A little more than a month has passed since the death of Cochise County rancher Rob Krentz, and the emotion generated by his murder, the pure shock of it, has ignited a bonfire that still burns across Arizona’s borderlands—and all the way to Washington, D.C.
Now everyone is demanding troops. Now, with Gov. Jan Brewer’s signature on a tough new illegal-immigration law, the nation is embroiled in a loud debate about racial profiling. Now everyone has a multi-point plan for bringing some control to a border so porous that anyone who wants to get into the country can eventually do so, as Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever last week told the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
Will anything change now?
When the bonfire cools, will we be able to look back and say, as the heartbroken Krentz family hopes, that Rob’s death wasn’t in vain?
Last week, Rob’s brother, Phil, described how surprised and heartened the family has been at the outpouring of support they’ve received from around the country.
“It has really woken people up to what’s going on,” he says. “But I don’t know if anything will be done about it. It’s too early to tell. Meantime, we’re coping any way we can.”
Rob’s sister, Susan Pope, says, “This has really taken legs, and I think some things will change for the better. But I don’t think it’ll ever get to where we feel secure.”
The Popes’ home in the Chiricahua Mountains has been broken into three times. Susan works as a bus driver and teacher at the one-room Apache Elementary School, which has been hit so often that nothing of value remains inside.
“When was the last time you felt secure?” I asked.
Susan let out a joyless laugh and said, “I can’t remember, honestly.”
What has to be noted first is the inevitability of what happened. Something like the Krentz murder was coming, and everyone knew it.
Life in the Chiricahua Corridor north and east of Douglas, as the Tucson Weekly has been reporting for two years, has become a nightmare of break-ins, threats, intimidation and home invasions.
The stories residents told this newspaper, the frustration they feel trying to keep property and family safe in smuggler-occupied territory, were like a freight train in the night. Down the tracks, you see a faint light, coming closer and closer.
On March 27, in Cochise County’s big country a mile west of Paramore Crater, the train arrived.
The aftershock has been so powerful, because the killing exploded the lie about a secure border that Washington, D.C., has been working hard to promote.
In the days and weeks before Krentz’s murder, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, on TV and in speeches, had been telling the American people that conditions on the border had improved enough to proceed with amnesty.
“The security of the Southwest border has been transformed from where we were in 2007,” she said. It was a sales job meant to push a political goal.
This is the same homeland security secretary who, in April 2009, told CNN it’s not a crime, per se, to cross the border.
How committed can our government be to securing the border when the person charged with doing so—a former governor of Arizona, no less—doesn’t know it’s a federal misdemeanor to enter without inspection?
Now, back up a moment.
Yes, arrests are down across the Border Patrol’s 262-mile-wide Tucson sector—from 378,239 in 2007, to 241,673 last year.
Welcome news. But understand that the people who got away outnumber arrests by about 3 to 1.
Yes, the feds have built fencing along the Southwest border, boasting that 628 miles are now in place.
But as Glenn Spencer of American Border Patrol notes, only 310 miles of that is people fence, and some of that is next to useless. The remainder—318 miles—consists of vehicle barriers that don’t deter anybody on foot.
I’ve written before of the Tortilla Curtain, an invisible barrier that filters the facts about the border through various lenses—race, culture, civil rights, politics—so that by the time the information gets to the power centers in Washington and New York, it looks nothing like the truth.
The Tortilla Curtain’s stoutest pillar is our own government, and no, it wasn’t much different under George W. Bush.
But now, even big-media conservatives like Michael Barone and Charles Krauthammer, lost behind the Curtain, are trotting out arrest numbers and fence numbers, dutifully falling in line behind Napolitano.
These guys need to come to Arizona and get their suits dirty on the trails.
Around Nogales, where arrests are down 20 percent, Susie Morales—who lives 2 1/2 miles from the line in the national forest west of Interstate 19—has seen no letup in crossings.
As she cooks dinner in her kitchen, she can look out and see mules backpacking drugs on a trail 75 yards from her front door. Another trail runs 50 yards behind her house.
These trails are so close that when Susie spots incursions, she runs into her bathroom with her cell phone and shuts the door. She has to keep her voice down so the crossers can’t hear her calling for help.
“There are more Border Patrol agents around, but the tide hasn’t abated,” says Morales. “It’s amazing. They’re still coming. We need active-duty military here, because we’re just outnumbered.”
She carries a .357 magnum everywhere she goes.
Foot traffic still pours over the Huachuca Mountains, south of Sierra Vista, to the tune of 1,500 a week, according to a citizen who places game cameras on trails there and counts crossings.
East of the Huachucas, John Ladd tells me that in the 18 days prior to April 10, he counted some 350 illegals on his San Jose Ranch. Every one had climbed the fence.
Ladd’s property near Naco has been fenced since 2007, with the barriers ranging from 10 to 13 feet. But fencing just west of Ladd’s, across the San Pedro River, stands 18 feet tall, so why would anyone bother with an 18-footer when you can walk east and climb a 10-footer?
“I’m on the phone to Border Patrol on average three times a day, seven days a week, to report groups,” Ladd says. “I don’t know what normal is anymore. I’ve become cynical, untrusting and pissed off.”
East of Ladd’s at Douglas, drug-laden ultra-light aircraft fly up from Mexico—right over Border Patrol headquarters, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters, every night of the week.
Arrests in Douglas are up 25 percent this year, and the danger has never been greater.
