car got too hot!!! In Fl, that can happen in minutes.

Yet, illegal aliens, because they "want to" can kill their precious children in the desert. I'm sorry if that sounds cold-hearted, but if they want to come here, come legally. Otherwise, they should stay home and work to improve their countries.