THE BORDER SONG

(This is an old Elton John song that I think you have to be a true fan to know. But that's an entirely different posting, isn't it?)

Driving home, where I live three miles from the fence between the U.S. and Mexico, I was passing the regular staged Border Patrol vehicles off the highway, and watched the flood lights on the border fence on the horizon.

And I realized a lot of you don't have any idea what happens down here regularly. So I thought I'd enlighten you.

Large brush fires are set, deliberately, on both the Mexican and U.S. sides of the border to distract from groups of illegals crossing or drugs being packed in. I live in what is called high-chaparal - lots of yucca and mesquite and grasses - and most of it burns pretty easily and pretty fast.

If the fire is is Mexico, it is left alone until it burns out, without any attempt to control. If it's on the U.S. side, it is tackled only when buildings or homes are endangered.

Huge groups of people are sent over from Mexico simply to engage the Border Patrol with processing all of them so a drug shipment can get through some other point on the border.

Drugs are packed into tires, fake gas tanks, truck shipments and diaper bags to get across regular check-points.

People,  who have already been walking for days to get to Northern Mexico, cross the border, ill-prepared for summer heat, winter freezing, with no water, little food and often abandoned by their coyote (human smuggler). So much of the time they are relieved to be caught and sent back.

The Border Patrol use trucks, helicopters, drones, and horses to track what comes from Mexico. They work all hours, day and night, get shot at, are physically attacked, have rocks thrown at them, and are subject to all sorts of legal actions if they injure or kill someone while trying to defend their lifes.

People come from Mexico cross to work at far-below-minimum-wage jobs, that have no safety inspections, no government regulations, no union backup, no medical or health plan. They live in shacks, or stuffed in small apartments with as many people as can be stuffed into them. They work as many hours per day as they can, with no overtime pay.

And they send most if not all of their paycheck home to feed their children in Mexico.

There is no easy solution to the problem - in fact, I don't think there is ANY answer until Mexico cleans up their government and gets rid of the drug czars... and I have no idea how they can possible do that - every town has corrupt officials, drug traffic which brings in most of the town's money, and people who are executed regularly and their bodies put on public display.

And as long as companies in the U.S. will hire the illegals, and people in the U.S. will pay for drugs, it ain't gonna stop down here.

There aren't any easy answers, and there won't be, regardless of what the politicans promise.

Just thought you'd like to know.

IN MEMORY OF ROB KRENTZ

The body of a rancher, a Rob Krentz outside of Douglas, was found yesterday morning. The last contact with him was a phone call to his brother, telling him that he was helping out some illegal aliens on Saturday afternoon.

It's not that incredibly close to my house - Apache is about 50 miles east of me, NE of Douglas - so I shouldn't be shocked.

But I am appalled - or perhaps horrified is a better term - by the outpouring of e-comments in reaction to this murder... National Guard, armed and ready to shoot, on every inch of the border. Army, ditto. Complete closure of the border (which anyone who has been down here realizes is logically impossible). Everyone armed - militia roaming the border..... geesh.

I am extremely sorry rancher was murdered. It was a horrible, tragic event.

But I am also painfully aware of how many illegal immigrants have died right around where I live during the past ten years - exposure, dehydration, robbed, killed by drug dealers, by the coyotes (human smugglers) who bring them to the border. Sometimes their bodies are found right away - many weeks after their death. Many are never identified - their families never know what happened to them.

Sorry, guys, I am fully aware that there is no easy solution down here at the border  - but please, let us acknowledge the loss of not just U.S. citizens lives, but the people so desperate for a better life that they lose the one they have.