Along the Southern Border, the New York Times Is ‘Disconnected from Reality’

Posted by Sheriff Larry Dever

For the last 14 years as the elected Sheriff of Cochise County Arizona, which shares 83½ miles of border with Mexico, I have kept a listed phone number. For about the last 18 years or so the calls I receive at home, at night, would be infrequent and usually about a domestic squabble or some animal turned loose.

Then, in 1998 that all changed. Now I don’t sleep, as my residents call each night sometimes panicky, sometimes resigned to this as a way of life, but always with a shaky voice: “they are at my door.” This is not a weekend activity. This is every single night. Cochise County is a gateway to tens of thousands of illegal aliens entering the U.S. to provide the rest of our country with drugs. If my deputies and I are prohibited from enforcing the law to stop these border jumpers, your families in Plainsville, Ohio, or Charlotte, North Carolina, are going to continue to be in harm’s way and see the percentage of crimes by illegal aliens rise.

The New York Times September 4th editorial entitled “Border News” claims we in southern Arizona are “disconnected from reality” over the issue of border violence. As we patrol the border and watch the traffic night after night – and believe me, you cannot turn off what appears sometimes to be a bad movie with an endless reel of crossers — I would respectfully suggest the editorial writer is disconnected from reality.

And lest you think we are mainly apprehending a workforce eager to come work illegally for our residents, it’s not about people anymore, it’s about drug smugglers and other criminal aliens. My deputies and I keep watch on the border each night, doing our best to apprehend the dozens of men with 75-pound backpacks filled with marijuana who hop the fence, usually when the Federal Border Patrol Agents have their official shift changes. Sadly, Border Patrol agents working this problem are more often than not limited in their capacity to cope by inept policy making in Washington, D.C. Our government is supposed to be making tactical decisions about a situation that worsens by the day and is truly chaotic and frankly, war-like.

The editorial cites the Pew Research Center study as evidence that the illegal population has declined. Pew even admits their numbers are not precise, that their population totals “differ somewhat from the ones the government uses.” In fact, Pew admits to adjusting the unauthorized immigrant population upwards by 10-15%, saying, “Our method of analysis does not permit a precise estimation of how many in this population emigrate, achieve legal status or die.” I would challenge these wizards of statistical manipulation to conduct a study of the total number of crimes committed by illegal aliens nationwide and then justify their open borders position.

When you are thousands of miles away from the problem, it’s easy to imagine this part of the country as a land of easygoing westerners with a carefree lifestyle. That may be the ideal, but the reality is my residents sleep lightly in anticipation of the knocking they will inevitably hear on their front doors and the constant fear of what will result if they are forced to answer.

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Australia: Protest sit-in by illegals "won't stop deportation"

This protest is excellent. It was such protests in the Howard era that did more than anything else to stop the flow of illegals. One hopes that TV coverage of it has gone worldwide.

The suicide is of course sad but the man must have been a bit of a nut. Fiji is a very safe and civil place. Even their military coups are bloodless! So there is nothing there to seek asylum from

THE protest by 11 asylum seekers at a Sydney detention centre, sparked by the suicide of a fellow detainee, will not prevent their deportation, the federal government says. Nine Tamils, one Iraqi and one Afghan began their rooftop protest at the Villawood detention centre in the city's west on Monday afternoon and were still refusing to come down this morning.

A 36-year-old Fijian man facing deportation committed suicide yesterday morning at the centre.

All the men on the rooftop have exhausted the application process for asylum status and face being returned to their homeland.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said their actions would do nothing to prevent their deportation. "I understand that people who are very keen to stay in Australia will in desperate circumstances think of other ways to make their case," Mr Bowen told Fairfax radio today. "Our immigration officials determine who gets asylum after a very rigorous process. "And it's not determined by a protest, and a protest won't change an immigration outcome."

Immigration department spokesman Sandi Logan said negotiators had been on the scene of the standoff overnight and into this morning. The negotiators included local Tamils, he said.

Mr Logan said the men were protesting against the handling of their visa applications, and their actions would neither help nor hinder them. "We continue to be hopeful that reason will prevail, that logic will prevail, and that they will understand that remaining on the roof is not going to change an outcome. It's not going to secure a different outcome to that which they currently have," Mr Logan told ABC television.

Mr Logan said he had not heard about claims the Villawood centre was understaffed, and he believed its manager, Serco, was managing well in a sometimes challenging environment.

Refugee advocate Sara Nathan has been in mobile phone contact with some of the rooftop protesters, who say the rejections of their applications contained factual errors and they were not given legal help during the process. Ms Nathan told AAP: "They're saying, 'Can we have a review of our case because you made a mistake. This is our lives. If you return us, we will be tortured and/or killed'." [Rubbish! They would be welcomed in Tamil Nadu]

Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul says the men want assurance their cases will be reviewed again before they will come off the roof. "They want an independent and transparent review of their cases and they want to meet with the immigration officers," he told AAP. "They've made it clear that they can't go back to Sri Lanka." [But they can go to Tamil Nadu in India, which is in fact their "eelam"]

Mr Bowen said just under 5000 people were being held in detention centres on Christmas Island and the Australian mainland.

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