How bad does the illegal immigrant situation have to get...

[-..__...]

before we really do something about it?

"Ranchers 75 miles from Tucson say bad border policies have resulted in a daily invasion of drugs, death, pollution and violence

Lyle Robinson's Tres Bellotas Ranch sits in a cradle of hills right on the Mexican border. It's a pretty place. Sprawling Mulberry trees shade the brick house and oak trees--bellotas in Spanish--decorate the surrounding landscape. This time of year, during the monsoon season, the oaks drop acorns that cowboys and others working this land, 13 miles southwest of Arivaca, have prized as summer snacks for centuries.

It hardly seems possible that such a peaceful-looking spot could be the scene of anything momentous. But it is.

Everyone in America has a stake in what's happening on the Tres Bellotas. Everyone in America should know about the events that play out daily on this remote ground, and on neighboring ranches, because they explain our present and foretell our future.

This is a place where all the rhetoric from the president and his government about homeland security crumbles to pieces on the hot ground. The Tres Bellotas is a battleground in the relentless, ugly, nonstop invasion of drugs and illegals across our southern border.

It will happen again tonight. Robinson knows this, because two invaders showed themselves earlier on this beautiful July morning, shortly after breakfast. Walking openly, without fear of harassment, the two men walked from Mexican soil into the United States through the wide-open international border gate 200 yards below Robinson's home.

They were rolling a tire that needed air, and reaching the house, they asked one of Robinson's cowboys for permission to use the ranch compressor.

These men, coyotes making final preparations for a night smuggling run of either drugs or people, displayed no menace. They were polite. So was Robinson's cowboy. He said by all means, muchachos, fill your tire.

But it was a Vito Corleone kind of request, one the cowboy couldn't refuse.


full story (long read).

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. An acquaintance of mine...

Who lives along the border down there, reports very crazy conditions with illegals pouring across the border.

[ret5hd]

2. when people start bitchin' about illegal employers rather than...

illegal immigrants...

and start demanding that those illegal employers are fined into bankruptcy and thrown in prison...

and start deriding illegal employers for destroying "our" economy...

and start "looking down on" anybody that has an illegal employer as a neighbor...


well, then, and only then, will i decide that i really have anything to discuss with those that are all up-in-arms about the "illegal" problem. cause until then, i think that the only people talkin' about it are bigots.

[Vincardog]

3. You hit that nail right on the head ret5hd

When will the bigots start to talk about WalMart hiring illegals?

[pitohui]

4. try reading the article

this is organized crime importing human slaves & huge loads of drugs

these ranchers are finding human bodies, sometimes in pieces, on their property, discarded by these coyotes

apparently the border patrol is paid off, they're doing nothing, apparently the mexican federales are providing support for this business as well

if you think it bigotry to fight human trafficking, then you have a different definition of the word than i do

do you realize that cut-up human bodies, often women, have been found discarded in border areas for yrs

this is not abt walmart

[ret5hd]

10. read it and stand by my earlier post...but will add a few things...

a good part of the article sounds like race-baiting scare tactics. Calling them dirty, describing their piles of feces, etc.

Do you want to stop this human trafficking? Do you really? These human bodies? These slave traders? DO ya? Are you sure?

Then clamp down on the employers. Now. Hard. Extremely hard. Prison. Bankruptcy. No more grace periods for georgia peach farmers to get their crop in. No more looking the other way while those 6000 sq. ft. monstrosities get built with such speed and efficiency.

Every corporate farm found with undocumented workers: a 5 acre fine and 1 year of prison for every offense! Insist on it! Write and call your congressman everyday! Demand it! To do less is to accept and sanction the very behavior that you decry.

Every Wal-Mart found with undocumented workers: Imprison the manager and codemn the building.

Then the DRUGS!!!! Gotta bring up the drugs. Implement a sound drug policy. Enough said.

But i know you won't do this. I know your congessmans email, voice-mail, and letter box wont be full. Not this week or this year or next year. Cause you don't REALLY care about dead women or strewn body parts or bundles of deadly marijuana...


Do you?

[Ms. Clio]

34. In fact, seize the property, under forfeiture laws, just like the drug war

Yes, of course it's a pipe dream, but it illustrates the hypocrisy.

[titoresque]

5. No Mas Muertes!

No More deaths! I'm wearing a t-shirt right now with the names and ages of 228 men and women who have died in the Az/Mexico desert trying to come across to work for a better life. Died 2004-2005

I see parking lots full of men in the early a.m. hours waiting to work in the heat of the Az. summer for slave wages.

