12 Immigrants Die in Ariz. Desert Heat

[seemslikeadream]

Tuesday May 24, 2005 2:01 AM


By ARTHUR H. ROTSTEIN

Associated Press Writer

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) - A sudden onset of triple-digit heat led to a rash of deaths among illegal immigrants during the weekend in Arizona's deserts, with 12 people reported dead between Friday and Monday.

Scores more were saved in nearly 50 rescue operations, U.S. Border Patrol spokesmen said.

The deaths were scattered along Arizona's border with Mexico, but most of the bodies were found west of Tucson.

Under a federal border control initiative, about 200 extra agents have been brought into the region for the summer months.

Heat-related deaths have become common in Arizona as immigrants have been pushed into remote and harsher terrain by agents cracking down in other border areas. The state is the busiest illegal entry point on the nation's southern border.
more
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5027035,00.html

[PartyPooper]

1. Everybody knows you need water to survive in this heat.

So, why didn't these folks properly prepare for their journey?

:sarcasm:

[Castilleja]

3. There was a person found in S. Texas awhile back,

I don't remember he or she, as it's been awhile, but they were found dead under a mesquite tree with a milk jug nearby for water. Just laid back against the trunk. I thought about that for awhile, and how sad to die like that, alone in a place full of thorns and hot as hell.

[Placebo]

2. Sad news, of course, but...

they brought this on themselves. They shouldn't have broken the law.

[chlamor]

4. Ignorance of what's just is no excuse

for obeying the law. They DID NOT bring this on themselves. They were pushed off their land by thieving corporations to support the lifestyle of El Norte who thinks he has a birthright to bananas and coffee.

They were victims of:

[seemslikeadream]

6. THE UNDOCUMENTED WAR

Part 1
Writer Charles Bowden takes Scott Carrier to the Arizona/Mexico border. There, in the middle of the night, and amid thousands of Mexicans making their way north, Bowden explains the forces that lead them to make this journey.

Part 2
Recently a group of volunteer patrols known as the Minutemen stopped Mexicans from sneaking across the Arizona border. Some states want to mimmick their success. If somehow they could stop the migration and deport the 11 million illegal aliens already here, the economic effect would be devastating. Crops would rot in the fields. Hotels, restaurants and construction businesses would fold. America's dependence on cheap labor ensures this won't happen. Even as Congress debates the immigration problem, thousands of illegal immigrants are arriving. In the second part of our series, reporter Scott Carrier looked at the problem from both sides of the frontier.

Part 3
How bad would things have to be in your town, in your state, for you to risk your life crossing an international border that stretches across harsh desert terrain, with only a pair of thin-soled shoes and a jug of water? Around the border area of Tuscon, Arizona alone the border this year, nearly a half million mostly Mexicans were picked up by the border patrol trying to leave Mexico for the United States. Probably double that number made it in the country. At least several hundred will die trying. Scott Carrier takes us to the US border with Mexico to find out why so many Mexicans are crossing, and what it looks like to US resident Byrd Baylor, whose home has a window on this human migration.
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/features/undocumented_war/

[DFWdem]

7. This is a fallacy

This excerpt from Part 2 is completely false:

"If somehow they could stop the migration and deport the 11 million illegal aliens already here, the economic effect would be devastating. Crops would rot in the fields. Hotels, restaurants and construction businesses would fold."

Crops would not rot in the fields, and hotels, restaurants, and construction businesses would not fold. What would happen is the wages for these jobs would rise to a level at which US citizens would be willing to work them. I worked in several restaurants when I was younger and all of the employees were US citizens. They had no trouble making a fair profit. Wages in many of these jobs are artificially low because there is a vast labor pool who will take whatever work they can get under any conditions because they are afraid to complain for fear of being turned in to the INS. American workers will do these jobs, they just won't do them for $3 an hour.

[seemslikeadream]

9. Whatever

[DFWdem]

19. "Whatever" indeed

Do you not believe my statements to be factual? Have you ever complained about American companies outsourcing jobs? They are doing exactly the same thing, only the companies are sending the jobs overseas to where the people are, rather than bringing the people over here to where the jobs are. If you support illegal immigration, logic dictates that you must support outsourcing. If not, then you are just denying those "brown people" in India a chance at a better life. Is it somehow different because the jobs that are outsourced require one to have an education? Are only educated people entitled to make a decent living? Why should an employer pay a US programmer $75,000 a year to do the same job someone in India will do for $25,000 a year. Similarly, why should a farmer pay a US citizen $9 an hour to harvest his crops when he can pay an illegal $3 an hour to do so. Both actions have the same effect on wages in America.