As one resident told me, “We’re under the gun all the time. There are people watching us all the time. The smugglers have scouts on hills, watching us, watching customs, watching Border Patrol. They’re terrorists, very militaristic, and they get a high out of it. As long as they can get away with it, it’s OK. That’s their mentality.”
Do you think DHS changed its song after Krentz’s death?
On April 4, The New York Times quoted DHS spokesman Matthew Chandler saying the agency “will continue to ensure that we are doing everything necessary to keep communities along the Southwest border safe.”
Continue to ensure? If our border communities were safe, Krentz would be alive. Continue to ensure. Imagine having the cojones to say that after Krentz’s murder?
They spun before Krentz’s murder, and they’re spinning now. And word out of Washington is that President Obama plans to push ahead soon with comprehensive immigration reform.
The sense of abandonment in the Corridor is palpable, and no one expressed it better than Roland Snure, a doctor who grew up in the area and knew Krentz well.
“I cannot understand how a government that takes, and takes, and takes, could not provide the only thing it has to do—protect its citizens,” he said.
If you want to talk transformation, life in Southeast Arizona has been transformed over the past month. But not in the way Napolitano claims.
Now, when men go out to work at their corrals, sometimes miles from the house, wives follow along, afraid to be home alone.
Up in Rodeo, N.M., Tess Shultis no longer allows her two boys to play outside the house.
“Not unless me or their dad is with them,” says Shultis, a clerk at the market in Rodeo. “It’s too dangerous.”
Transformed.
The most dangerous thing you can do on the border now? Reach for your cell phone. Forget you even own one. Keep your hands visible. No sudden moves.
If you encounter the wrong guy, and he thinks you’re calling Border Patrol, he might start shooting. That’s likely what happened to Krentz.
It’s supposition, but his killer probably has a criminal record, and rather than get arrested for it, he opened fire. For good measure, he shot Rob’s cow dog, too, breaking its back. The animal had to be put down later.
The killer’s tracks led to Mexico along Black Draw, a heavily used smuggler trail through the San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge. The shooter is still at large.
The Cochise County sheriff has released a photo of a person wanted for questioning in robberies around Portal, in the Chiricahua Mountains. Some suspect a connection to the Krentz murder.
The man, Alejandro Chavez-Vasquez, was arrested in Southern Arizona’s Santa Cruz County in early May 2004; the following month, he was charged with felony re-entry after deportation, according to federal court records. To earn that charge, he’d likely been caught crossing the border multiple times. In a plea agreement, he got 36 months of supervised release and a fine of $100.
Cochise County sheriff’s spokesperson Carol Capas says Chavez-Vasquez also has convictions in this country for theft, sexual assault, motor-vehicle theft and narcotics possession, and has used multiple birthdates in dealing with police. Capas said some of his crimes occurred in Nevada, but she could not name other states in which he might’ve been active.
Krentz’s killer, whoever it is, might’ve been jacked up on something. Many smugglers take meth or some form of speed to keep moving.
Anna Magoffin, who lives along Geronimo Trail, finds needles and discarded steroid vials on her horseback rides across the borderlands. “These guys aren’t just walking,” she says. “They’re bumped up on something.”
Not surprisingly, sympathy for illegal crossers has cratered.
“I’ve detected a hardening of hearts,” says Lynn Kartchner, who co-owns a gun shop in Douglas. “People who used to give them water and a sandwich and let them sleep in the shade, now they’re going to run them off at gunpoint.”
In the days since the murder, Kartchner’s business has boomed. Some of his new customers are bird-watching lefties from Portal who’ve suddenly become sudden Second Amendment converts, now that grim reality has hit them, too.
And what of our government’s talk of comprehensive immigration reform? Of amnesty? It has made the crisis worse.
The words have been all over Mexican TV and radio, and the result is a rush to the border, same as it ever was, says Magoffin.
During the Bush years, she could look south from her house to a highway in Mexico and see big white buses unloading people. They’d line up single file and march into the country.
“It was like a long snake of people walking through the desert,” Magoffin says. “The amnesty talk today has the big loads going through again.”
Transformed.
But the polite border-crossing worker—some are still out there—has given way to the bad hombre. In the Tucson sector, 17 percent of those arrested by the Border Patrol have criminal records in the United States.
The most alarming reality is the takeover of people-smuggling operations by the drug cartels. Now, a group of 15 from, say, Chiapas, Mexico, with jobs lined up in Chicago, can’t get into the country without dealing with the drug operations that own the trails.
To cross around Douglas, the going rate is up to $2,500 per person. When the Chiapas guys say they don’t have it, the coyote hands them his drugs and says, “Carry this, and you can come in for free, and we’ll guide you”—and up they come.
The coyote is accompanied by another fellow, also armed, who serves as muscle to make sure the workers turned mules don’t drop the product and bolt.
If Border Patrol happens to jump the group, a few of the workers might get rounded up while the coyote and his muscle disappear into the mountains, armed and dangerous—and good luck finding them.
They know the trails like their own faces in the mirror, because they make those runs over and over again.
When I visited Ladd recently, he uttered a chilling remark that Dever echoed in his testimony in Washington last week: “I guarantee that every group coming across that border today has a gun behind it.”
We can have a discussion about open labor markets, about legalizing drugs, about our insatiable demand for drugs, about the skill of the cartels at getting their junk into the country and how that creates more demand than there otherwise would be.
But that’s for another time. The immediate issue: How do we protect American citizens from this imminent danger?
