How Arizona took center stage on immigration. AP / Houston Chronicle.
It is interesting to watch the immigration bill in Arizona create such a furor. Basically, it empowers police to inquire about immigration status of a person if there is reasonable suspicion they are illegal.
The reasons in passing the bill resound though.
Arizona is the biggest gateway into the U.S. for illegal immigrants. The state is home to an estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants — a population larger than that of entire cities such as Cleveland, St. Louis and New Orleans.
That is a lot of people in one state. There must be a road paved with gold of sorts into Arizona. But wait. That must make immigration enforcement a challenge to some degree by sheer volume. It looks like the Border Patrol needs assistance.
Over the past three years, Border Patrol agents have made 990,000 arrests of immigrants crossing the border illegally in Arizona, or an average of 900 a day. The figures represent 45 percent of all arrests of illegal immigrants along U.S. borders.
Authorities routinely come across safe houses and vehicles jammed with immigrants across the vast Arizona desert. Last week, 67 illegal immigrants were found crammed inside a U-Haul truck — a fairly typical scenario in the state.
But as much as some may decry the human smuggling and illegal crossing issue, there is actually more.
The volume of drugs coming through the Arizona border is also eye-popping. Federal agents seized 1.2 million pounds of marijuana last year in Arizona. That amounts to an average of 1.5 tons per day.
Pot busts have become so common that until recently federal prosecutors in Arizona generally declined to press charges against marijuana smugglers caught with less than 500 pounds.
Wow! You can walk in Arizona if you are busted for less than 500 HUNDRED POUNDS of marijuana?!? Some have been thrown into the slammer for decades in other states for far less. With the trafficking, comes the violence though.
Phoenix has also been dubbed the kidnapping capital of the U.S. amid a surge of extortion-related abductions tied to drugs and human smuggling. The city has averaged about a kidnapping a day in recent years — some resulting in torture and death. Victims’ legs have been burned with irons, their arms have been tied to the ceiling, their fingers broken with bricks.
And not so easy to accept the murder of a 58-year old third generation cattle rancher whose ranch is on the border between Arizona and Mexico. An honorable man who often left water and food out for illegals, and was in summary repaid for his human generosity by being killed along with his faithful pet dog, apparently by an illegal migrant. Arizona Rancher Is Murdered Hours After Confrontation With Illegals. Breitbart.
Border Boletín: Unexplained killing. Arizona Daily Star.
Arizona residents call for National Guard on border after rancher murdered. Examiner.
It looks like Arizona was backed into a corner. How much longer before other border states begin to feel the same pinch? And when will the federal government start taking the plight of border states seriously?
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