Alisha Shay Shay
New member
I'm quoting this exactly as it comes from TIME...
When the crowRAB cross the ranches along and near the border, they discard backpacks, empty Gatorade and water bottles, and soiled clothes. They turn the land into a vast latrine, leaving behind revolting mounRAB of personal refuse and enough discarded plastic bags to stock a Wal-Mart. Night after night, they cut fences intended to hold cattle and horses. Cows that eat the bags must often be killed because the plastic becomes lodged between the first and second stomachs. The immigrants steal vehicles and saddles. They poison dogs to quiet them. The illegal traffic is so heavy that some ranchers, because of the disruptions and noise, get very little sleep at night.
John Ladd Jr., a thoughtful, soft-spoken rancher just outside Bisbee, gives new meaning to the word stoic. He is forced to work the equivalent of several weeks a year to repair, as best he can, all the damage done to his property by never-ending swarms of illegal aliens. "Patience is my forte," he says, "but it's getting lower." The 14,000 acre Ladd ranch, in his mother's family since the 1800's, is right on the border. Ladd and his wife and three sons as well as his father and mother have their homes there. The largely flat, scrub-covered piece of real estate, with its occasional groves of cottonwooRAB, spiny mesquite and clumps of sacaton grass and desert broom, seems to offer few places to hide. But the land is laced with arroyos in which scores of people can disappear from view. Ditches provide trails from the border to Highway 92, a distance of about 3 miles. That is the route that Ladd says 200 to 300 illegals take every night as they enter the U.S. They punch holes in the barbed-wire border fence and then tear up the many fences intended to separate the breeding cattle-Brahmin, Angus, and Hereford-that divide the Ladd land.
Ladd doesn't blame the border patrol, most of whose officers, he says, are doing all they can under the circumstances. Indeed, apprehensions of illegals in Arizona have soared from 9% of the nation's total in 1993 to 51% this year. "I have real heartache for the agents who are really working," he says. "They track down the smugglers, and judges let them off, and they get a free trip back to Mexico, where they can start all over."
On the other side [of the border] are Mexican ranches whose cattle wander onto Ladd's. "I'm up to 215 Mexican cows that I've put back into Mexico," he says. "I've got a dual-citizenship friend-he's Mexican and American-works on this side for Phelps Dodge, but he's got a ranch over at the San Jose Mountain. So I call him, and then he calls the Mexican cattle inspector...Ladd acknowledges that this do-it-yourself cattle diplomacy is "breaking both countries' laws." How so? "In the United States, you're supposed to quarantine and Mexican cattle for 30 days, and they test them for disease and everything else. What the problem is, there isn't enough cattle inspectors to do that, and then they don't have a holding corral anymore to do that."
Why does he spend so much time returning strays? So his counterparts in Mexico will return the favor because some of his cattle amble across the border through the same holes.
And the nightmare scenario: some resident (which could be me) frustrated by the Federal Government's refusal to halt the onslaught will begin shooting the border crossers on his or her property. As a rancher summed up the situation: "If the law can't protect you, what do you do?" Everyone, it seems, is armed, including nurses at the local hospital, who carry sidearms on their way to work out of fear for their safety.
NOW, if you call INS and the police and illegals continue to come on your property and destroy it, and you then put up a sign saying you will shoot any illegal caught on my property after sunset, and you do it, how can the government fault you? Not only do these illegals steal taxpayers' money, they also put others' safety in jeopardy.
When the crowRAB cross the ranches along and near the border, they discard backpacks, empty Gatorade and water bottles, and soiled clothes. They turn the land into a vast latrine, leaving behind revolting mounRAB of personal refuse and enough discarded plastic bags to stock a Wal-Mart. Night after night, they cut fences intended to hold cattle and horses. Cows that eat the bags must often be killed because the plastic becomes lodged between the first and second stomachs. The immigrants steal vehicles and saddles. They poison dogs to quiet them. The illegal traffic is so heavy that some ranchers, because of the disruptions and noise, get very little sleep at night.
John Ladd Jr., a thoughtful, soft-spoken rancher just outside Bisbee, gives new meaning to the word stoic. He is forced to work the equivalent of several weeks a year to repair, as best he can, all the damage done to his property by never-ending swarms of illegal aliens. "Patience is my forte," he says, "but it's getting lower." The 14,000 acre Ladd ranch, in his mother's family since the 1800's, is right on the border. Ladd and his wife and three sons as well as his father and mother have their homes there. The largely flat, scrub-covered piece of real estate, with its occasional groves of cottonwooRAB, spiny mesquite and clumps of sacaton grass and desert broom, seems to offer few places to hide. But the land is laced with arroyos in which scores of people can disappear from view. Ditches provide trails from the border to Highway 92, a distance of about 3 miles. That is the route that Ladd says 200 to 300 illegals take every night as they enter the U.S. They punch holes in the barbed-wire border fence and then tear up the many fences intended to separate the breeding cattle-Brahmin, Angus, and Hereford-that divide the Ladd land.
Ladd doesn't blame the border patrol, most of whose officers, he says, are doing all they can under the circumstances. Indeed, apprehensions of illegals in Arizona have soared from 9% of the nation's total in 1993 to 51% this year. "I have real heartache for the agents who are really working," he says. "They track down the smugglers, and judges let them off, and they get a free trip back to Mexico, where they can start all over."
On the other side [of the border] are Mexican ranches whose cattle wander onto Ladd's. "I'm up to 215 Mexican cows that I've put back into Mexico," he says. "I've got a dual-citizenship friend-he's Mexican and American-works on this side for Phelps Dodge, but he's got a ranch over at the San Jose Mountain. So I call him, and then he calls the Mexican cattle inspector...Ladd acknowledges that this do-it-yourself cattle diplomacy is "breaking both countries' laws." How so? "In the United States, you're supposed to quarantine and Mexican cattle for 30 days, and they test them for disease and everything else. What the problem is, there isn't enough cattle inspectors to do that, and then they don't have a holding corral anymore to do that."
Why does he spend so much time returning strays? So his counterparts in Mexico will return the favor because some of his cattle amble across the border through the same holes.
And the nightmare scenario: some resident (which could be me) frustrated by the Federal Government's refusal to halt the onslaught will begin shooting the border crossers on his or her property. As a rancher summed up the situation: "If the law can't protect you, what do you do?" Everyone, it seems, is armed, including nurses at the local hospital, who carry sidearms on their way to work out of fear for their safety.
NOW, if you call INS and the police and illegals continue to come on your property and destroy it, and you then put up a sign saying you will shoot any illegal caught on my property after sunset, and you do it, how can the government fault you? Not only do these illegals steal taxpayers' money, they also put others' safety in jeopardy.
