Desert Invasion US - 2001 and earlier articles on destruction of border forests and border deserts

Border crossers hit O'odham hard - Illegals batter reservation land, homes, resources
National Parks Conservation Association, November-December, 2001
Study Finds Park Rangers Facing Increased Violence - Fugitives are drawn to isolation of parks, putting rangers at risk
The Associated Press, Arizona Daily Star, December 26, 2001

"Whole areas that were beautiful Sonoran desert look almost like landfills now."
Damaged by diversity
By Linda Bowles, WorldNetDaily.com, October 30, 2001

Our national borders are the front lines of America's war against terrorism...

The facts are beyond refutation. At this moment, there are more than 31 million people living in the United States who were born in a foreign country. This is an increase of 11.3 million, or 57 percent, since 1990.

At this moment, between nine million and 10 million immigrants are illegally living in the United States. The illegal population in America has increased by an average of 500,000 per year for the last 10 years. None of them were checked for criminal records, diseases, ability to support themselves or connections with terrorist groups...

It is projected, to the delight of many, that by 2050, there will be no majority race in America. In effect, the government of the United States is redefining America through its immigration policies. It is doing so without once asking the American people what kind of a country they want America to be, in terms of culture, language, tradition or even allegiance. In the minds of the ruling elite, diversity trumps unity as "our greatest strength."

Despite all the slogans, diversity can be a fatal weakness. Without unifying values and commitments, history informs us that ethnic diversity and multi-culturalism often generate suspicion and hatred, fragmenting a country into hostile factions, tearing it apart at its ethnic and cultural seams.
Estimate of Illegal Immigrant Population Rises
National Center for Policy Analysis, October 25, 2001
'Arab terrorists' crossing border
by J. Zane Walley, WorldNetDaily.com, October 19, 2001

"'We are experiencing a tremendous increase in OTMs' - border lingo for 'other than Mexicans... Central and South Americans, Orientals and Middle-Easterners.' Middle-Easterners? 'Yeah, it varies, but about one in every 10 that we catch, is from a country like Yemen or Egypt.'

Border Patrol spokesperson Rene Noriega stated that the number of other-than-Mexican detentions has grown by 42 percent. Most of the non-Mexican migrants are from El Salvador and other parts of Central America, she said, but added that agents have picked up people from all over the world, including the former Soviet Union, Asia and the Middle East."
Feds Undercount Illegal Aliens
By NewsMax.com, March 16, 2001
Over the River and Through the Ranch
By Kristen Tribe, The Cattleman, March 1, 2001

"'Fifteen years ago, we'd at least feed them and get them water,... But they weren't a threat back in those days. There weren't such numbers back then either... the past three or four years it's been a flood. Every other day there are five or six groups with 40, 60, 80 people." 1
Ask ranchers along America's border with Mexico what's been going on, and they'll say "Invasion!"
By Glynn Custred, VDare, October, 2000

"Olga Robles and her husband Frank live just eight blocks from the international boundary that separates Douglas, Arizona, from the Mexican city of Agua Prieta. For years men have illegally crossed the border on their way north looking for work.

Indeed 'invasion' is a word frequently heard along the border, and official statistics show why. In the first six months of this year, the U.S. border patrol apprehended 176,655 illegal aliens in the 21-mile Douglas section of the border alone...

Before 1994 the urban corridors of El Paso, Texas and San Diego, California accounted for two-thirds of the illegal entries. San Diego was the most notorious, and it was in California that the volume eventually produced a political reaction. The international boundary in San Diego sharply separates the teeming residential sprawl of the Mexican city of Tijuana from the undeveloped canyons and ravines of the southern end of San Diego. For years this neglected zone was a dangerous no man's land known for its lawlessness and violence. Illegal entrants were robbed every night and often raped and murdered by Mexican bandits and sometimes by Mexican policemen or criminals operating under their protection.

Throughout the 1980's and early 90's the 14-mile stretch of border in San Diego was hostile, violent, and out of control. Border patrol agents use terms like "chaos" and "anarchy" to describe it, saying that they faced riot conditions every night...

The influx of illegal aliens into southern California, and its mounting cost to taxpayers, spawned a political reaction. It took the form of a popular initiative, Proposition 187, which would deny public services to anyone residing illegally in the state. The same public sentiment that assured an overwhelming victory for Prop. 187 in 1994 (with 59 percent of the vote) also resuscitated Gov. Pete Wilson's flagging re-election campaign, eventually carrying him to victory.

[In 1994] measures were taken in San Diego under the name of Operation Gatekeeper. There too illegal entry was sharply reduced and crime dropped, not only in the border zone itself but for the entire San Diego area. Another effect of Gatekeeper, however, was that illegal migration simply flowed to the east beyond the reach of Gatekeeper, spilling into the eastern part of San Diego County...

