Posted on 11/29/2002 5:36:44 AM PST by dennisw
| 11/27/02 Immigrants Leaving Mounds of Trash on Tohono O'Odham Indian Sacred Lands By Paul Cicala The Tohono O'Odham Nation faces an environmental crisis. Every day, nearly 1,500 undocumented immigrants pass through the U.S.'s second largest indian reservation, leaving thousands of pounds of trash on tribal lands. News 13 recently got a first-hand look at some of the areas on the reservation that appear more like a trash dump than sacred lands. Piles of trash grow to mounds of trash on the Tohono O'Odham lands. In the process of searching for the American dream, some immigrants are trashing Arizona. Henry A. Ramon, Vice Chairman for the Tohono O'Odham Nation, says, "Mother Earth is something very sacred, and here we see trash all over it." Some sacred areas on the Tohono O'Odham Indian reservation larger than the size of a football field are littered with thousands of pounds of trash left behind by illegal border crossers. Gerry Carrasco, a U.S. Border Patrol Agent in the Tucson Sector says, "This trash that they leave. This stuff isn't gonna go away any time soon. Who cleans it up?" Ramon says, "It's the responsibility of the federal government." Ramon says his people shouldn't be left with the burden of dealing with the mounds of trash. The Tohono O'Odham Nation shares a 71-mile-border with Mexico. Ramon says it's a federal border so it's also a problem of the federal government. "With the amount of immigrants crossing our land every day, we just can't handle it. We just don't have the manpower," says Ramon. The Tohono O'Odham Nation is the second largest reservation in the country, with a population of 22,000. Nearly 2,000 tribal members live south of the border. Border crossers enter the reservation from Mexico on foot, and form makeshift camps near major pickup points for coyotes, or undocumented immigrant smugglers. Carrasco adds, "They get to here (a spot about 30 miles north of the Sonora/Arizona border), and basically from here is where they're gonna load up. So, they don't need the extra clothes and water jugs. They leave trash here, because there's no where to put it as they get loaded up." Ramon says, "It's a sore eye to go down the road and see all this trash." Tohono O'Odham officials estimate each undocumented immigrant leaves behind more than 8 pounds of litter. With nearly 1,500 crossing tribal lands every day, that amounts to 13,000 thousand pounds a day, and almost 5 million pounds a year. Tribal leaders are asking the federal, state and county governments to get involved. However, Ramon says it's an uphill battle. "We do try to clean what we can, but, still we're overwhelmed," says Ramon. If there's no solution soon, Ramon fears the "Mother Earth" that he and other tribal leaders worked so hard to preserve for future generations could all be thrown away. O'Odham officials say, at this time, they still haven't received any indication that the federal, state and county government will help economically, or by providing manpower to clean the trash up. Thousands of O'Odham tribal members also live in Mexico on native lands south of the border. Mexican officials say those areas are also being trashed by border crossers.
|
What are those? Mexicans don't usually pay taxes, they've found a better way. If they want food stamps or free health care, they just access our system.
No one else does ---why should just the Indians do this when the rest of the Americans also don't demand any payment for what we provide?
When Liberal Causes Collide
I'm refering to the citizens of Mexico that are still in Mexico, that should be held responsible for cleaning up a mess that their fellow Mexican citizens made on indian lands.
Why aren't the indians 'bitching' at Vicente Fox?
Has an historic ring to it in light of current information indicating that today's "native Americans" were a relatively recent arrival and murdered to extinction earlier immigrants (i.e. Kennewick Man).
There's a lot of us that are pretty vocal around here. Please don't lump us in with the Democrats, RINOs and fork-tongued indians like that. ;^)
This is too much, dammit! Nuke 'em!
We can't have them trashing Indian garbage mounds!
Just for the record, this is simply not true.
Immigrants, illegal or otherwise, pay vitually all the same taxes anyone else does. They pay sales taxes, gas taxes, utility taxes, property taxes (via their rents), and so on. They typically have income taxes withheld from their pay-checks.
Immigrant bashing and $3.25 won't buy you admission to the Statue of Liberty. Nor will it win you the next election.
I don't know what you're talking about. I don't think you do either.
These Indians should get over it. The "trash" they complain about is, for the most part, the official property of the Mexican government and should be viewed as sacred Mexican trash.
Honey, let me explain something...
Income taxes are paid on earnings, not on what you spend. Sales taxes and the like are paid on what you spend.
Sales taxes are pretty much impossible to avoid. Because of withholding, income taxes are damn near impossible to avoid these days -- you may not file a return, but you pay anyway; you probably pay more than if you did file.
I'll take it a step further. Mexican immigrants do jobs that need to get done by someone. They are generally very decent people. They are also potential Republicans. They have family values that would put most of us to shame. All we really need to do is to teach them to speak English and to be fair with them. They pay us back in spades.
Sure they do ---that's why the county hospitals in the SW are on the verge of bankrupcy and the public schools need tons of federal grant money to rescue them. People earning cash do not file an IRS statement and attempt to pay Social Security taxes, Medicare taxes or file their taxes with the IRS like the rest of us must.
If this is so true ---then why does Mexico look the way it does? They don't even deny they have huge amounts of corruption ---or is that somehow a Republican trait? Conservative, honest, responsible, educated, taxpaying, good voters, hard-working type people tend to have countries that reflect these values.
