I'm just posting this up so other people can get an idea of what people who live close to the border have to deal with. I live in Phoenix, and had no idea it was this bad.
The article's author is Leo Banks, a writer from Tucson, AZ.

Quote:


In Our Backyard
If only McCain and Kennedy lived on ranches in southern Arizona.

By Leo W. Banks


I know how to kill the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill and the illusions that inspire it. We need every citizen to spend a day at John and Pat King's Anvil Ranch in southern Arizona. The experience would create an overnight revolution in America's view of this domestic crisis.

The Kings live every day with barking dogs, vandalism, guns at their bedside, trash on their land, and most tragically, human remains. The bodies of seven illegals were found on the 50,000-acre Anvil last year.

“Can you imagine dying of heat prostration out there?” says Pat King, a 62-year-old former nurse. “It has got to be the most awful thing. I wish the two countries would get together and stop this. In this whole 50-mile area, there is no law. It's a frontier.”

I visited the Anvil a week ago Sunday. The night before, the Minutemen had wrapped up a month-long watch at the ranch, and the nationwide demonstrations to demand rights for illegal immigrants would begin the next morning.

I've visited many Arizona ranches, and it always surprises me how quickly I can travel from Tucson to a combat zone. It takes 50 minutes to reach Anvil's headquarters in heavily-crossed Altar Valley, located to the southwest of the city. Even with that proximity, most people in Tucson—to say nothing of Maine or Washington, D.C.—live in blissful ignorance of the worsening situation here.

When Pat discusses the problem with friends, they say, “Don't you think you're exaggerating?” No one would ask that if they saw the 40 bicycles stacked against one of the Anvil's out-buildings. They're the favored means of transportation for drug smugglers, who pack their cargo onto saddlebags and pedal across our border, then abandon the bikes.

As for vandalism, Pat describes what they experience today as “wanton,”—water troughs filled with garbage, pipes cut, valves hammered to pieces. She jokes that they're thinking of putting a tetherball by the troughs to occupy the illegals so they aren't so destructive.

“You have to understand, we're under siege here,” she says. “Every day my son and husband check water and fences and redo the damage they've done. Not to get on with our work, but to undo the damage. Every. Day.”

Micaela McGibbon, Pat's daughter, took me on a ranch tour, and in one mile we crossed 30 smuggling trails. In a wash, we inspected sophisticated brush huts in which illegals rest during trips north.

But this nightmare comes right to the Kings' doorstep. Imagine living under permanent stakeout. The Kings do. They removed mesquite trees from around their house because illegals would hide underneath them and wait for the house to empty.

For nine years, the family has been unable to leave home unless someone stays to guard against burglars. They celebrate Christmas in shifts. On Christmas Eve, Pat's son and daughter-in-law go to Tucson to visit family, and when they return John and Pat go on Christmas morning.

Micaela can no longer do chores unless accompanied by her father or a brother, and taking her 4-year-old daughter out on horseback is forbidden. “We can't go anywhere without an escort,” Micaela says.

The Kings have complained to politicians and law enforcement for years. “They talk this rule of law stuff, but it doesn't mean a thing,” Pat says. “When you realize nothing's going to happen, you have to do self-protection.”

During their April watch, Minutemen spotted 1,501 illegals on the Anvil, and of these the Border Patrol arrested 500. But it turned into a circus. ACLU volunteers showed up every day to monitor and harass the Minutemen, at times sounding car horns and flashing lights to alert the illegals that the Border Patrol was coming.

This is the border crisis in microcosm—confused Americans rush to defend lawbreakers while ignoring, even demonizing, law-abiding citizens who suffer daily affronts to basic liberties on land their family has tended for 115 years.

The Anvil's location, 38 miles north of the border, means that by the time illegals arrive there, they've been walking for days and are sometimes in desperate shape.

Between May and August last year, cowboy Jason Cathcart found four sets of human remains. He came to dread spotting what looked like little white balls in the distance. Those “balls” turned out to be human skulls.

In March, a man arrived at the Anvil's front gate so distraught that he ran into the yard and tried to impale himself on a pitchfork. Later he took up a bale hook and used the pointed end to slash his throat.

“This is what life is like in the Altar Valley,” says Pat.

Certainly the McCain-Kennedy bill will do nothing to change life here. Pat likens the bill, with its plan for amnesty, a guest-worker program, and negligible enforcement, to swatting flies in your house with the doors and windows wide open.

Ask yourself: Would the Altar Valley be a war zone if McCain lived here? If Kennedy's Hyannis Port compound were magically transplanted to southern Arizona, how long do you think it'd be before he rewrote his bill? The first time Kennedy saw 30 illegals dashing across his property, he'd trip over his Guatemalan lawn guy rushing to the Senate floor to demand enforcement.

That's one of the American tragedies at play here, the abandonment of ordinary citizens by our country's elites, and most strikingly, the abandonment of the very laws they themselves have written.

The resulting invasion has driven legal Arizona residents from their land, including John King's aunt. She lived south of the Anvil for more than 40 years, but sold out rather than keep fighting a battle the federal government has no intention of winning.

