Grupo Beta, an aid group funded by Mexico, uses blue flags to mark water stations south of the border. Image Credit: MAYA ALLERUZZO - THE WASHINGTON TIMESIn light of the reviews of the latest version of the senate bill to address immigration - "Senate immigration bill 'far worse' than in '86", Washington Times (free subscription), July 19, 2006, we now have Mexico funding efforts to stage their citizens at supply stations near the border. These stations prepare those who intend to cross the border illegally through the provision of food and water.
This from the Washington Times Insider -
Mexico funds staging areas for illegals
By Jerry Seper - THE WASHINGTON TIMES - August 18, 2005
The Mexican staging area for illegal aliens that New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson demanded this week be bulldozed is among hundreds of similar sites along the border sponsored and maintained by the Mexican government.
Many of the sites are marked with blue flags and pennants to signal that water is available. Others, such as the Las Chepas site that Mr. Richardson denounced, are a collection of old, mostly abandoned buildings or ranch houses where illegals gather for water and other supplies -- sometimes bartering with smugglers, or "coyotes," for passage north.
Las Chepas, law-enforcement authorities said, also is a center for drug smugglers looking to move marijuana and cocaine into the United States.
Rafael Laveaga, spokesman for the Mexican Embassy in Washington, yesterday said his government "has a duty and obligation by law to protect Mexican citizens at home and abroad."
He said record high temperatures in the desert areas south of New Mexico and Arizona this year had resulted in the death of many illegal aliens.
"We try to spread the word on the dangerous conditions these people will face in the desert, along with reports of historically high temperatures," he said. "What we are doing is part of an effort to prevent those deaths."
Many of the Mexican aid stations are maintained by Grupo Beta, a Mexican governmentfunded humanitarian organization founded in the early 1990s. Driving through the desert regions south of the border in brightly painted orange trucks, Grupo Beta's job is to protect migrants along the border, not arrest them.
In April, Grupo Beta worked with the Mexican military and the Sonora State Preventive Police to move would-be illegal aliens out of the desert areas just south of the U.S. border to locations east and west of Naco, Ariz., to avoid the Minuteman Project volunteers holding a vigil on the border.
A branch of Mexico's National Migration Institute, Grupo Beta also helped pass out fliers warning migrants that the Minuteman volunteers, whom they described as "armed vigilantes," were waiting across the border to hurt them.
In addition to the aid stations, the Mexican government has distributed more than a million copies of a 32-page handbook advising migrants how to cross into the United States. The book, known as "Guia del Migrante Mexicano," or "Guide for the Mexican Migrant," contains tips on avoiding apprehension by U.S. authorities.
Aid stations for illegal aliens also exist in the United States, many of them established and supplied by various humanitarian organizations such as Humane Borders, a Tucson faith-based group that targets illegal aliens who the organization said might otherwise die in the desert.
Humane Borders, established in 2001, has 70 water stations along the U.S. side of the border, each with two 50-gallon tanks next to a 30-foot-mast with a blue flag.
Many are on well-traveled migrant routes. Others have been placed, with permission, on property owned by Pima County, Ariz.; the National Park Service; the Bureau of Land Management; and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Another U.S. group, known as No More Deaths, set up an aid camp last month near Arivaca, Ariz., helping stranded border-crossers with food, water and medical assistance. The Ark of the Covenant camp will remain in operation through September.
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As for the Senate's bill on immigration, it is uglier that the attempt that passed back in 1986 and signed by Ronald Reagan.
Excerpts from the Washington Times -
Senate immigration bill 'far worse' than in '86
By Charles Hurt - THE WASHINGTON TIMES - July 19, 2006
The latest immigration bill approved by the Senate is "far, far worse" than the 1986 immigration bill that granted amnesty to 2.7 million illegal aliens and created the magnet for the millions more who have come here since, a House panel was told at a hearing yesterday.
In addition to providing legalization to about four times as many illegal aliens as did the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), witnesses said, the current bill also repeats mistakes made 20 years ago that will render the border-enforcement provisions and employer sanctions meaningless.
"The Senate amnesty would condemn the United States to the same harmful consequences that IRCA caused," James R. Edwards Jr. of the Hudson Institute told the House Judiciary's subcommittee that handles immigration. "Only now, its effects would be far, far worse."
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Democrats on the panel, for the most part, criticized Republicans for holding what they called a "mock hearing" and accused them of trying to score political points off the explosive issue just months before the next election.
Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee of Texas, ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, said the reason the 1986 bill did not work is that it was not "comprehensive" enough, a criticism she also leveled at the enforcement-only bill approved by the House last year.
"Although IRCA had legalization programs and new enforcement measures, it did not address all of the essential issues," she said. "For instance, it failed to provide enough legal visas to meet future immigration needs."
Mrs. Jackson-Lee also castigated Republicans for smearing the Senate bill with the term "amnesty" because it will grant citizenship rights to some 10 million illegal aliens already here.
"It was derived from the Latin word 'amnesti,' which means amnesia," she said after giving the definition. "S.2611 does not have any provisions that would forget or overlook immigration law violations."
Replied Rep. Steve King, Iowa Republican: "I don't care what we call it. It's a bad bill, and America knows it's a bad bill."
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Rep. Silvestre Reyes, a Texas Democrat who served 26 years in the Border Patrol, was among those who testified yesterday. He accused Mr. Bush and Republicans in Congress of wasting time with the hearings.
"Talk is cheap," he said. "What border residents want and what Americans want when it comes to border security and immigration reform is action."
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"Why should Americans have any reason to believe that the supposed enhanced enforcement provisions in Reid-Kennedy will be effectively enforced by the administration any more than successive administrations have enforced IRCA?" Mr. Hostettler asked. "The administration will probably implement amnesty for millions of illegal aliens quite quickly. Enforcement will likely lag behind if it occurs at all. We will find ourselves in exactly the same place we found ourselves 20 years ago."
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With all of this power and effort being spent on not protecting our soverignty from the governments on both sides of the border, it's a wonder that the United States even exsists.
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