The worst thought of all is that maybe the federal government is incapable of doing it. Maybe the bureaucracy is too big to do much of … anything.
The communications issue inspires zero confidence.
Susan Pope’s husband, Louie, has worked closely with the Border Patrol, even volunteering to show young agents how to work the terrain and the trails. He likes some of what he sees.
“They’re good kids, and they damn sure want to work,” says Pope.
But he has also watched the agency regularly put two men on a trail to track a group of 20, without maps, night-vision equipment or radios.
Veterinarian Gary Thrasher tells of being flagged down on an isolated ranch road at night by an agent left there to track a group alone—again, with no radio.
If he needed backup, the agent was told to use his personal cell phone. But the battery had gone dead, and he asked to borrow Thrasher’s cell.
For years, at every meeting with the Border Patrol, residents of the Chiricahua Corridor have pleaded with Border Patrol to fix its communication problems.
The corridor runs along a seam between the agency’s Douglas and Lordsburg sectors, and the two sectors have been unable to communicate with each other.
Border Patrol agents stationed at forward operating bases out on Geronimo Trail, east of Douglas, can’t radio back to headquarters in town.
Residents along Geronimo Trail can’t call the forward operating base. Rancher Bill McDonald says if trouble brews at his place, he has to drive to the base, 5 miles away on dirt roads.
After Krentz was shot, Border Patrol agents and sheriff’s deputies worked the area looking for clues, but they couldn’t communicate with each other.
Close observers say Krentz’s killer was likely back in Mexico well before Rob’s body was located, so bad communications probably didn’t play a role in his escape.
Within days of the murder, after Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords contacted DHS about the sorry state of communications in the corridor, satellite GPS radios arrived.
But it took a death, and a congresswoman raising hell, to get the bureaucracy to finally move.
Another loud plea, widely heard, is that the Border Patrol needs to be on the border itself, not tracking people five miles north of the line, or 30 miles north.
Thrasher, who travels the borderlands daily in his work, has made this his signature issue, and his view reflects the cynicism some feel toward the Border Patrol. He says the fall-back strategy cedes American land to the gangs and puts citizens at risk.
“There is no interest among the higher-up in stopping this at the border,” says Thrasher. “Instead of being preventative, they’re reactionary, because then they can show all the wonderful things they’re doing. Look at how many arrests we made. Look at all the pot we caught.
“The border should be our line in the sand. That’s where we need to stop them before they get to any citizens.”
In fairness, Border Patrol has always said they don’t have enough manpower to form a blockade at the border, and backing up allows more time to make arrests. They make a similar argument with fencing, saying it pushes illegals out into remote areas and gives agents days rather than hours to make arrests.
But that bothers Thrasher, too. Stop them at the line, and nobody dies in the backcountry.
“We push them way out and give them a two-day head start, then run them down,” says Thrasher, who played football for Woody Hayes at Ohio State. “Rob’s murder was terrible, and the danger everybody faces is terrible. But all of us out here are sick of seeing the bodies (of illegals), too.”
The one that haunts him the most, oddly, was one he never saw. But a rancher in the Chiricahuas told Thrasher the story.
A woman had died up in the mesquite and had been there long enough for the coyotes to get to her. When searchers went out to bag the body parts, they found her head here, some guts over there, a scatter of limbs.
When the rancher picked up an arm, he noticed the Timex watch on the woman’s wrist still ticking.
The idea of ceding American ground to the cartels is the pulse point of this crisis, because fundamentally, this is a fight for land. It’s going on in this country and on ranches in northern Mexico, where a lot of good folks there have it even worse than we do.
Every trail on our border is either bought or won through blood. The profits are great, and no gang that controls valuable land is going to give it up willingly.
As John Ladd says, “Nobody has tried to stop them yet. But if we do, it’s going to be a battle.”
Do we have the political will to take it on now, after Krentz?
A telling sign will be the rules of engagement under which troops, should the president decide to send them, will operate. Giffords and Sens. John McCain and Jon Kyl have called for the immediate deployment National Guard troops.
Will they be allowed to stand their ground if challenged? Will they have bullets in their guns?
Remember back in January 2007, when unidentified armed men approached a National Guard outpost on the border near Sasabe, southwest of Tucson, and the soldiers followed orders and fled?
All across that section of the border, you could hear residents wailing, “No! Protect us! Why are you here if not to protect us?!”
If that was a probe by the cartels to see if the gringos were finally serious, they got their answer.
We can’t do that again.
As Susan Pope says, “If we don’t stop it now, God help us, because He’s the only one who’ll be able to. It’ll send a message to the cartels, ‘Hey, it’s a free for all. Come on up.'”
This article appears in Apr 29 – May 5, 2010.
Are These Cowboys ‘True Grit’ or Just Long Winded Gas Bags?
(Only Their Horses and Wives Really Know For Sure)
The Arizona Cattlemen’s Association are Latecomers to the Close the Border Gun Fight
April 28, 2010
CSII Press
Tucson Arizona
We’ve watched their cowboy hat and handlebar mustache act for several weeks now as they root & toot, slouch & strut, rub shoulders with politicians up in Phoenix and pose for photo-ops.
We’ve heard their gunslinger talk to “secure the border” and “shoot to kill.”
Well, rest easy folks! After all these years we will FINALLY secure the border! Just like in the movies, The Arizona Cattlemen’s Association rode in to save the day!
Trouble is, Just Who Are These Guys Anyway?