[seemslikeadream]

20. When was the last time you picked lettuce?

Just when was the last time you detasseled corn in August in 100 degree temperature?




Get a clue
Quit changing the subject

[DFWdem]

24. I have a clue, thank you

No, I've never picked lettuce, but I have washed dishes for $4.50 an hour in the heat of a restaurant kitchen in the middle of the summer when the temp is 98 degrees with 90% humidity, fryers, grill, and broiler going in addition to the heat of the dishwasher. Yep, it's hot, dirty, nasty work. You're the one who posted a half-baked analysis from a man who has no concept of how a business works. If my product is sitting there idle and nobody will do the work for $4 an hour I'm not going to say, "Well, that's that. We may as well go out of business." I will offer the next person $5 an hour, and if that doesn't work I'll offer the next person after him $6 an hour until I find a rate of pay at which people will work for me. I will then pass along the increased costs to consumers in the form of higher prices. I for one would be willing to pay $2 rather than $1 for a head of lettuce. How about you?

[seemslikeadream]

27. So was that a summer job?

Did you have to pack up all your stuff and move on when that job was over? Just how much contact did you have with pesticides? Was everything you touched poisoned with cancer causing crap?


and your knowledge of the agriculture business is from?

[DFWdem]

28. Actually, no

It wasn't a summer job, it was a job during college until I moved to waiting tables in the same restaurant because washing dishes really sucked. The concepts I discussed are not unique to the agriculture industry. I'll put it to you this way: when Ford or GM have to re-negotiate with the unions and the cost of making cars goes up, do they stop making cars and go out of business or do they pass the increased costs along to customers via higher prices? By the way, may I ask what you do for a living? I'm guessing it isn't unskilled labor.

[ConfuZed]

35. You can take that over used tired "lettuce" banter elsewhere

Show me the farm which is probably owned by some fat republican that hires citizens and pays them minium wage to pick lettuce and I'll be the first to sign up because I'm unemployed right now.

[DoNotRefill]

21. Let me put it to you like this.....

when even the POLICE will not enforce the law, which is to deport these people, you have to ask yourself WHY NOT. The answer is that it serves the interests of the corporations and drives our economy by keeping wages low.

If we need the workers, fine, pass a law, make them legal, and let them work. If we don't need the workers, then why would they come here if there are no jobs available? The reality is that they are snapped up as workers, because they're about as powerless as a human being over the age of 18 can be in this country.

[seemslikeadream]

23. I do not understand this statement of yours

they're about as powerless as a human being over the age of 18 can be in this country

[DoNotRefill]

43. It's simple...

they're not legal residents. So they tend to be unwilling to invoke the legal system to protect their rights, lest they be deported.

[seemslikeadream]

44. What does being 18 have to do with anything

[DoNotRefill]

48. Depending on your age under 18....

your parents are your legal guardians, and your "rights" vary from fair to nonexistant.

[AnneD]

11. This is true DFWdem...

I am old enough to remember when butchers (AKA meat packers) were well paid and unionized (I am a Cowtown gal). The companies broke the union, hired illegals, and now it is a minimum wage job full of illegal and barely literate locals (they also applied asembly line piecemeal cutting too but that is a whole 'nother story).
In Texas, they are doing the same to construction industry today. Illegals of minimal skill are building these nice 125k-450k houses. My step dad, a true craftsman makes a ton of money in retirement 'repairing' these new, shoddily built McMansions. I don't blame the illegals and I do feel sad that this happens, they just want work, but the risks are WELL advertised across the border by the Mexican government. I blame those that hire illegals. It is like a noxicious weed choking the watersystem. This cheap labour is straining our whole Houston economic system (health care, education, depressed wages, etc). I know many here that would gladly take some of these jobs if they could (many sites hire ONLY illegals now). Mom and stepdad live in AZ., and they have even stronger views. Many negitive migration stories are not publishes (theft, murder, property damage, you name it).

[SemiCharmedQuark]

14. Yes, crime never existed before the mexican immigrants came.

"Many negitive migration stories are not publishes (theft, murder, property damage, you name it)."

