Monitoring Aid Will Increase Border Deaths (Opinion)

http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.php? ... 05b4_edits

June 16, 2005

Our Opinion: Monitoring aid will increase border deaths
Tucson Citizen

The U.S. Border Patrol has a difficult twin mission: Keep people from entering the United States illegally, and rescue those who insist on making the dangerous journey.
But under the leadership of Michael Nicley, chief of the Border Patrol's Tucson sector, that twin mission has changed. Nicley is emphasizing the arrest of illegal immigrants to such a degree that it is likely more will die.

That is an unacceptable trade-off.

Nicley said last week that agents will monitor an immigrant aid camp this summer. Nicley indicated agents also will watch water stations maintained by a local humanitarian group.

It is easy to predict the result: Immigrants, wanting to steer clear of agents, will avoid seeking water or needed medical aid. More deaths in the hot, barren and forbidding desert are inevitable.

It wasn't always this way.

In March 2001, when Humane Borders put water tanks in the desert west of Tucson, the Border Patrol said it would not stake out the stations. "No one should have to die simply trying to cross from one country into another," a local Border Patrol spokesman said. "Even if it's illegal, people shouldn't have to pay with their lives."

That was fair and compassionate.

The same policy existed for immigrant aid camps operated by No More Deaths. As long as volunteers didn't transport illegal immigrants, the Border Patrol said agents would not stake out the aid camps.

That was under David Aguilar, then chief of the Border Patrol's Tucson sector. But a year ago, Aguilar was promoted to head the agency nationwide, and Nicley took his place.

Nicley said his policy isn't a change, but simply a reaffirmation that illegal immigrants will be sought and arrested everywhere. "I'm just not going to have an area where illegal aliens are and the Border Patrol can't go there," he told the Tucson Citizen this week.

Ideally, that's reasonable. But there is nothing ideal about the porous Arizona-Mexico border and the hundreds of people who die each year trying to enter the United States illegally.

The Border Patrol must recognize that immigrants who are desperate for work will make the deadly desert walk regardless of whether water is available. It is cruel to tell immigrants that to seek lifesaving aid, they now must risk arrest.

Some immigrants will still seek help. But others, seeing Border Patrol agents nearby, will avoid water and medical aid - and they will die in the desert.

Aguilar must contact his successor, Nicley, and order him to leave the aid camps and water stations alone. The zeal for arrests must not lead to an increased body count in the desert.

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The Border Patrol must recognize that immigrants who are desperate for work will make the deadly desert walk regardless of whether water is available. It is cruel to tell immigrants that to seek lifesaving aid, they now must risk arrest.

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It is NOT cruel. They are breaking our law. If they don't want to risk death, stay out of the desert and stay out of our country. It is not OUR fault if YOU make a poor decision.

I sent the following to the Tucson paper:
I resent the implication of this opinion "piece" that the Border Patrol is somehow responsible for deaths in the desert. The responsibility of the Border Patrol is to protect our borders--not to protect illegal trespassers.
It is NOT cruel to tell immigrants that to seek lifesaving aid, they now must risk arrest. We have every right to enforce our laws and illegals have NO right to break our laws.
If illegals don't want to risk death, stay out of the desert and stay out of our country. It is not OUR fault if THEY make a poor decision. If you want to control illegal immigration, then you must have the desire to "walk the walk" after you "talk the talk." You don't seem very good at walking.

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It is easy to predict the result: Immigrants, wanting to steer clear of agents, will avoid seeking water or needed medical aid. More deaths in the hot, barren and forbidding desert are inevitable.

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HELLO!!! If you don't want to die of thirst, don't go to the desert. Common sense 101. A job plucking chickens ain't worth it!

:idea: :idea: :idea: :idea:

Telegram the largest diocese in the world and tell them to catch the aliens before they cross the border and save their lives.

I wonder how many "priests" will flock to the Mexican Border and "aid" the crossers back to safety...in Mexico.