They may look to be “At Home on the Range,” but when it comes to the Close the Border Gun Fight, this is the first time anyone I know ever heard from them.
We didn’t see hide nor hair of these cowpokes way back when, in the winter of ‘09, when MALDEF and the National Council of La Raza “bushwacked” fellow rancher Roger Barnett over in federal court, branded him a “racist,” raked him over the coals and picked him clean, just because he rounded up trespassing Mexican Illegals (more than 15,000) and turned them over to the Border Patrol.
Shucks, everyone remembers Roger Barnett don’t they, the Arizona rancher who rolled up his sleeves, strapped on a hog leg and all by his lonesome did what some of these “Cattlemen” Folk and their double-talking politician sidekicks NOW say we should do?
Several days ago I spoke with some of the good people I know down in Cochise County, old time pioneers in the Protect the Border Movement, hard working Minuteman Folk with arrows in their backs to prove it (just run a Google Search to find out Who They Are), who are plain wore out and fed up with hypocrisy and big mouth “Jonny Come Lately” cowpunchers wearing fancy suits and neckties.
These Old Timers told me they hadn’t heard much from these “Cattlemen” either, not for all these years while they sweated, humped over rough terrain and emptied out their pokes protecting the rest of us—at least not until March 27, 2010 when One of The Cattlemen Own, Robert Krentz, had the Great Misfortune to Get His Head Blown Clean Off.
And what about this statement:
“It’s time for people to awaken and see the foreign invasion,” Arizona Cattlemen’s Association member Basilio Aja said. “We feel like we have been abandoned. We’ve been crying out for 10 years and no one has listened. We have the laws we need. They just need to be enforced.”
Excuse me? The Cattlemen’s Association has been “crying out for ten years?”
Not even ten weeks! A diligent search of the internet reveals these sensational fellows had nothing to say, put down no hard cash, did nothing at all to get the fence up prior to the death of Robert Krentz; fact is Krentz himself said keeping the border open was “humanitarian.”
Now these “Cattlemen” got feed bags on and their hands stretched out asking for donations.
Time to knock the horse turds off your boots fellas. You’re busted. Truth is: prior to the murder of One of Your Own, you just didn’t give a damn about the border or any of the rest of us.
Now, after all these years of blood, sweat, and tears when We Pioneers are finally on the verge of Getting the Job Done, you guys want to “horn in” on the action, take center stage, solicit donations in your name and bask in the glow of public adoration.
Listen Up, Dudes: If you had the guts, the gumption and the “true grit” to provide significant support to Roger Barnett and the Minutemen in the first place, the Minutemen would still be in business, the border would now be secure and Rob Krentz would still be alive.
Roy Warden, Publisher
Common Sense II
roywarden@cox.net
i live in west phoenis and 10 feet from my house is the next door neighbor home in which 20 illegals were being held at gunpoint until one escaped,,,my family was at risk and only Sherrif Joe cares about us and No One is backing him,,WHY????? and in my job i am being forced to be diverse because everyone is soo afraid of the economy so we have to kiss ass to the ilegals because they come in with their kids of whom they dropped here in arizona and WE as taxpayers have to pick up the bill..WHOS CARING FOR US??? sHAME ON U jANET nAPOLITANO AND THE REST WHO DONT GIVE A DAMN ABOUT US AND FOR mR kRENTZ;S FAMILY GOD BLESS U ALL..I HAVE FRIENDS IN eLFRIDA WHOS HOME HAS BEEN A HIDING GROUND FOR ILLEGALS SINCE THE 80S,,WHO CARES IN ARIZONA?? no one!!! WE NEED TO ARM OURSELVES AND THE BORDER,,ILLEGALS KNOW WHAT THEY ARE UP AGAINST IF THEY COME HERE YET THEY DONT CARE AND NEITHER DO THE TERRORISTS,,,SO TOO BAD IF A FEW GET KNOCKED OFF THEY MADE THE BAD CHOICE TO COME WHERE THEY DONT BELONG,,THEY KNEW THE RISKS
I’m one of the bird watching lefties and there is no way that I am going out with anything but binos and water. Taking a gun bird watching is stupid and dangerous. It just asks for trouble . Krentz’s guns didn’t help him at all.
I’ve been reading these articles by Mr. Banks for the last couple of years, but they only seem to represent the opinion of the conservative fringe. How about some interviews with non ranchers or hill-hiding hermits?….you know, sensible Portal folk who aren’t scared to go outside.
RALLY IN ARMORY PARK ON SATURDAY, MAY 1!!
Arizonans Will Rally to Support SB 1070 in Armory Park, Tucson Arizona, Back to Where It All Began in 2006
April 28, 2010
CSII Press
Tucson Arizona
At 9:00 am this Saturday, May 01, 2010 Arizonans will gather on the Armory Park Shuffleboard Court, Tucson Arizona and rally in support of Arizona SB 1070. The Shuffleboard Court is on the north end of the Park.
For the last week we’ve heard the left wing big mouths like Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, Mayor Walkup, Regina Romero, Isabel Garcia and Kat Rodriquez tell us that the 70% of all Arizonans who support SB 1070 are “racist.”
The time has come for all Americans to stand up and hear their voices heard.
We’re not racist. Unlike the left wing racists, we don’t shout “Viva La Raza,” and “Death to the Gringo!”
We’re Americans, and we come in all sizes, shapes, and colors, from every corner of the earth.