Pat thinks the street demonstrators—she calls them cowards—need to show their bravery by returning to Mexico and changing that country, not ours.

“We did that with the Boston Tea Party,” she says. “We were taxed without representation and we rose up and changed it. I think the students in the streets and these young ACLU individuals here are being used. When you talk to them you realize it's all emotion. There's no logic. They don't have a clue.”

When it comes to what's really happening on our southern border, neither does the rest of the country. But that would change if every American spent a day at the Anvil.

Desert Tuners

“When you come across a big kettle of crazy, it’s best not to stir it.”

Before ye pass judgment on thy neighbour, walk a mile in their shoes.



Transeat In Exemplum: Let this stand as the example.

Interesting article, but as one-sided as all the rest of the propaganda relating to illegal immigrants. This article implies that all illegals are violent drug smuggling vandals who will harm your children and rob your house on Christmas, except those who commit suicide with farm impliments.
Was this article published in the national KKK newsletter?

If the situation was as bad as stated in this article, wouldn't a reasonable person move? I can't put much credibility into these claims of how bad the situation is. Ask yourself how long you would stay in your domicile if your day-to-day life had degenerated like this article describes. These people own a 50,000 acre ranch, they obviously have financial means. They can afford to move to a safer area.

Also, minute men having their position exposed by ACLU members would be illegal, as it's impeding an investigation. They'd be arrested. I have to question the credibility of this claim as well.

I have the solution to the whole illegal immigrant problem. Give them citizenship, teach them English, send their kids to school and help them find jobs. That's what happened with my grandparents, why is this any different?

As far as the drug traffic, as long as there is demand for drugs someone somewhere will find a way to satisfy that demand. The problem isn't "Juan" with a backpack full of weed, the problem is "Billy" who wants to buy it. Make it legal and no one will have to rely on Juan for their high, they can buy it from Harjit at the corner 7-11. Then it would be taxed, regulated and a consistant product.

Just my humble opinion.



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John Wilken
2002 Cavalier
2.2 Vin code 4
Auto

So why is it right that an American citizen should be forced to move from their homes to get away from people illegally entering this country? ILLEGALLY entering this country???

[quote=?§Fallen Angel§?]So why is it right that an American citizen should be forced to move from their homes to get away from people illegally entering this country? ILLEGALLY entering this country???

For the same reason I had to move from where I lived in Cleveland, the neighborhood changed into an area that I no longer felt safe raising a family. When I moved in it was a normal street with regular people. When I moved out it had become a drug / prostitution area, and neither is legal. It's a choice I don't regret making, Iive in a much better neighborhood now. I could have stayed and tried to change things, but it would have put my children at risk and that's not an option. Is it right that I had to move? No, but I wasn't going to wait until one of my family was hurt/killed before taking action.



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John Wilken
2002 Cavalier
2.2 Vin code 4
Auto

One more thing, this didn't happen overnight, I lived there for 8 years.




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John Wilken
2002 Cavalier
2.2 Vin code 4
Auto

Hold on a second. These people should move, because their being invaded by illegal immigrants? No. And you shouldn't have had to move because of illegal activities either. The police should have taken action, period. I wouldn't move if I were these people. I would post signs in English and Spanish stating that if you tresspass, you will be shot.

And not all of them are drug dealers, you are correct about that. But, you go without water for a few days in 110 degree heat and see if you act in a normal manner.

The illegals are invading this country. And all these hippy tree hugger, human rights activists like the ACLU are crying because someone dies while breaking the law. "But they are coming to better their lives!" So what. You are still breaking the law and invading our country.

The minutemen are not a "legal entity". So the hippies can go and make all the noise they want and not get in trouble. If it was the BP, that's a different story.




If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you're reading this in English, thank a veteran.

well.. sucks to pick up dead illegal immigrant bodies in the back yard.

but I think its best to be dead than illegal.
Amen

i dont give a @!#$ what anyone says, they dont call them illegal aliens for no reason. it means they're here illegally, against the law, without the right to be here. something needs to be done. and not amnesty.






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GAM (The Kilted One) wrote:Before ye pass judgment on thy neighbour, walk a mile in their shoes.

Because then you are a mile away and have their shoes.


Do I really need a signature?

Quote:

Pat thinks the street demonstrators—she calls them cowards—need to show their bravery by returning to Mexico and changing that country, not ours.

“We did that with the Boston Tea Party,” she says. “We were taxed without representation and we rose up and changed it.

I don't know how you can argue with that.

America is singlehandedly the cause of and the answer to all of the worlds problems to most people in the world. Either America caused the problem, America is going to fix the problem or America isn't fixing our problems and we hate them for it. It's just getting old on my end. Just my pesonal opinion.

Take care of your own buisness and be proud of your accomplisments. That would stimulate Esprit de Corpse in Mexico and they wouldn't want to just walk over here. They could be proud of being Mexican and make Mexico a great place to live. It takes almost unimaginable hard work and determination, but we pulled ourselves out of a depression. Mexicans are hardworking people and I think they can do it on their own so that they could have so much more pride in saying we did it on our own.




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