I have not yet seen an "illegal" with a sign "will work for food" sitting on the side of the road.

I see them building our $200,000 dollar homes and building our freeways and digging our sewer lines.

If our officials wanted them to be gone...they would be gone! It's all bullshit...theirs still work to be done!!
Sally and Bill Republican need that farm land bulldozed for their new housing divisions that Jane and Phil Neo-con want to buy a home in for a big investment deal.

[titoresque]

7. I agree, human trafficking needs to stop!

but people trying to come over to make money....money most often sent back home to their families is honorable in my opinion!

I would do the same if I had no other choice. There has to be a better way to help these people.

In Az. I hear people angry about others offering water to the Mexicans who are coming thru the desert. Water! Excuse me?
They say it will encourage more to come. That's the same mentality that say's "don't give teenagers a condom or birth control because they will surely have sex then!"
PLEEEEEEAAAAAAAASE!

[Yupster]

8. Whether one agrees with illegal immigration or not

no one should think it's okay for people being scared to walk out of their own house at night because of strangers walking through and hiding throughout their property 24 hours a day.

Most of the people are no doubt harmless, but how are you supposed to know who is and who isn't when you walk outside and hear people hiding in your barn? or asking you for water, or even killing your livestock.

People shouldn't have to walk through their property and discover that two dozen people shat on their field overnight.

Regardless of what the concern of illegals is, the people on the border should be protected from strangers wandering across their land every single night.

[-..__...]

9. That's only part of the solution.

Punishing those that hire illegals is only a partial fix; and why stop at big business, corporations and companies? What about Joe home owner who hires day labor looking for work in the Home Depot parking lot?
He's just as guilty.

The problem begins at the source, and the source is our Southern border.

[ret5hd]

11. see my post # 10 (nt)

[-..__...]

12. Mmmmm-kay.

Allow me to come defecate on your property anytime, dump my trash and intimidate you and your family.

So imprison, fine, bankrupt the enablers... fine... whatever.

All things being equal, should we impose the same penalties on those illegally crossing the border (immediate deportation would be sufficient since you can't get blood from a stone).

Why not? First time they get caught crossing the border... back to Mexico they go. Second time = gray bar motel.

There's two factors to this: one is the war on drugs (which I'm vehemently against), and two is the desire for cheap, under the table labor.

Number 1 is a losing a battle (and we lost it long ago).

However, if anyone still believes in that sort of thing, the least we can do is formulate a border interdiction policy... nothing (and I mean nothing), gets through without government approval.

Number 2 is a similar situation where you have the employers (users),
providing the market/demand.

Punishing/fining/imprisoning the end user isn't the best or feasible employment of resources.

You kill a snake by cutting off it's head... namely the US Mexican border.

That is easily doable if enough effort is put into it.

[ret5hd]

13. why are you so pro-slave trader/slave-owner...

and so anti-slave?

Why are you willing to allow those PROFITING from this disgusting situation, those drinking the blood of those dead women, those paying the ones cutting the limbs from those bodies... and yes, punishing/fining/imprisoning the end user IS the best or feasible employment of resources IN THIS CASE. You know why?

Because the end user is stationary. That housing complex springing up isn't moving around in the night evading capture. That wal-mart isn't wearing a disguise trying to mingle in the crowd of other legitimate businesses. That field of corn or peaches or tomatoes is RIGHT OVER THERE...and as soon as one wal-mart is shut down and condemned, there won't be work for one undocumented worker in the ENTIRE wal-mart corporation. As soon as one field of peaches is confiscated and sold to the highest bidder, there won't be one undocumented worker in the fields of that entire state.

As soon as corporate america is forced to face the fact that THEY...not the employee...is the one that is criminal, that THEY...not the employee...is going to be charged, arrested, fined...the problems you speak of go away.

But you don't want those problems fixed...you want just enough immigration to provide you with $1.29 lettuce, your office cleaned for dirt cheap, and your car washed and waxed for $15.

[-..__...]

14. You didn't answer my question.

Can I take a shit in your yard?

[ret5hd]

15. if you solve the employer problem...

the "shitting in the yard" problem solves itself.

but to directly answer your question...the next time you find yourself in the position of these people...starving, thirsty, cold/hot, desperate, and risking your life in a last desperate attempt to provide for your family, go ahead and feel free to shit in my yard if that is what you feel you need to do. If i happen to see you in those circumstances, whether you are shitting in my yard or not, i will also give you a drink of water. if it is cold, i will allow you to rest a while in my garage or shed or maybe even my house. if you are hungry, i will ask the wife what we can spare from the kitchen.