We do not identify ourselves on the basis of race or ethnicity.
Our common bond is simple: we all support the Rule of Law, which states: You must have our permission, the permission of the American people as stated in the Rule of Law, before you may enter our home.
This “Rule of Law” is observed by every country on the face of the earth, even in Mexico.
With the passage of SB 1070, and similar measures around the country, we will see that the Rule of Law is observed here.
Join Us on Saturday!!
Roy Warden
roywarden@cox.net
2000 miles or so of border, much of it very, very, sparsely populated. Yes, I imagine that folks wonder if it could be sealed like a Tupperware container.
A thought experiment: What if the border were *completely open,* to the point where those seeking employment in the US could cross in Nogales, El Paso, Laredo, etc.? What if Marijuana were legal?
All other arguments for or against aside, what would that mean to the ranchers of Southern Arizona?
McLovin,
Well said. Very eloquent.
Makes me ashamed of my overly verbose, clumsy efforts to convey that sentiment in the past.
Robert Alexander Dumas
The new Arizona immigration law is a bad law. Boycott Arizona.
Leo Banks has just written another accurate account of what we face here on the wide open border. However most of America is clueless that all these drugs and criminals are headed to a city near them. There are over 30 million illegals in this country. By the best estimates Border Patrol catches 20%-40% of these tresspassers, do the math, 60% -80% get thru. Arizona has about 1 million illegals, Los Angeles has about 3 million. When 2 girls wandered into North Korea it took ex-president Clinton to go get them back. 3 hikers wandered into Iran and sec of state Hillary Clinton had to go save them. Both big international events. We have 1,000 -2,000 illegals enter the U.S. every day! From what country and what are their goals? The majority of the Amnesty / open borders people are here illegally, know people that are here illegally or profit from the illegals and drugs (pot smoking liberals). The southern border is 2,200 miles long and since 9-11-01 there has only about 650 miles of some type of fence completed. The remaining 70% is wide open. In fact there are many areas where there is no fence, not even a “keep out sign” some places it’s a old 4 strand cattle fence. The border is a joke. Homeland security is a joke, Janet Napoletano is a joke. If you travel to any other country in the world you expect to show paperwork. There are so many lies promoted by the anti-americans. Now we have a law SB1070 at last, this will allow law enforcement to simply ask for proof of citizenship or legal entry if the officer suspects illegal aliens. The main clue would be they are unable to speak proper English. I dare you to ask the next cop you see in any city in the U.S. if they are allowed to ask for proof of being in the country legally at a traffic stop (almost all are not allowed to even ask). I have sat in the county courthouse here in Bisbee Arizona and watched as a Judge talked to a “alleged criminal” who didn’t speak English (needed a translator) was arrested with 400 lbs of pot in the trunk, yet the judge must tell this guy he is not allowed to ask “are you in this country illegally”. I say there are serious flaws in the system… If the federal government had been doing it’s job we wouldn’t have this problem. Immigrants come from all over the world, not just Mexico. The new state law is not “anti-latino” it is “anti-illegal alien”. I have had to show my “papers” at gun point a number of times in Mexico and Central America. If you don’t like our immigration laws then don’t come here. Please, please boycout U.S. Maybe we should adopt the Mexican immigration laws. I once saw a bus load of dead Guatemalans shot by the Mexican Army for trying to drive thru a southern check point! The U.S. is the best country with the best immigration laws. But we have been pushed too far. It doesn’t help when president Obama fuels racist lies. His job is to secure the country, not side with illegal aliens and drug smugglers. 70% of Americans want the borders secure. No new laws need to be written or pushed thru, the laws have been on the books for years, just enforce them. NO AMNESTY of any kind! Jeff in Portal, AZ
Why is it that the only border-related stories that Leo Banks writes for the Weakly are slanted toward the right-wing “secure our borders, clean up the trash, get rid of the brown people” angle?
With all the other important immigration-related news happening, it’s shameful that you’ve resorted once again to this kind of one-sided, sensationalist tripe.
While the world boycotts Arizona, Tucson should boycott the Weakly.
oh and P.S. to Roy “racist windbag” Warden: I wouldn’t be surprised if you or one of your xenophobe colleagues wacked Krentz just so the republican fascists in Phoenix would have more excuse to pass sb1070. we’ll be watching you, Warden, and anything you do to assault or attack the forces of good this Saturday will be thoroughly documented for the world, the cops, and the courts to see.
I challenge SMH or any of the other people who accuse Leo Banks of racism and slanted journalism to find one reference in his many writings to “brown people” and getting rid of them. It is so much easier to play the racist card rather than dispute his arguments in an intellectually honest way. Mr. Banks has quoted many hispanic people in his stories who deal with the crime on the border on a daily basis. Rather than shoot the messenger, why not show where his stories are inaccurate? A much better and more civilized way to behave than going for the cheap insult.
“OOOOOOOHH! SMH, who hides behind a pseudonym while I post my name and email address, is gonna REPORT ME TO THE COPS!!
Priceless! Such lunacy can exist Only in Tucson!
Guess What? The cops will be out in force this Saturday, by the dozens and maybe even by the hundreds, and, (as usual) they will film each and every thing I do and say…just like they have done for the past four years.
And Guess What? Here I am, Free as a Bird and Not in Jail.
Come Saturday all Tucson can “Catch my Act” in Armory Park, and find out for themselves just why the Tucson Media refers to me as “Warden, the Notorious Mexican Flag Burner!”