You forgot: /sarcasm
I don't know how much you know about Mexican immigrants. I would guess it isn't much.
I used to live in the Salinas Valley in California. I know a lot about them.
It would not be unusual for me to get up on a Sunday and drive my wife and kids down for breakfast on Cannery Row. There's a place down there that has a good buffet. I could have a Ramos Fiz. Or maybe two. Watch the otters, and the yuppies in their kayaks.
On the way to the restaurant, we would pass Mexicans who were out picking lettuce or other crops. Strawberries maybe.
Have you ever tried picking? I have. It isn't easy work.
At the restaurant, we would be waited on by a Mexican. The table would be cleaned by a Mexican.
You don't know anything. You're a standard bigot. You are what makes Republicans wrong.
Yet another ignorant person chiming in.
This is morally wrong. Learn.
29 de Noviembre del 2002
Actualizado: 3:02:17 AM hora de Cd. Juárez
Pedro Torres, El Diario
La Aduana anunció que continuará el decomiso de autos internados ilegalmente al país y advirtió que los chuecos que portan el engomado municipal de identificación vehicular también podrían ser incautados.
“De que van a continuar es un hecho”, dijo ayer Agustín Hernández, subadministrador de la Aduana Fronteriza de Ciudad Juárez, luego de que el miércoles fueron decomisadas 14 unidades en lotes clandestinos.
“No podemos decir cuándo y cómo se realizarán los operativos, precisamente porque el factor sorpresa es la principal característica que deben cumplir este tipo de acciones”, aseveró.
Afirmó que los operativos estarán dirigidos principalmente contra los vendedores de autos que acostumbran realizar su actividad comercial en los diferentes rumbos de esta ciudad.
“Pero no se descartan acciones en contra de los particulares, aun en contra de aquellos que portan el engomado de identificación vehicular que expide el Gobierno Municipal”, sostuvo, “ya que ese documento no representa la regularización de los vehículos”.
Agregó que además ya opera el mecanismo para que los particulares importen sus vehículos y puedan circular libremente.
If this is how things are done over there ----why do you believe everything changes when they come over here? This is just one example.
Before you go trotting on down the wrong road here, let's make it clear that what we're talking about is ILLEGAL ALIENS, "honey".
The pigs leaving all that garbage on the indian reservation are NOT immigrants. They're ILLEGAL ALIENS!
"Mexican immigrants do jobs that need to get done by someone."
ILLEGAL ALIENS steal jobs that were being done by someone already, because they're willing to work for HALF and with no benefits. They can leech those from the U.S. Taxpayers.
"They are generally decent people."
ILLEGAL ALIENS may be as decent as most bank robbers, but they're all still criminals.
"They are also potential Republicans."
ILLEGAL ALIENS are potential RINOs, NOT conservative Republicans.
"They have family values that would put most of us to shame."
Give us a link.
What family values are you talking about?
Maybe you're talking about the practice of most adult males in Mexico of visiting legal houses of prostitution, or keeping a woman on the side?
ILLEGAL ALIENS use welfare, foodstamps, SSI and rip off U.S. hospital emergency rooms to a greater degree than native born Americans do.
According to the Center for Immigration Studies the average ILLEGAL ALIEN will use $55,000 more in his lifetime than he pays back into the system.
Your arguments are old and tired.
Show us your sources for the ridiculous, liberal claims you make.
Give us a link.
It appears as if you agree that violating either of these is "moral correct".
Discussion ends here.
Souds like Stockholm syndrome. BTW, where are all the environmentalists on the immigration issue?
Of course I have ---I did it all the way from 11 years of age until I got out of high school. It isn't all that hard....you take your hands and put them around the fruit you're about to pick and pull....and then into the bucket tied around your waist. Not too hard. Lots of people have done farm work.
Lets see, you moved from the liberal mecca of Santa Monica to Virginia? Lord, I can only hope you took your friends with you.
Maybe you can convince the Virginians how good it is for America to have millions of illegal aliens crashing our borders and defecating on our laws and sovereignty. Potential future Republicans INDEED!
THANK YOU FOR LEAVING CALIFORNIA, NOW IF WE CAN ONLY GET RID OF A COUPLE MILLION MORE, ANTI BORDER, PRO-IMMIGRATION LUNATICS AND REPUBLICAN NEOCON LIBERALS.
California's gain, Virginia's loss! Spread the word, Virginia has millions of jobs for the uneducated, unskilled and non English speaking, and they welcome illegal aliens with open arms! Get the word out!
Interesting when someone leaves the SW and doesn't head for a border county to live and work, then claims to know everything there is to know. How about the property tax rates in Texas border counties? Not much to know except they're the highest anywhere in the country. I wonder how these types explain the last election results in California ---where were all the new Republican voters?
Like teaching them that it's impolite for men to cut into the line out in front of the houses of ill-repute on a Friday night and equally impolite for children to point at the 'family men' they recognize in line.
LOL!
Long experience has me convinced that the dumbest illegal is still smarter than the smartest feel-good leftie.
Never heard of the cash economy huh?
Let's not even go into collecting food stamps, free education and medical care all at the same time.
Better go tune up your space ship.
You do realize nobody believes it right?
You know, I am really beginning to wonder.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.