In short, even tho i am an atheist, i will come closer to following the words of your christ than you seem to be willing to do. because i believe that humans, as humans, deserve respect for their simple humanity.

[Telly Savalas]

21. But fixating on the employers...

doesn't allow people to vent their racist frustrations.

[ret5hd]

23. thank you brother (nt)

[Cobalt Violet]

26. Where do you shop that lettuce is only $1.29.

I haven't seen that in quite a long time. Produce prices are through the roof.

[ret5hd]

29. fiesta market...in fw tx...

i asked my wife about that price, and she said that was her "low end" estimate, so that was the price i used. regardless, i think you get my point.

[Cobalt Violet]

27. Where do you shop that lettuce is only $1.29.

I haven't seen that in quite a long time. Produce prices are through the roof.

[screembloodymurder]

28. The problem with 'politically correct' thinking is

that you're letting someone else do your thinking for you. Just how does being against an illegal activity make someone a bigot?

[ret5hd]

31. i'm letting someone else think for me? Who is that?...

they are just using the law as an excuse for their bigotry. how do i know that? i can demonstrate it using logic.

when was the last time ANYONE, during construction of their shiny new home, confronted the construction foreman for his workers documentation, and stopped work on their home because the people roofing the structure or insulating the walls or hanging the sheetrock were undocumented? when? even once? i will say NEVER.

when was the last time ANYONE pulled their car into the carwash, asked the proprietor of the carwash if his workers were documented, and left when given an unsatisfactory answer? NEVER.

Is it not true that hiring undocumented workers is against the law? If this problem is so terrible, why does the law not apply when it is going to cost YOU money? Why does the law only apply when it involves punishing dirty brown people, but not when it means punishing rich white construction companies or rich white orchard owners or suburban wal-mart managers?

so i now ask of YOU...why do you side with the slave traders/slave owners?

[Ms. Clio]

33. Wow--that hits the nail square on the head--just perfect

I think they are mostly bigots, too.

[ret5hd]

36. thank you sister (nt)

[EVDebs]

6. The Hard Truth of Immigration by Newsweek's Robt. Samuelson

The Hard Truth of Immigration:
No society has a boundless capacity to accept newcomers, especially when many of them are poor or unskilled workers.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8100266/site/newsweek/

"To make immigration succeed, we need (paradoxically) to control immigration."

You don't have to be a bigot to be concerned about the hard truth of immigration. Just have a little common sense, as the article shows. A 'heads in the sand' mentality got us into this mess, just like in the mess in Iraq.

[Deep13]

16. People who come here without passports ...

... and outside of the usual travel procedures are not immigrants. They are criminals and should be prosecuted. I agree with holding employers/exploiters of unlawful labor accountable. As far as the plight of those present unlawfully, I don't really care anymore than I care about a robber who is shot breaking into a house. Their children are the parents' responsibility, not mine. As far as children born here to unlawfully present parents, I would leave it up to them. To comply with the 14th Amendment, the children may stay here and be adopted by an American family or go back to wherever, probably Mexico, with the parents. I have no sympathy for those who come here by violating our laws and borders.

[Name removed]

32. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Deep13]

38. logical fallacy.

Attacking the person making an argument rather than the argument itself falls under the general heading of changing the subject. For this reason ad hominim attacks are inherently illogical.

A relief effort is an entirely different subject. We were discussing immigration law on this side of the border. US immigration law is and has always been designed to bouy the US economy with cheap labor. The more of us there is, the less each one of us is worth. I do not believe that Mexicans who come here unlawfully are doing work that Americans will not do. I do think they are debasing the value of domestic labor, providing cheap manpower for suburban sprawl and making big companies a lot of money. I also know that since our birthrate is around zero, our population growth is coming from immigration. By midcentury, we will have 400 million. I do not want this country to look like the East Coast.

Just because I understand the facts the way they really are and believe in law and order does not make me callous. There is nothing I can do about poverty in Mexico. The world is a big place and someone is always suffering and I am getting too old to tilt at windmills. The best I can do is to help manage my own "neighborhood." Nevertheless, people should not benefit from criminal activity, including unlawful entrance into the country. Do you think the Canadians would put up with this shit?