RW
roywarden@cox.net
http://panleft.net/cms/Hate+Breeds+Hate+Co…
Excuse me for being cynical but what with the deaths of tens of thousands of Mexicans in the border narco wars, the deaths of thousands of crossers to the desert and the rape and/or murder of hundreds of women crossers … what is the big deal about the death of one white rancher? Oh, yeah. He’s not a Mexican. If people were serious about this they’d be going after the human traffickers. Specifically. I would also wonder about the level of corruption on this side of the border, not only the border patrol but Cochise County. Good police work comes from good intelligence. So how is the further criminalization of 1/2 million people going to help anything? What it helps is Gov Brewer getting the Republication nomination. Every solution to our border in the last 30 years has only made the problem worse, not better.
btw Mr. Banks – you can make snarky comments about liberals but I know many that own guns. Just shows where your agenda is.
I live 1/2 a mile from the borderi in Nogales, Arizona. It is not true the violence in Mexico has spilled over to our borders. In the case of this rancher, I doubt any of the mafia cartels would target someone randomly. What I do believe is, that he was involved in something, and we should wait to find out what the DEA’s office, the FBI and the legal authorities find in their investigation before we make such assumptions.
This is just an excuse for our governor to request federal money. It is just political!
It is not common for drug cartels or the illegal human smugglers to target anyone randomly. THEY ONLY TARGET PEOPLE WHO WORK FOR THEM OR ARE INVOLVED IN THEIR BUSINESS!
Racial profiling and harassing American Mexicans is not going to help these people on the boarder. By all means, send in the National Guard with the authority to fight the war this situation has become. These people have to be protected NOW, this has gone on far too long. But the only way to end this war is to end the drug prohibition, especially pot. Taking the pot money out of the cartels’ pockets would take away at least 60% of their cash and the huge incentive to cross out boarder for profit. Mexicans coming up here to work, even illegally, are not the ones killing people. We can fight these people for a thousand years, but if there is a black market and money to be made they will find a way in and we will never win.
Tucson Weekly, Get real! This kind of journalism has to go under the heading of “opinion” I can’t even begin to comment on the factual problems with the story, but please call a spade a spade and stop passing Banks’ stories off as news and journalism. It brings the caliber of the paper down, a lot. Jimmy, will you do anything to sell papers?
This is a Wick newspaper – Walt Wick, one of the owners, is a rabid right winger. Their flagship newspaper in Sierra Vista shills for local militias and beats the “close the border” drum incessantly. Don’t be surprised that Bank’s articles follow the same slant.
Roy Warden, take your meds and the voices in your head will stop talking to you.
My heart goes out to the Krentz Family! But, I don’t know if I would trust anyone with my personal safety … that is why I’ve applied for my concealed weapons permit. Should I really trust that the police or Border Patrol can and will protect me? I don’t think so. I would be lucky if the police responded in a timely manner and/or the Border Patrol for that matter.
Now, if we are going to make a safer in Southern Arizona … I think that we have to be realistic. Drugs are a way of life for many … legalize them! We’ve lost that war many decades ago! Common sense should prevail.
Mexicans are invading out Country … well, since they want to be US Citizens maybe we should take over the country of Mexico! Certainly, the peoples situation couldn’t get much worse!
Roy Warden certainly has a lot of opinions to throw around, but then he who have the strongest opinions usually has the fewest facts ! As a cattleman who has lived near the border for the last 40 years and an active “minuteman” since their creation, i have some opinions that are based on facts. We (the Cattlemen) have met repeatedly with every governor since Fife Symington trying to get something done about the lawlessness on and near the border; all the governors with the exception of Janet Napolitano have tried their best to get the Federal Government to live up to their responsibilities, all to little or no avail.
There isn’t a cattlemen’s meeting that’s occurred iin So. Az in the last 5 years that hasn’t contained a strategy session on what to do about the illegal and drug situation along the border; we work as closely as possible with the Border Patrol and groups such as the Minutemen to report any illegal activity. The situation has changed dramatically along the border in the last 15-20 years; the illegals we see today are not in the same category as those we have seen in the past; today’s illegal traffic is dangerous, ruthless, and intent on crime rather than finding work. Residents along the border are at wits’ end trying to survive the traffic, impact, and volume of today’s illegal border activity. Cattlemen are negatively impacted by this activity just like every other Arizonan, only becuase of their remoteness and proximate to the border they deal with it first and to a far higher degree than residents of most of the rest of the State. The formal plan published by the Cattleman’s Assoc. serves as an excellent starting point for beginning to resolve border issues, in fact a number of our suggestions have been adopted by Senators McCain and Kyl in their proposal for getting Congress to address these issues.
Clearly the last thing any of us need is for any more windbags to pontificate on what some other person or group is doing wrong to address the situation, and let’s try to work together to coordinate, fund, and direct a unified effort to get the Federal Government, with the help and cooperation of local law enforcement, to bring all illegal activity anywhere near the border or in the rest Arizona to a halt.
Bill McGibbon
yah4mcgoo@yahoo.com
Del,
I am sorry, and I am about to cross into the territory, that my parents( still alive at 92 & 82 ); and all the friends I grew up with(who are dead now) called “no home trainin'”. You are an idiot. Shut up. We get it. You are angry. Let me help you, please.
I have worn a Colt 1911A1 on my hip for 35 years now. I have never conceded to allow any of my weapons to be “registered” with the federal government.