Also, I sure as hell hope you are 100% Native American. Otherwise you are condemning people for doing exactly what your own ancestors did. Those Mexicans have more of a right to Texas than any whites do. They lived there for thousands of years before the land was taken under the pretense of an illegal war.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

26. excellent point

nobody's in any position to talk about birthrights.

[AnneD]

45. Yes....

As a matter of fact many of my aunts,uncles, and cousins are on the tribal rolls in Okla (Cherokee mainly and I think Crow too-can't remember). My dad opted out and joined the military and made a career of it. I happen to be on the white branch of the family tree. They are farmers and I went back frequently in the summers in my youth. I have chopped cotton, picked every kind of cultivated vegtable and some wild ones too. I assisted in the care, breeding, and butchering of farm stock and wild game. But enough of this pissing contest.
There has been an increase in crime in these border regions that have not made the news other than the border state papers. My mom has another story every time call her. It is a real issue at the border. Farms and ranches report more crime now than previously (slaughtered livestock-with an incriminating fire nearby, etc). We are all paying the price for this cheap labour and I know too many local workers that would take any job. This is not xenophobia talking but we have a need for jobs at decent wages (and minimum isn't decent but it is a start) in this country.
As I said, I have sympathy for the workers as humans, but they are here ILLEGALLY, and we should enforce fines on those employers wanting to skirt the wage and tax laws in this country. The only thing 'hurt' by enforcing the law is that the business owners will go from making an obscene profit to just a profit.

[emc]

47. good reliable source--mom

I guess mom goes out and gathers the news right----Jesus, now Ive heard it all-------my experience with the news from mom is it always gets blown out of proportion---------
I live on the border and crime isn't up anymore then before---most of the crap that goes on here--- teenagers ripping off people, gangs and domestic squabbles- oh yea, I forgot the drug dealers-----we dont read anything or see anything about illegals steeling or looting or killing or whatever----I have them pass though every once in a while---used to be more when I lived on the other side of town, but never once did they steel or rape or hold me up---is was always a very respectful (can I have water)--

you people hear rumors and believe all the shit you hear---

and let me tell you, there isnt any guy born on this side of the border who is going to pick onions, or chili in 105 degree heat----if it were not for these people, your lettuce wouldn't be a dollar a head but try 5 dollars a head----------

[seemslikeadream]

15. AnneD says

I blame those that hire illegals.

SLaD says

Maybe someone should take personal responsibility of not benefiting from the cheap labor and quit assigning blame to others

[SemiCharmedQuark]

16. Twelve People Die In Desert.

Why wasn't that the headline? Because people don't see immigrants as people. They are just immigrants.

[fishwax]

38. all they will call you will be deportee

sadly still quite relevant today ...

Deportee
Woody Guthrie

The crops are all in, and the peaches are rotting,
The oranges are piled in their creseote dumps,
You're flying them back to the Mexico border
To pay all their money to wade back again.

Chorus:
Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita,
Adios mis amigos, Jesus and Maria.
You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane,
And all they will call you will be deportee.

My father's own father he waded that river,
They took all the money he made in his life.
My brothers and sisters come working the fruit trees
They rode the truck till they took down and died.

Chorus

Some of us are illegal and some are not wanted,
Our work contracts out and we have to move on.
Six hundred miles to that Mexico border,
They chase us like outlaws, and rustlers, and thieves.

Chorus

We died in your hills; we died in your deserts;
We died in your valleys and died on your plains;
We died neath your trees, we died in your bushes,
Both sides of the river, we died just the same.

Chorus

The skyplane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon,
A fireball of lightning, it scarred all our hills,
Who are these friends all scattered like dry leaves?
The radio says they are just deportees.

Chorus

Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?
Is the is the best way we can grow our good fruit?
To fall like dry leaves, to rot on the topsoil,
And be known by no name except deportee?

Chorus

[seemslikeadream]

42. Thanks fishwax

http://www.nevadahumanities.org.nyud.net:8090/images/Woody_fascist.jpg

Pastures Of Plenty

It's a mighty hard row that my poor hands have hoed
My poor feet have traveled a hot dusty road
Out of your Dust Bowl and Westward we rolled
And your deserts were hot and your mountains were cold

I worked in your orchards of peaches and prunes
I slept on the ground in the light of the moon
On the edge of the city you'll see us and then
We come with the dust and we go with the wind

California, Arizona, I harvest your crops
Well its North up to Oregon to gather your hops
Dig the beets from your ground, cut the grapes from your vine
To set on your table your light sparkling wine

Green pastures of plenty from dry desert ground
From the Grand Coulee Dam where the waters run down
Every state in the Union us migrants have been
We'll work in this fight and we'll fight till we win

It's always we rambled, that river and I
All along your green valley, I will work till I die
My land I'll defend with my life if it be
Cause my pastures of plenty must always be free



:hi:

[SlavesandBulldozers]

25. so you advocate their deportation?

is that the crux of your position?