We really know how to pick political issues that piss people off! Did you know that the Rs are planning on using this issue against us next year? This whole illegal alien thing is an irritation to a lot of people, many of whom do not live in the Southwest. If we are soft on unlawful aliens we will open ourselves up to charges of being soft on crime, soft on national security and generally disrespectful of national sovereignty. If we are smart we will lead the charge on the expulsion of those who have no right to be here anyway. I think it is time for you to get off your condescending, ivory tower ass and see what regular people think about this. I will mind my own veins.

[Name removed]

40. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

43. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[titoresque]

44. yeah, you still don't...

"I was driving a 23 year old car and had no travel budget."

Please, if you want to have a ridiculous pissing match over who has
less money here.....uh,I'd probably win. You're talking "travel budget" ......is that when you get a payday loan to go camping?!

Anyhow, your "elitist snob" remark was great! Did you not read that I said I live in a neighborhood where the tweekers roam freely......translation: crack-ville USA.

And yes, absolutely having first hand experience tends to enlighten a person about certain inner workings of things others only speculate and argue and vote about.

You're really spending way too much energy attacking the person ("illegals") when.....if you really care.....should be helping to change the system that drives these people to invade your precious country.


"How can laws be laws if they are ignored?" ..........

"Same here, relief efforts, diplomacy etc. is all good, but once someone decides to commit an offense by sneaking across the border without a passport, the state must act to enforce those laws."

We don't enforce those laws, they ARE ignored! By us! And the real criminals here are not the "aliens" it's our Government... its Vicente Fox....it's McDonald's, and YES I know for a fact that they hire illegals here in Az. and they work those people like slaves! White people make more money than they do..if a white person is hired at all! When you're "illegal" you tend to work on your day's off, when you're sick, when you're children are sick, and you do it with a smile. If you don't you lose your job real quick, suddenly it's "discovered" that you are indeed "illegal" oooops!

Listen if our government really wanted to do a damn thing about this they would set up task forces at every Home depot in Az. every a.m.
and get these guys out of here.......but nooooooooo, they'd rather set up big chest pounding "sting operations" to get the clear heeled hookers off Vanburen St. .....perverts!

Your tax dollars at work!
:rofl:

In the meantime Hispanics will continue to die in the desert, and in packed horse trailers left abandoned by Coyotes and the like. But I guess thats just collateral damage when you consider all the work that's being done at the fraction of what it costs to pay a "legal"

But your right again......it's not AGAINST the LAW to outsource. But you already know that since you're a lawyer and all.(enter poor hick accent) I'd really be interested in knowing what the laws are about outsourcing by way of smuggling thousands of illegals INTO the country. Seems good for business.

[wuushew]

45. Zero population growth is an important issue

The September issue of Scientific American is loaded with good articles on the non-sustainability of human culture in relation to the bio-sphere.

Immigration is artificially maintaining the wide base population structure that pro-growth capitalist love. The twenty-first century is when we must transition to a steady-state paradigm.

The economic outlook for such systems is one of little economic growth(through increases in efficiency) and reduced need for financial institutions. The powers that be would be horrified at this curb on their greed and such things are political poison.


Growth must be curbed.

[Freedomfried]

17. Till the suitcase nuke or chemical WMD detonates in a large US city

The Republicans will leave the border wide open.
To effectively close the border against illegals would lose them a lot of the Hispanic votes.
They can't afford to lose the Hispanic vote.

[Horse with no Name]

18. I posted here awhile back and was totally slammed

about a lady I know whose daughter is married to an illegal. Well this person that they swear can't be an illegal and be married to a US citizen, paid $4,000 to a coyote to get him across the border after they spent the summer in Mexico. On re-entry, they tore up his papers and wouldn't give him a VISA. I don't know why--only that they did. I don't know the legal aspect--if he is on a border watch list, etc., that info was not shared with me. From the way they spend money, I suspect he is a drug dealer, but I don't know that for certain.
However, he was stopped 3 times and sent back while trying to cross illegally. (From what I understand you only pay the coyote if they actually get you across--so they really don't care what shape you are in, only that they get you there.)
On the 4th time, he was severely beaten by the federales--to the point that this lady's daughter had to leave her children and fly back to Mexico yesterday to take care of him. He has multiple broken bones--including 2 broken legs. He had been walking through the desert for 2 days the last time before he was stopped so he also had some exposure. He was left in the desert to die. I am unsure how he made it to a doctor, but the doctor says he will be in bed at least a month.
Anyway--I've stated my position here many times. I don't fault people who want to feed their families. If I were in Mexico and couldn't feed my family, I would certainly risk crossing at great peril. However, they shouldn't have to make those decisions.
IF our country clamped down on the employers who make it attractive for these HUMAN BEINGS to put their lives in danger crossing the border, then they wouldn't cross. It wouldn't be worth it.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

19. Eek! Eek! Non-white poor people are coming to 'Murka!

They don't speak our language too good! They'll vote Democrat! They'll do the work Americans won't do! They're gonna want to marry your sister!!