I also possess a letter of commendation from former TPD Chief Ronstadt for extricating a TPD officer from mortal danger because I was carrying.
Arizona has just passed a law that will allow any legal possessor of a firearm to carry it concealed, without a permit. Why in the hell would you go to the State and ask them to register your weapon so that you might carry it concealed, which right you are about to receive anyway?
Please, Del, you have a lot of energy; all of it is going in the wrong direction.
(520) 305-1793; call me, and maybe we can build a bridge between my militant progressive position, and your Tea Party.
Robert Alexander Dumas
Everyone: Please, enough with the name-calling. Keep the debate respectful, please. Any comments that engage in name-calling (idiot, etc.) will be deleted from here on. Thanks.
JON JUSTICE, RADIO SHOW HOST, HAS REQUESTED PEOPLE WHO SUPPORT THE NEW LAW (WHICH IS IN NO WAY RACIST NOR IS IT ALLOWED TO PROFILE) AND IS NECESSARY – BECAUSE THE FEDS HAVE NOT ENFORCED OUR LAWS FOR DECADES AND LITERALLY CAUSED THIS OUTRAGEOUS PROBLEM – TO STAND WITH US IN FRONT OF THE CHILDREN’S MUSEUM ACROSS THE STREET FROM ARMORY PARK AT 10:00 A.M. IN DOWNTOWN TUCSON SATURDAY, MAY 1, 2010. PAT BUCHANAN HAS ALSO ASKED AMERICANS TO STAND UP FOR THIS BILL. ABC AND OTHER GROUPS WILL BE THERE STANDING TALL FOR OUR NATION AND OUR BORDERS AND SO AMERICANS CAN LIVE FREE AND NOT HAVE TO LIVE IN FEAR BECAUSE OF THESE INVADERS OF OUR NATION! BE THERE AND HELP THE U.S.A.!!! G -D BLESS AMERICA! AMERICANS NEED TO STAND TOGETHER! OUR NATION IS IN GRAVE DANGER.
It’s a tragedy a rancher was killed near the border.
It was a tragedy an illegal alien woman was dumped (and subsequently died) by those hauling human beings across the border.
The numbers of illegals aliens crossing the border says one thing. The U.S.A. is still the place
to be.
I suggest we move all of our elected representatives in Washington D.C. to places near the border and then watch what becomes a priority to our federal government.
Why Shucks, Folks!
We can all thank Bill McGibbon, one of those “rootin’ tootin’ rough and ready” cowboy types I was talking about for “chiming in” and putting in his “two cents worth.”
Bill wants us to take his word about all the “behind closed door” meetings the cowpunchers had with all the governors and political big shots, etc., none of which was ever reported in the media or did any good.
Guess what, Bill? Words spoken behind closed doors with the “Good Old Boys” who made money off the backs of Cheap Mexican Labor and created this problem in the first place are worth less than a pitcher of warm spit.
Shucks, even a two bit piker ought to be politically savvy enough to understand that.
And guess what? The Minuteman leadership I spoke too said you boys haven’t done anything at all, helped them in any substantial way, pledged no serious money, etc.
In fact now you and your stooge Sheriff Devers are all set to voice your support and vote for John “Amnesty” McCain who has spent his career keeping the borders open so his “Fat-Cat” contributors like Don Diamond could keep working Mexican Illegals to death, paying them half as much for twice as much work.
Question Bill: How many Illegal Mexicans have you and your Rancher Buddies hired (at dirt cheap wages) to do chores around your spread?
How many of your Rancher Buddies have invested in land development deals which have used large amounts of Illegal Mexican Labor to work for substandard wages building residential housing and infrastructure so you “Good Old Boys” could get rich?
(BTW: Governor Fife Symington, along with Senators Kyle and McCain, was one of the original supporters of Cheap Mexican Labor Open Border Policy.)
Too bad Bill that you (evidently) don’t have the “gumption and true grit” to answer the salient points I made, so I will restate them now with clarity that even a cowpuncher with a touch of sunstroke should be able to understand:
1.Your “Cattlemen” 18 Point Program is merely a rehash of the same proposals the “Pioneers” have made for decades. (You took their ideas and didn’t have the courtesy to say “Thank-You!”)
2.You “Cattlemen” never supported fellow Rancher Roger Barnett; now you want to adopt his strategy and collect donations and public acclaim.
3.Prior to the Krentz Murder you “Cattlemen” put down no hard cash to any group trying to close the border. I know. I talked to them.
4.You “Cattlemen” and Sheriff Devers support John McCain who has spent years insisting Amnesty should be connected to protecting the border, thus encouraging the flow of illegals into this country.
5.Before your comment to the Tucson Weekly, you “Cattlemen” have never said anything about “working together” with the Minutemen and other Pioneers of the Protect the Border Movement. Now you got your hands out looking for cash.
Here’s some “Straight Talking” Dude, right from the top of the deck.
You “Cattlemen” want credibility?
You want to work together with us and get the job done?
Then give me the word and I’ll go ahead and set up a sit down with the Leaders of the Protect the Border Movement, after which we’ll kiss and hug, make up and make nice-nice for the media.
Then we can shake hands, stand up like men, work together to solve this problem and get the border secured.
How about that Pardner?
Roy Warden
roywarden@cox.net
My heart goes out to the family and friends of the Krentz’s! I am praying for you all. This issue should have been addressed years ago, the Feds have let Arizonan’s down!