Once Hold the Line and Gatekeeper made crossing in urban areas more difficult, smugglers eventually identified Douglas as a corridor through which the trade could be channeled with much less risk. The town lies on the Pan American Highway that connects the interiors of Mexico and the United States. Its 'twin city' Agua Prieta on the Mexican side provides a convenient staging ground for illegal crossing.

The mob scene through Douglas finally ceased once a strengthened and illuminated fence was erected, and once the border patrol had beefed up its presence in town. The stream of migrants, however, did not stop but simply flowed around Douglas, mainly to the west where ranch lands with water tanks and a network of roads facilitate this kind of mass smuggling operation...

Ranchers in both San Diego and Cochise Counties have reported seeing armed men on the U.S. side of the border, military in appearance, dressed in black, and armed with automatic rifles.... Some believe that they are from the Mexican army acting in support of smugglers.
Pressing Reno for body armor - Border Patrol claims 4,000 agents without adequate protection
by Jon E. Dougherty, WorldNetDaily.com, June 7, 2000
Mexicans declare border war - Town pledges to clog U.S. court system with illegals
by Jon E. Dougherty, WorldNetDaily.com, June 1, 2000
Tohono deserve federal aid in drug war
by Edward D. Manuel, Chairman of the Tohono O'odham Nation, April 15, 2000

...Every month, tons of drugs cross the border from Mexico and enter the Tohono O'odham Reservation. The drugs come on foot in groups of up to 30 backpackers, on horseback, in cars, in trucks - it is nothing less than a flood.

In June [2000] alone, the Tohono O'odham Police Department prevented 2.1 tons of marijuana from reaching America's streets. This total, a one-month record, was made possible through an outstanding and exhaustive effort by a relatively small force of 74 officers that make up the police department.

The magnitude of the job cannot be overstated. Along with patrolling 75 miles of border, these 74 officers are also responsible for protecting the 2.7 million acres of land that make up the Nation's lands...

Of course, the Tohono O'odham Police Department does not fight the war alone. The department is part of the Southwest Border High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, established by Congress. The Tohono O'odham has joined forces with the U.S. Customs Service, Joint Task Force 6, the FBI, the Pima County Sheriff's Office, and the Tucson Police Department.

Unfortunately, these activities have not solved the problem and, much like all of southwestern Arizona, the torrent of drugs coming through the Nation's lands is mammoth. Consider that the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector seized 103 tons of marijuana in 1999, and that another 74 tons were seized by Customs in Arizona.

According to Customs, almost a third of the drugs flowing into Arizona were seized on Nation lands. Because of federal drug reporting and disposal laws, however, no one knows of the drug seizures made by tribal police forces.

Here's the secret. Whatever is seized by the Tohono O'odham Police Department is given to Customs, but not reported as a tribal seizure. So, in 1999, of Customs' total, 7.5 tons of marijuana and 9,122 grams of cocaine were actually seized by the Tohono O'odham. And the numbers have increased dramatically. Just in June, the Tohono O'odham seized one-quarter of what was taken in the whole of last year!
The shooting war on Mexican border
by Joseph Farah, WorldNetDaily.com, June 27, 1997
Immigration law controversy - Defiant Zedillo breaks silence
By Matthew Brayman, The News, Mexico City, Mexico, April 4, 1997

President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon pledged Thursday to use all the diplomatic and legal force at his government's disposal to protect Mexicans living in the United States, joining a growing tide of sentiment against a controversial U.S. anti-immigration law. Presidents from all three major political parties, a phalanx of federal legislators and Foreign Relations Secretary Jose Angel Gurria Trevi�o have independently criticized the law, which went into effect this week and is designed to greater police U.S. borders and deport any illegal aliens...

"We will not tolerate foreign forces dictating and enacting laws on Mexicans," said Zedillo in a speech Thursday in Campeche. Congressional legislators and high-ranking Foreign Relations Secretariat (SRE) members have threatened to appeal the law in an international forum, and several formal communiques have been sent to the different branches of the U.S. government. Zedillo warned that any human rights abuses against "our brothers" living abroad will be answered with the "full force of all the legal instruments at our disposal."...
The Great Invasion: Mexico Recovers Its Own
by Carlos Loret de Mola, Excelsior (Mexico City),July 20, 1982

...Land, under any concept of possession, ends up in the hands of those who deserve it. All of us Mexicans should prove ourselves worthy of what we have and what we want. The problem is one or organization.

And those humble Mexicans - the braceros, the "wetbacks," the undocumented, teach us with their example of tough, iron-like character and their spirit of great adventure how to overcome a hostile environment. Let us imitate them from within the Mexico that belongs to us.

Desert Invasion - U.S.

Articles on the destruction of border National Parks, National Monuments, National Wildlife Refuges, and National Forests

Articles: prior to 2002