Thread: 16 days of protest

I replaced the 2nd Tancredo listing with this.
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Opponents of border fence organize 16 days of protest
Brandi Grissom / El Paso Times Austin Bureau
Article Launched: 08/08/2007 05:06:38 PM MDT


AUSTIN - El Paso community leaders and activists will begin a 16-day, 11-city protest along the Texas-Mexico border later this month, hoping to bring national attention to the destruction they say a border fence will cause.
"Never in the history of the Texas-Mexico border has there been a manifestation of solidarity ... on both sides of the river," said Jay Johnson-Castro, founder of Border Ambassadors, which is organizing Hands Across El Rio.

The protest will start Aug. 26 in El Paso and end Sept. 9 in Boca Chica, about 20 miles east of Brownsville. Johnson-Castro said in each border city along the way, grassroots groups and elected officials from both sides of the border would join hands on international pedestrian bridges in a display of unity.

Congress has approved construction of about 700 miles of fence along the 1,900-mile U.S.-Mexico border, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is set to build 370 miles of it by the end of 2008.

It's part of a border security plan some lawmakers say is necessary before Congress


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can address reforming the nation's immigration laws.
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said during a visit to El Paso on Monday that 1986 reforms showed that amnesty for undocumented immigrants without border enforcement would not work.

The protest, Johnson-Castro said, is meant to show those who live far from the border how intertwined the two countries are, what life "inside the checkpoints" is like.

"It's (a fence) destructive of our environment, our ecology, but it's also destructive of our culture and friendship," said Johnson-Castro, who has already walked hundreds of miles on his own to protest the fence.

Johnson-Castro said the Texas League of United Latin American Citizens and the Texas Border Coalition, a group of elected leaders from across the Texas-Mexico Border, have already endorsed Hands Across El Rio.

El Paso Mayor John Cook is helping to organize the event, said his executive assistant, Robert Andrade.

"El Paso is literally taking the lead on this," he said.

Several community groups, including the Border Network for Human Rights and Centro Mujeres de la Esperanza, plan to participate.

Nikki Hertel, program coordinator at Centro Mujeres, moved from Wisconsin to El Paso last year. Many in other parts of the nation, she said, don't understand the complexities of border life.

"We are one community that depends on each other, that needs each other and doesn't want anything to separate us," she said.

Fernando Garcia, executive director of the human rights network, said he hopes the borderwide protest draws attention not only to problems a border fence might present but to alternative solutions.

Many border leaders have decried the fence, worried that it could devastate local economies, damage wildlife, destroy weak levees and ruin binational relationships.

Garcia said lawmakers should focus on reforming the nation's immigration system instead of on "Band-Aid" fixes like physical barriers.

"We have a human crisis here; people are dying every day" while trying to cross the border, he said.

Brandi Grissom may be reached at bgrissom@elpasotimes.com;

(512) 479-6606.

Protest itinerary




Aug. 25: El Paso news conference.

Aug. 26: El Paso/ Juárez, 10 a.m.

Aug. 28: Presidio/Ojinaga, 6 p.m.

Aug. 31: Del Rio/Ciudad Acuña, 6 p.m.

Sept. 1: Eagle Pass/ Piedras Negras, 1 p.m.

Sept. 2: Laredo/Nuevo Laredo, 1 p.m.

Sept. 4: Roma/Miguel Aleman, 6 p.m.

Sept. 5: Rio Grande City/Camargo, 6 p.m.

Sept. 6: Los Ebanos/ Diaz Ordaz, 6 p.m.

Sept. 7: McAllen/Hidalgo/Reynosa, 6 p.m.

Sept. 8: Brownsville/ Matamoros, 1 p.m.

Sept. 9: Boca Chica/ Bagdad, 3 p.m. Source: www.borderambassadors.com/itinerary.html

Well, I hate to say this because it seems to be my answer for everything that doesn't make sense about immigration...I'm sure money is the driving force behind the opposition to the fence, not concern for natural habitats. (Except for the habitat of big business bank accounts!)

I sure hope the Minutemen will show up with all their pictures of the thousands of tons of waste being left behind which have been destroying natural habitats for years.
What a joke of a protest.

Originally Posted by avenger

Well, I hate to say this because it seems to be my answer for everything that doesn't make sense about immigration...I'm sure money is the driving force behind the opposition to the fence, not concern for natural habitats. (Except for the habitat of big business bank accounts!)

Of course it is. They don't care about natural habitats when the illegals are destroying fragile desert areas, destroying hundred year old cacti, making trails that cause erosion in the mountains, and just pollute the ground with their wastes.

That is so hypocritical.

The border area was once one community - but everyone realized there was a border there and while it was a little casual, it was also respected.

It's greed, greed and more greed.

Originally Posted by saveourcountry

...

"Never in the history of the Texas-Mexico border has there been a manifestation of solidarity ... on both sides of the river," said Jay Johnson-Castro, founder of Border Ambassadors, which is organizing Hands Across El Rio.

"Solidarity on both sides of the river"??

Can that possibly be loyalty to America?

Q: Mexicans are hard working. They're desperate for jobs, so desperate they'll take all the jobs Americans won't do...

So... where do these poor starving masses get the money to take 3 weeks off from work to protest?

(Another question would still be why poor starving Mexicans show more aggression than Americans re: this issue.)