Slate's "Dispatches" series this week takes a look at how the steady stream of illegal immigrants has changed lives on the Arizona border.
The southern part of Arizona is a wild and diverse place. At least four different ecosystems thrive along the border, and the one thing they all have in common is that they're being trashed by undocumented immigrant traffic. Of all the damage in the ongoing border war—and it ranges from drug smuggling to a near-bankrupt health-care system to falling wages—none will last as long as the footprints left by the men and women who pass through the deserts of southern Arizona. I've been at the border on and off for five years, and the damage only seems to get worse. There is more garbage, more tire damage, more evidence of people. Always, always more trashed landscape.
-- "In Arizona's Border Country, "Trashed" Has Many Meanings," Dec 7, 05
Simple kindnesses here are anything but black and white. They encourage more migration. Put up a water station for the migrants, and you give them a false sense of security that they can make it across this desert. Don't put it up and you deny the truth: that there is an inexhaustible supply of people willing to risk their lives to come to this country.
-- "The Border War's Other Casualty: Normalcy," Dec 8, 05
The change in Owen is the change on the border. She used to work out on the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge and would run into groups of two or three or four men. They'd introduce themselves and say what ranch they were going to work on, chat for a few minutes, and go. Not so much anymore. Generally speaking, the groups are larger, the average demographic has moved from men in their 30s and 40s doing local work on ranches to men and women in their late teens or early 20s making a run for a better life. And there's a lot of aggression.
-- "A Woman Who Beds Down with a Rifle," Dec 9, 05
The Rage Diaries last looked at the border skirmishes in Jan 04. And for good, solid coverage, I recommend checking out the CSM's ongoing coverage: have at it here.)
Don't put up water stations and you make illegal crossing into crime punishable by death.
The Tucson Weekly has a lot of border coverage, on both sides of the issue.
If you're interested, go to www.tucsonweekly.com and search the archives for "border."
Posted by: Anne | 2005.12.09 at 15:43
The border problems are very complex. I grew up in Tucson and feel that those living on the East Coast have no understanding of the complexity. A friend from Virginia actually told me the military or border patrol should post troops every 40 miles along the border of Arizona...(WTF?!) ..clearly this is someone who has never been out along the border or even to Arizona!!
It was fairly common for us kids to run across dead bodies in the desert while riding horses. I feel Americans exploit the illegal aliens just as bad as the illegals exploit many of the state programs (health care, etc.). The crime associated with living near the border is mindblowing... one reason I moved away.
Basically, no plan will work until there is no financial incentive to come to the US illegally. This will happen if a)Mexico, Central and South American governments end the rampant corruption and have a stable economy or b) the US government actually cracks down on US business and force them not to hire undocumented workers, which means a head of lettuce will cost like $10. Undocumented workers take jobs that Americans cannot make a livable wage working at.
Posted by: molly | 2005.12.12 at 08:23