Call the "Minutemen!" Buy a sheet!!

[Deep13]

39. first, they won't vote Democrat.

Second, to a large degree they never will speak our language. I frankly have no desire to see this country become anymore bilingual than it already is. Third, Mexicans, like Americans, come in all different races including white.

You don't need to be a klansman to want the laws of this country to be enforced. Just because someone disagrees with you does not make him a Nazi. Who appointed you the arbiter of absolute truth?

[titoresque]

41. you're right

Seems I never did learn Navajo. Didn't this belong to them at one time? Hmmmmm, maybe you're on to something.
Soon, we will be forced to live on.......reservations? Dear lord NOOOOOOOO!
:sarcasm: :rofl:

[Deep13]

42. Pointing out a past atrocity ...

... is not a solution.

Sadly, my grand parents never taught me Algonquin, either. Of course, that is entirely irrelevant to the present debate.

[Yavin4]

20. Here's How We Deal With It - Make Working Here Easier

Make working in America for illegals easier. Give them work permits and let them work here LEGALLY, and if any employer is still hiring illegal laborers, then jail them and fire them.

[Telly Savalas]

25. Damn straight. Normalize the immigration laws.

And implement living wage laws and labor laws that have teeth. By removing the incentives for employers to exploit workers, you get rid of all the negative aspects of illegal immigration. For some reason this approach isn't as popular as the politics of hate which relies on the demonization of the Mexican worker.

[elehhhhna]

22. Ooooh scary! They filled a flat tire. Oh the humanity.

[elehhhhna]

24. fyi-- Survey: Half of Mexicans want to come here

Aug. 17, 2005, 7:58AM

Survey: Half of Mexicans want to come here
Analysts in that nation blast a U.S.-based poll as misleading
By IOAN GRILLO
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Foreign Service
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/3313798

MEXICO CITY - A survey reported Tuesday that nearly half of all Mexicans would like to live in the United States and that the sentiment seemed as strong among Mexico's college-educated middle class as the poor.

Some analysts said the results reflect the failure of the Mexican economy to provide good jobs and satisfactory wages, despite a decade of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Mexican government officials, however, attacked the report's conclusion as misleading and unrealistic.


'Propensity to migrate'
In the survey of 1,200 Mexican adults, conducted in May by the Washington-based Pew Hispanic Center, 46 percent said they would like to live in the United States if they had the opportunity. Among college graduates, 35 percent said they would head north.

[tgnyc]

30. On another note, I find it fascinating

that people want to live so far from civilization that they have to drive 20 minutes just to make a phone call -- and a cell phone call at that. Someone in that situation is always going to be a sitting duck for whatever types of gang make their way into the zone.

[madrchsod]

35. edit -more to the point

something needs to be done in mexico and the usa. employers in the usa love mexican labor because they work cheaper,harder,and longer than the "american" worker.they don`t talk back to the bosses and they don`t question what they are told. they are the new "slave class" for american industry.
mexico needs to create a society that creates jobs for everyone and a pay scale on par with the usa and canada. until mexico has true reform the government will do nothing to stop the problem because it is easier to export the down and outer`s in mexico than to help them.

[ken-in-seattle]

37. Anecdote...

I have not found a way to verify this but the Brother in law is a property manager at an apartment building. His lease policy requires that he verify credit worthyness via a credit report and verify SSN for anyone with a green card. He calls a number at the SS that tells him whether the SSN is a good one or a fake. He tried to do the same thing when hiring a maintenence worker and found that the SSA would not confirm or deny the SSN was "good" when the request was for pre-employment screening. He turned around and checked it as if it were a lease application and found out it was a fake number and probably a fake green card and id. This is the government that is covering for the employers of illegals by maintaining the fiction that it cannot tell a fake green card from a real one.

[mtnester]

46. Never enough illegals for the corporate whorehouses

that is why this issue will not get addressed. Stopping illegal immigrants is bad for the corporate pimps and their bottom dollar.