[SemiCharmedQuark]

10. Yeah, damned desperate starving people!

They should just stay home and wait to die like good little brown people.

:eyes:

[seemslikeadream]

13. Yes we have enough little brown Americans dying here

:sarcasm:

[Az_lefty]

5. It's hotter than Hell down here right now...

bad time to be walking across the desert.

[Zerex71]

8. Who cares? I'm sure there's a snotty white bride running away somewhere

that needs covering.

[AnneD]

12. and of course

there's always Michael.......

[CarinKaryn]

17. I thought we had water stations in the desert?

for the migrants. Did the racists kill that project?

[Tansy_Gold]

18. The water stations are few and far between.

There are no signs in the middle of the desert with arrows pointing to the stations. Sometimes they are plundered by those who don't care if the immigrants die or not.

Many are young men who believe they are strong enough to walk through the 100-200 miles of desert on just a couple gallons of water. They don't know how bad it is, how hot, how dry. They think they are young and healthy and they can do it. They think it's cooler at night and they'll make it to Tucson or Ajo where there are friends to meet them with a van.

But they do know the risks. And even knowing the risks, they are willing to try because what they have is so little and what life int he US promises is so much more.

They are people, real live breathing dreaming hoping loving people who do not deserve the scorn heaped upon them by those who would say, "I'm here thanks not to my own effort but due to the luck of having been born to American parents (who may or may not have ultimately been here "legally" themselves) and that gives me the right to tell you poor brown folks to stay where God put you."

Personally, I think that if there is a god -- and I don't think there is -- she put all of us on earth and the whole planet is our "home."

[DoNotRefill]

22. It's too bad the Minutemen went home...

Sure, they turned people in to the border patrol, but better alive and deported than dead and here...

[Swamp Rat]

29. It's a good thing those nutjob Minutemen went home

Otherwise, I believe we'd see a lot more than 12 dead in one week. Anyway, I didn't expect those pasty-faced, beer-gut couch potatos to last in the desert heat for long.

[Selatius]

30. If you want to address illegal immigration, bust businesses that hire them

The reason why no Americans would work some of these jobs is because the presence of these illegal immigrants keeps wages artificially low. Why hire an American field-hand to pick crops for 8 dollars an hour when you can hire an illegal for 2.50 an hour? The cheap cost of vegetables and other goods that you buy at the grocery store comes at the expense of the welfare of these people who are simply looking to feed their own families back home. If you talk of social justice, then at the least you should be prepared to pay twice as much for some of the fruits and vegetables you are buying.

What needs to happen is 1) use technology to monitor the border (motion detectors, flying surveillance drones, etc.) as well as an army of border patrol agents, 2) hunt and track down every employer who knowingly hires illegal aliens and fine them out the ass for exploiting them, and 3) pass a law granting legal rights and protections to illegal aliens currently inside the US. Minimum wage laws, labor standards, the right to unionize, etc. should be extended to these people who are already here.

Anyone who tries to enter this country illegally after the amnesty should be deported and will automatically be entered into a list of people applying for US citizenship. If anyone wants to come to the US, they should do it legally like everyone else, and the immigration process should be streamlined if at all possible.

No, I do not favor hunting down all 11,000,000 illegal immigrants in this country for deportation, but they should be protected should they need protection from the authorities without fear of deportation. No, I do not favor putting the Army on the border. You need border patrol agents, not the US 3rd Armored Division. No, the idea of granting illegal immigrants amnesty is not one I savor for the implication that they are being rewarded for breaking the law, but I don't think resorting hunting them all down and booting them out is feasible even if I wanted to do it.

For God's sake, there has to be some common sense here.

[Tansy_Gold]

31. Wages won't rise because no one will pay the higher prices

That's why businesses DO go out of business, and why farmers can't sell their produce.

