Arizona border residents skeptical of Senate immigration plan

[Leroy N. Soetoro]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/17/us-usa-immigration-arizona-
idUSBRE93G01320130417

(Reuters) - A Senate immigration plan seeking billions of dollars to
secure the porous Mexico border sparked some skepticism in southern
Arizona, where wary residents of the border area said previous efforts to
ramp up enforcement had failed to stop illegal crossings.

"They ain't going to stop it unless they build that wall 50 feet high and
... 50 feet deep," said Jesus Morales, the fire district chief in Naco, a
tiny community southeast of Tucson, which is separated from its namesake
town in Mexico by a 10- to 13-foot-high (3- to 4-metre-high) steel fence.

The proposals came in a landmark immigration reform bill introduced by a
group of eight Republican and Democratic senators on Tuesday that would
lift the threat of deportation for millions of immigrants in the country
illegally.

It also seeks $3 billion in new money for 3,500 additional customs agents,
technology including unmanned surveillance drones, and a strategy to
identify what additional fencing is needed to discourage people from
crossing Mexico's border with the United States.

The measure identifies "high risk" areas where apprehensions are above
30,000 a year, such as the Border Patrol's Tucson sector, which includes
cities and towns like Naco and surrounding ranch and wilderness areas
where law enforcement has had less success in sealing the border, in part
because of the harsh terrain.

"It's only going to drive the human smugglers further out into the desert,
and that's going to create more deaths, more littering on the ranches,"
said Morales, who is the only elected official in this small
unincorporated community of about 1,000 residents.

Bill Odle, who lives on a remote 50-acre (20-hectare) plot of ranch land
by the border fence a few miles west of Naco, doubted the additional steps
sought by the senators would choke off frequent incursions by migrants and
smugglers from Mexico.

"They are saying �We'll get so many more of this, we'll get so much more
of that, and that will solve it.' No it won't," Odle said.

"Three billion, three quadrillion, they are numbers that people can't
fathom anyway, and they haven't looked into what they have already done
with the money they've already been given," he added.

But Gretchen Baer, a painter who is working with children on a project to
decorate the rusted border barrier in Naco, Mexico, with brightly colored
murals, felt there was no need to tighten security any further.

"Isn't it enough already? They have a huge, huge (Border Patrol) station
so why do they need more? It doesn't work anyway," she said.

'GOOD MOVES'

Successive administrations have already doubled the number of Border
Patrol agents to more than 18,500 since 2004, built 651 miles of fencing
along key trafficking areas, and added drones, sensors and night-vision
cameras to detect and track incursions.

As a yardstick of security gains, President Barack Obama's administration
touts a plunge in the number of arrests to 356,873 on the border in the
year to the end of September from more than 1.6 million at its peak in
2000.

The Border Patrol's Tucson sector did not immediately respond to an email
seeking comment on Tuesday.

Some elements of the new Senate proposal, which also seeks to beef up
prosecutions for undocumented entrants and secure funding for a program
for state and local law enforcement to help curb illegal border activity,
were welcomed.

"For border communities and border law enforcement and border security, I
think those are good moves," said Tony Estrada, the sheriff of Santa Cruz
County, flanking the Mexico border near the border city of Nogales,
Arizona.

"All the resources and the funding that we can possibly get for the local
and state agencies are going to be very useful and helpful and productive"
in efforts to tackle smuggling, he said.

Arizona border rancher and veterinarian Gary Thrasher is adamant that
success in securing the border depends on deterring smugglers from
crossing from Mexico. He welcomed the Senate proposal to boost the
prosecution of undocumented border crossers to 210 a day in the Tucson
sector from the current 70 a day.

"I agree with them prosecuting all the people that they catch to the
fullest extent of the law," he said.


--
Barack Obama, reelected by the dumbest voters in the history of the United
States of America.

Eric Holder, racist black murdering United States Attorney General, still
has his job.

Nancy Pelosi, Democrat criminal, accessory before and after the fact to
improper vetting of Barry Soetoro aka Barack Hussein Obama, a confirmed
felon using SSAN 042-68-4425, belonging to a dead man.

Obama ignored the brutal killing of an American diplomat in Benghazi, then
relieved American military officers who attempted to prevent said murder
in order to cover up his own ineptness.

Obama continues his goal of disarming America while ObamaCare increases
insurance premiums 200% and leaves millions without health care.

Obama helped bankrupt Illinois. Democrat run Chicago closes 54 public
schools.

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