Border Hostilities Escalate

Imagine what it's like to be an early-rising, hard working rancher, who puts in long days to get through all his chores. Then imagine adding to those chores the need to clean up after hordes of uninvited guests, who choose to squat on your land; that means cleaning up the debris from all their meals and daily activities, as well as the unmentionables they leave behind, as they turn your land into a public toilet. Now add to that indignity the fear of your house being looted in the middle of the night, or while you're out tending to your stock or repairing a fence. You now have an idea of what ranchers are experiencing whose properties are in American states that share borders with Mexico. Here are some highlights from news stories about the ongoing conflict between landowners in the Southwest and illegal aliens.

Border Hostilities Escalate

A confrontation of desperate people on both sides of America's border with Mexico threatens to grow increasingly violent, reports CBS News Correspondent Sandra Hughes, as ranchers in Arizona whose properties have become passageways for illegal migrants take up arms to guard their land from intruders.

The encounters between ranchers and migrants have sometimes turned violent. Mexican officials claim two migrants have been shot and killed and four others injured. The conflict has escalated into an international controversy. Immigrant rights groups are protesting the violence and the Mexican government is considering a lawsuit against the ranchers.

If the migrants are unlikely to stop coming, the ranchers are also unwilling to stand down. On George Morin's ranch, the thousands who pass through leave behind trash, clothes, and, sometimes, small bags of drugs. Morin now patrols his property. "I've been a little nervous at times. You run into so many people," he said. "I always have a gun. There's one in the pickup."

The desperation among the ranchers has led to dangerous confrontations in which ranch hands round up migrants and threaten them at gunpoint. Ironically, efforts to seal the border elsewhere might be heightening tensions on Arizona's borderland ranches. Other sections of the U.S.-Mexican border are blocked by miles and miles of fencing, pushing illegal immigration out into the remote, desert areas where the ranchers live.

The hostilities in Arizona are part of a trend of increasing violence along America's southern border.

-- CBS Worldwide, June 2000

Mexicans declare border war

Town pledges to clog U.S. court system with illegals

A Mexican border town has "declared war" on the United States, vowing to clog the U.S. court system with illegal immigrants, because, city officials say, the U.S. Border Patrol is dumping in their town Mexican nationals caught crossing the border illegally.

Officials from Agua Prieta, a Mexican city of about 130,000, are also claiming that the U.S.government has repeatedly neglected to inform them about new waves of immigrants before they are routed there from points in the U.S. after capture.

Consequently, Agua Prieta leaders are teaching Mexican nationals how to cross into the U.S. and stay there, by instructing them to request a court hearing -- a tactic sure to clog the judicial system with possibly thousands of illegal immigrants who want their day in court. Experts say that if only a small portion of illegal immigrants request court appearances, the system could be hopelessly clogged and the Border Patrol similarly overwhelmed.

-- World Net Daily, June 2000

Texans pledge help to Arizona ranchers

A Texas group is calling for armed volunteers to help Arizona ranchers repair damage caused by illegal immigrants--and if necessary, to capture and detain the trespassers for law enforcement officials.

Jack Foote, who heads Ranch Rescue (see http://www.ranchrescue.com), said volunteers will be armed and prepared to defend themselves. But their reason for coming this fall is to show solidarity with southeastern Arizona ranchers, he said.

"Our concern is not with illegal immigration; our concern is with criminal trespass," Foote told the Arizona Daily Star. "Where I come from, if you trespass on someone's property, you go to jail." By coming to Arizona, Ranch Rescue hopes to call attention to the problem while also repairing fences, fixing water tanks and doing other ranch chores, he said.

-- Arizona Republic, June 29, 2000

Illegals stretch resources on border

Arizona's four border counties spent $15.5 million of taxpayers money last year capturing and prosecuting thousands of illegal immigrants who committed burglary, car theft and other crimes, according to new testimony on the high cost of the border crisis.

The cost to Arizona isn't being measured only in dollars: Testimony on Tuesday also warned of damage to national parks and riparian areas and an erosion of faith in the federal government's ability to solve the mounting border woes.

"I've never seen such a devastating, pervasive socioeconomic and environmental impact along the border," Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever said after submitting a statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee. "Of all the damage being done, perhaps the greatest is the loss of confidence by our citizens that our government is willing or able to do anything about this situation."

"I think people will be very, very surprised that county governments endure such an impact," said Tanis Salant of the University of Arizona. "These are unreimbursed by the federal government. People need to realize that whatever is financed through the county general fund, it is local taxpayers bearing the burden."

The federal government is already paying millions of dollars a year for the cost of incarcerating illegal immigrants, but the tab is left to counties when immigrants commit other crimes. Sen. Jon Kyl said he is trying to prod the Senate into reimbursing counties more for emergency medical care and other services.

-- Arizona Republic, June 28, 2000

Rancher sued over slain immigrant

The father of an illegal immigrant from Mexico filed a $15 million lawsuit Friday against a Texas rancher who allegedly shot the immigrant to death after he approached the rancher in search of water.

The wrongful-death lawsuit was filed about six weeks after the Mexican government hired lawyers to seek damages from vigilantes near the border who have detained illegal immigrants crossing north from Mexico.

Friday's suit, filed in federal court in Del Rio, accuses Samuel H. Blackwood Jr. of shooting 23-year-old Eusebio de Haro Espinosa. (Espinosa was shot once in the leg and later bled to death.) Blackwood, 75, surrendered to police on May 14, a day after the shooting. He initially was charged with murder, but a grand jury later indicted him on a lesser charge of deadly conduct, punishable by two to 10 years in prison.

-- Arizona Republic, July 1, 2000

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