I want to throw the bums out of office; and, that is primarily directed at Rep. Giffords, Rep. Grijalva and etc … I encourage everyone to check out Brian Miller for Congress in Congressional District #8 http://www.brianmillerforcongress.com and Ruth McClung in Arizona’s Congressional District #7 http://www.ruth4az.com
We need citizen legislators in office and “REMEMBER IN NOVEMBER” to “THROW THE BUMS OUT”!
Seriously how does sb 1070 secure the border? I see not 1 thing in there that is not already a law. Minus untrained, poorly allocated police forces making judgment calls on immigration and nationality. How a peace officer being able to have limitless power in arresting anyone they so do chose secures a border eludes me. How does that stop drugs at the border? How does that stop guns at the border? How does that address the real problem that the resources and man power promised by bush, “2000 border patrols” in 2002 that never came help?
SB 1070 is horrible as a law, great as a political stunt.
Rhuff is Correct: SB 1070 Does Nothing to Secure the Border.
What SB 1070 DOES (quite effectively judging from all the irrational complaints voiced by Pro Raza Advocates) is greatly diminish the INCENTIVE for illegally crossing the border in the first place.
SB 1070 also begins to address the horrific CONSEQUENCES of 25 years of Tucson City and Pima County Open Border Policy; crime, illegals occupying American jobs, wage erosion, illegal use of public facilities (schools), the politics of racial and ethnic division, the economic and political exploitation of Mexico’s poor, overflowing jails, did I forget to mention crime…?
If SB 1070 did anything to “Secure the Border” it would unlawfully intrude upon an exclusive federal function, and thus be overturned in court.
Now, we wouldn’t want to have THAT, now would we?
RW
roywarden@cox.net
Mr. Warden,
I find your condescending tone against Bill McGibbon very immature, not to mention indicative of a total lack of willingness to really delve into the truth. For your information, my father, Bill McGibbon, is anything but a redneck, as you so not-so-subtley implied. He has an ivy league education, an honorable naval career and a distinguished number of years in the Arizona legislature. He lives with this issue EVERY DAY and understands more of the intricacies than most people possibly can. If you really are interested in finding a solution, maybe you could come to the table with less sarcasm and hostility and an more positive attitude focused less on attack and more on finding a workable solution.
Heather McGibbon Wunder, Esq.
Response to Heather McGibbon:
We “Pioneers” in the Protect the Border Movement would like to “come to YOUR table” and work together with you folks on the contentious border issues which now divide us.
You only have to tell us “Where and When.”
I can bring the All Our Leadership, from Glen Spencer to Chris Simcox, Jim Gilchrist, Al Garza etc. You guys provide the Beef and Booze.
So how about it?
Frankly; the issue is only “intricate” when you try to Protect Your Financial Interests And Do the Right Thing, All At The Same Time.
So what about it Ms McGibbon? You have my email address and I don’t have yours.
If you are sincere let’s All Sit Down and Work Things Out. Otherwise, if you find my present communications hurting Cattlemen Interests…
“You ‘Aint Seen Nothing Yet, Baby!”
Roy Warden
roywarden@cox.net
Mr McGibbon:
Trying to reason with an unbalanced, hateful person is a waste of time and energy. He will continue to froth at the mouth no matter what you do or say. He has been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as one of the most violent and virulent of nativists in the nation. He consorts with others of his ilk on the far right fringe that includes nazis, the klan, christian identity, skinheads and militias. He is a frightened, confused mess of a man who, sooner or later will be either imprisoned, hospitalized or hurt by himself or others within his unbalanced circle of social misfits.
We have the technology to stop this invasion but we don’t have the political will.
A few UAV’s armed to shoot anyone in a DMZ, especially at night would give the criminals some pause. We have the best military in the world and we have the best technology. Between the two we could stop the flow in less than two weeks. It would require that we see a few dead women and children mixed in with the Drug runners though and we Americans couldn’t stomach that.
If people are duly warned and they choose to enter the danger zone then they deserve what they get. Sorry
TUCSON AND FLAGSTAFF ARIZONA WANT TO SUE THE STATE FOR PASSING A LAW TO DO WHAT THE FED WILL NOT DO. THESE TWO CITIES ARE NOT INTERESTED IN THE FREEDOM AND SAFETY OF REAL USA CITIZENS; THEY ARE ONLY INTERESTED IN THE MONEY THAT THEY WILL LOSE IF THE SLAVERY OF CHEAP ILLEGALS IS STOPPED.
TWH
So how difficult it is for these illegals to get legal? No one seems to be talking about that.
In the interest of fairness and civility as the moderator stated, could we please get rid of Roy Warden’s postings. He has nothing to say that we haven’t heard from him before, he cares little about any facts and populates all comment sections with the same lengthy ravings. Let’s moderate and give the people who can post and discuss in a more realistic manner a chance without constantly having to maneuver around the rantings of somebody who needs medical help urgently.
I had 40 acres in Cochise County, had a nice mobile home on it and it seemed to become a stop over for any illegals who wanted to break the windows and come on in for a spell. My home was broken into 3 times and I decided enough was enough. I sold the land and got rid of the personal problem of illegal activity. Its pretty sad when a home isn’t even safe from being broken into just because its there. The Border Patrol are doing the best they can with what they’re given, we need to back them up and call out the national guard if necessary. Our good ranchers who have lived peaceful lives for years should be allowed to continue their ways. This situation is only going to get worse. I hope to God someone will raise enough hell that something positive gets done.