Hmmmm.

"WORDS" are cheap, Tuscon Citizen.

Hey, another :idea: :idea: :idea: :idea:

Why doesn't the Tuscon Citizen organize a little "party" to head south of the border for the summer to help the "priests" save lives by catching the crossers, giving them a bottle of water to drink while they drive them back south to their HOMES in air-conditioned safety!!

8) 8)

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It is easy to predict the result: Immigrants, wanting to steer clear of agents, will avoid seeking water or needed medical aid.

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Sometimes the lack of common sense is even scarier than the lack of a formal education. JMHO. :roll:

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Originally Posted by dataman

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The Border Patrol must recognize that immigrants who are desperate for work will make the deadly desert walk regardless of whether water is available. It is cruel to tell immigrants that to seek lifesaving aid, they now must risk arrest.

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It is NOT cruel. They are breaking our law. If they don't want to risk death, stay out of the desert and stay out of our country. It is not OUR fault if YOU make a poor decision.

I sent the following to the Tucson paper:
I resent the implication of this opinion "piece" that the Border Patrol is somehow responsible for deaths in the desert. The responsibility of the Border Patrol is to protect our borders--not to protect illegal trespassers.
It is NOT cruel to tell immigrants that to seek lifesaving aid, they now must risk arrest. We have every right to enforce our laws and illegals have NO right to break our laws.
If illegals don't want to risk death, stay out of the desert and stay out of our country. It is not OUR fault if THEY make a poor decision. If you want to control illegal immigration, then you must have the desire to "walk the walk" after you "talk the talk." You don't seem very good at walking.

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Any cruelty they suffer they are choosing to inflict upon themselves. If some idiot chooses to jump off a building, I am under no moral responsibility for to make sure a stack of mattresses is at the foot of every building.

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Originally Posted by Scarecrow

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It is easy to predict the result: Immigrants, wanting to steer clear of agents, will avoid seeking water or needed medical aid. More deaths in the hot, barren and forbidding desert are inevitable.

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HELLO!!! If you don't want to die of thirst, don't go to the desert. Common sense 101. A job plucking chickens ain't worth it!

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One more good reason to convict employers, who are morally responsible for luring these people into risking their lives to commit a crime.

And yet another good reason to:

GET TROOPS TO THE BORDERS NOW!!

This...whole pity thing.....does not hold water any more. They've "cried wolf" waaaaay too many times.

What about the 10,000 people in California who died at the hands of aliens? Not MSM, not one newspaper, not one church group, not one not-for-profit, not one Catholic Priest, Bishop or Cardinal or Pope, not one person in any of our institutions or corporations, profit or not, have even mentioned these poor "DEAD PEOPLE" or their plight that ended in their DEATHS...except for one, the Attorney General of the state of California who thought enough of these people to keep a record, count them, and report it. And one newspaper did.

Deaths of 84 Aliens in the Desert just doesn't stack, in my opinion, with Deaths of 1000s of Americans in their Homes and Streets of America.

BUT, hey....that's just me.

:roll: :roll: :roll:

This editorial is consistent with the victim mentality of the left in this country. Somehow people who get themselves into crime, poverty, without water in the desert, did not do it on their own. Greater forces made them do it. Somehow, someone, somewhere else is responsible, usually society or the government or big business or everybody else but the victim.

I like to backpack in the mountains of North Carolina. I know that if I go into the wilderness in the high mountains I had better take food, water and shelter. If not, I may not come back out again or at the very least I may suffer as a result. This is not freakin' rocket science here. If these people plan to trek over fifty or a hundred miles of desert and mountains, why would they do it without enough food and water? They are either extremely ignorant, misled by the coyotes or somebody else, or very stupid. In any case, it ain't anybody's fault but theirs.

Last time I checked the rules of logic had not been suspended for illegals or anyone else.

Right On Scarecrow!!