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.
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You know...
When I used to drive around the Salinas Valley -- something which I did on a daily basis for five years -- guess how many apparent Anglos I saw out laboring in the fields?
If you guessed zero, you would be correct. Not one. Not a single one.
The chance of getting either my kids to work at a McDonalds?
That is also zero.
So, tell me again just whose jobs these people are taking.
If the welfare and other laws need to be reformed -- which I believe they do -- then, by all means, let's reform them. Go for it.
I'll tell you something else...
If you lived across the border and had one lick of sense in your head and one decent impulse in your heart, you would try to come here too.
One more thing...
I one time had a bush that I wanted to dig out. I can't remember what kind of bush it was, but it had an especially nasty root system.
I couldn't do it. I worked at it with a pick-axe and a shovel for several hours. I couldn't get it.
I gave up. I drove down to to the local KMart and hired a couple Mexicans. They had the job done in a couple hours, and they did a excellent job of it.
I paid them twenty dollars apiece. In cash.
It is one of the best deals I've ever made.
I am *sure* they paid no income tax on that. They probably spend half of it on beer and the other half on rent.
You think that bothers me?
These are basically very good people. We do need to change some of our laws, but Mexican immigrants are not our enemies.
Pogo: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
I was actually thinking of that. If I'd known how to get some, I propbably would have done it. It would have been very satisfying to see the explosion.
Fix a glass of Scotch, light the cord with the tip of a cigar, then take a seat out on the porch.
All things considered, that would not have been a bad way to go. It might have got me arrested, but I would like to have seen it.
Most illegal immigrants, because of their low incomes, get most, if not all, of their income taxes refunded, if they file a tax return. They can also quality for the Earned Income Credit, which means that they can actually get back more on their tax refund check then the amount of income taxes that were taken out of their paychecks during the calender year.
Joe: "We have met the ememy and it is you."
But there is some issue with MY nailclippers and you want to read MY email to keep the country safe?
How exactly does that work Uncle Fed?
To quote Michelle Malkin, why don't we just build Motel 6's for them to stay in and leave mints on the pillow? Then they can dispose of their trash properly.
Illegal-pandering Bush would give an Executive Order to construct motels along the border if he could.....to suck up to the Hispanic voting bloc.
Be that as it may, back in my college days in the late '60's, one of my miscreant associates and I managed to come by some "stumping". Regulations were much looser back then, and this was in Oregon.
We had all kinds of fun with it.
We were quite fortunate that we did not kill either ourselves or someone else.
We came close though. I recall one time when time when we'd lit the fuse on a half stick that we'd put into a gopher hole on campus when some poor SOB came meandering alone right towrds it. We both jumped up and yelled, "Get down!" He had no idea why, but he did as instructed. That was just as well, because about five seconds later the ground right in him exploded twenty feet into the air.
The stumping proved particularly efficacious for fishing. We blew up more fish than I count in the Willamette River.
It's just as well that it's harder to come by these days.
Still, I would have thoroughly enjoyed sitting on my porch and watching the remnants of that bush explode.
In that situation, a cuss-word would be appopriate. I would favor either "pendejo" or "werwone". I'm not sure the spelling of either, but I can pronounce them.
We have native-borns who do that kind of thing as well, you know. It isn't a phenomenon that is limited to Mexicans.
Let me ask you this: How much are you willing to pay for a head of lettuce? For a basket of strawberries? Would you or your kids be willing to go pick either?
There are socio-economic issues involved here -- several tons of them. They are the issue. The fact that the people who work near you are Mexicans -- and presumably illeagl immigrants -- doesn't count for anything.
They may piss on your tires from time to time. I've seen far worse from Anglos.
We should not treat them badly. There but for the grace of God go we. Every time you go to your local market, go look at the produce counter and thank them for the work they do.
See if you can memorize this. It won't be easy, but I think you can do it:
"I'd rather have a bottle of beer in front of me,
than a partial frontal lobotomy."
It's a bit late for you, but maybe you can still memorize that.
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