When the strawberries are 2 quarts for $5, they fly off the shelves; when they're $4.99 a pint, they sit on the shelf and rot.

When the watermelon is 29 cents a pound, every family buys one; when an 18 pound melon costs $15, they sit in the box and rot.

When the stores can't sell the produce, they don't order it from the farmers, and the stores know what the breaking price is. The farmers know what they have to sell it for to at least break even, and if they know ahead of time they're going to take a loss on it, they don't plant, don't harvest, don't sell.

And if they don't plant or harvest, they don't hire workers. And if the cost of the workers is what puts the price over the breaking point. . . . . .

This country has had migrant farm workers for well over a century, and whether they were white or brown or black, they were treated like crap and paid slave wages. But few consumers hesitated to take advantage of inexpensive produce.

[Selatius]

33. You arguing on the assumption that many agribusiness corps can't afford it

I'm sorry, but I'm hard pressed to believe this. The majority of the fruits and vegetables grown in this country are produced by agribusiness giants nowadays. Gone is the era of the small farmer as the predominant model in the US. The biggest agribusiness firms have gobbled up the majority of the arable land in this country. They subcontract out to small farmers, and they apply pressure on them to keep costs as low as possible, hence the temptation to use illegal immigrants. Think of Wal-Mart's tactics in the retail industry. Now transplant them into the agricultural sector instead. That's what has been happening for decades now. Companies like the Dole Fruit Company have been around for a long time.

If I have to pay two, three, or four times for the same product, then I consider it a price worth paying if it means that these people are not further exploited and treated like shit. The simple fact of the matter is that through most of human history, things such as strawberries and bananas and grapes were luxury commodities, not necessities such as wheat. Those farmers would switch over to other crops if they could no longer pay below minimum wage. As far as consumers go, they'll have to get used to eating those grapes and strawberries as if they were an expensive luxury once more, or they can try and grow them on their own. They'll have to get used to higher prices, or they can learn to cut back.

It's not just picking strawberries in the field that are open to illegal immigrants. It's all over the service sector from hotels, restaurants, to car washes, and many of these businesses knowingly hire them at below minimum wage because they know they are afraid to complain to the authorities for fear of deportation. That has to stop.

[Name removed]

32. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Selatius]

34. We only disagree over terminology, not the end goal

They're illegal immigrants because they broke the law when they jumped the fence. Legalese can be a bitch, but in reality, I agree with you. Whatever they are termed, however, yes, they are human beings, and this is why I would rather grant them amnesty, as stated in my previous post, than hunt down and kick out every 11,000,000 of them.

If one wants to break the cycle, one must go after the businesses that knowingly hire them. This is what I had said in my post. Fines and even prison time must be used to break the cycle. For the ones who are already in the country, they should be afforded the same protections and rights given to every US citizen to prevent their further exploitation, and for those who still want to enter the country, they should be placed in line with everyone else who is trying to enter legally, and I'd favor studying ways to make the process of applying for citizenship faster.

[Tansy_Gold]

36. But when the corporations ARE the government, as your sig line

suggests, who's going to assess the fines, pass the laws, enforce them?

That's the liberal dilemma, that wants to work within the already corrupt system. And there's no way to make it work that way.

The corporations that ARE the government are not going to change the laws or change the way they do business. When we make the poor people pay the price, we're supporting the corporations. When we blame the poor people, we've become the corporations.

[Selatius]

37. Short answer: Try to retake the government

If all peaceful remedies fail, then revolution becomes, at least to me, a viable option; however, saying these things is far easier than going out and trying to do them, and I am aware of the frightful amount of time and energy it may take to try to get government back under the control of the people, and I am fully aware of the awful price if it means resorting to violence if all other options fail.

I hope to God it doesn't come to this, but frankly, I think it probably will, but not yet. Someday not too far off, but not yet.

[Tansy_Gold]

41. Revolución

When one comes down hard on the people who immigrate without proper documentation, one alienates (pun intended) many who would be on one's side when la revolución comes.

You can't win without 'em.

[Name removed]

39. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Selatius]

40. Ultimately, I don't disagree with you

It's a first cause issue. None of these people would be uprooted as they are if the US and other powerful nations of the world would stop exploiting weaker countries and kicking them under by imposing idiotic "privatization" schemes and other harmful economic policies or installing dictators on top of them or bombing them into submission to try to pilfer their resources.

[AnneD]

46. Thank you

well spoken.