Day 9: Immigration Impacts

Today our journey began with a visit to a local resident's house at the
base of Saw Tooth Range in Pinal County Arizona. The retired couple invited the entire class into their home to share with us their experiences with immigrants crossing the border illegally. This particular house is 70 miles away from the border, and the tall mountain range in their backyard
is used as a look-out point for traffickers. Their stories and pictures were
amazing and it gave us all a great first hand perspective on the topic of border security and how it is negatively impacting the local residents.

 

Part of the group with Sheriff Babeu

We then met the well know Sheriff of Pinal County Mr. Paul Babeu. Sheriff Babeu was recently named the United States Sheriff of the year by the National Sheriff Association for his contributions to the office of Sheriff on the local, state, and national level. The Sheriff shared with us his 10 point border plan that he developed with Senator John McCain and Senator Jon Kyl, and gave us a good understanding of the logic behind the proposal. There is no doubt that the Sheriff is passionate about the fight on border security, and he has put a lot of thought into his plans to address this issue in Arizona.

Later this morning we went to the Tohono O'odham Nation which stretches across the US/Mexico border inside what is known as the 'Tuscon Sector' of the Arizona border. We heard from tribal leadership, an elder, and law enforcement for the nation. Our visit was to focus on how illegal immigration and drug trafficking affect their way of life. 

Entrance to the Tohono O'odham Cultural Center

Some views were different from those we heard earlier on the trip and even
just this morning about illegal immigration, but the message of negative impacts was similar. The nation struggles not just with the monetary costs associated with the trafficking, but also the cultural costs. Many of the people cross the border in their daily lives to either check on livestock, work, or just go to school, but must also deal with the Border Patrol on every crossing. Across 73 of 75 miles of the border that is inside the lands of the Tohono O'odham the Nation has erected a vehicle barrier to stop drug and human smugglers from driving across the border. This has slowed the rate if trafficking but has not eliminated it all together. Many of the problems stem from the people desperate for food and water as they cross the desert. 

Next we went down to the actual border crossing in the Nation which is now
staffed 24/7 by US Border Patrol and saw first hand how inspections are carried out.  We saw native  residents who were feeding stock on property south of the US/Mexico border coming through the gate. 

 

Class 41 with the border in the background

Finally we talked to Dan Bell who ranches 35,000 acres directly on the
Arizona/Mexico border about the issues that affect their ranching operation. Dan talked about the increases in trafficking through their grazing land and the increase in wildfires, trash, and destruction of property. 

 

At the end of the day we had heard many different views of the immigration
issue that we hadn't necessarily heard the previous day at the Capital. We are
looking forward to our final day in Arizona tomorrow to finish off our study of the immigration issue.

-Matt Toste, Stuart Mast, Rick Burnes