'End Policy Of Death'

June 18, 2002
Max Becherer / Staff

Tohono O'odham Nation Vice Chairman Henry A. Ramon and the Rev. Mike Wilson blame U.S. immigration policy for the recent deaths of 20 border crossers in the desert, including 13 on the reservation.

A top Tohono O'odham official and a reservation pastor Monday sought to turn the public's attention to U.S. border policy and its effects on illegal entrants - not on the water jugs that have divided the pastor from some of his fellow tribal members.

Tribal Vice Chairman Henry Ramon and the Rev. Mike Wilson held a joint news conference to call on the U.S. government to abandon its Operation Gatekeeper policy that they blamed for the deaths of 21 border crossers in the desert since June 6, including 13 on the O'odham reservation.

Late Monday, officials reported finding the latest victim.

The body of the illegal entrant, a man believed to be in his mid- to late 20s, was found off of Arizona 286 just north of the border town of Sasabe, a Border Patrol official said.

One of the 21 deaths has not been confirmed by U.S. officials.

At the press conference, the two men refused to discuss Wilson's recent practice of putting out water jugs for illegal entrants. The practice has drawn opposition from officials in two districts on the eastern side of the nation, although not from the tribal chairman or council.

Wilson called the water jug question "the tip of the iceberg," and urged people to look at the policies underlying the debate. He is pastor of Papago United Presbyterian Church in Sells.

"The issue now is to end this policy of death," Ramon said. "We condemn the policy known as Operation Gatekeeper because it is a policy of death. We will not stand by silently as our neighbors die."

The Gatekeeper policy, in effect since 1993, puts federal emphasis on halting immigration in urban centers, from Tijuana-San Diego east to El Paso-Juarez, and including Nogales, Yuma and Douglas.

Federal government statistics show that this policy has apparently worked in Arizona, with one exception.

Apprehensions of illegal entrants in the Border Patrol's Tucson sector dropped 34 percent, from 354,228 from Oct. 1, 2000, through June 13, 2001, to 233,083 from Oct. 1, 2001, through June 13, 2002. The Tucson sector covers all of Southern and Central Arizona except for the Yuma area.

In the Casa Grande station of the Tucson sector, which includes an area directly north of Sells, apprehensions of illegal entrants jumped 256 percent over the same period. They rose to 45,737 from Oct. 1, 2001, through June 13, compared with 14,479 for the same period ending June 13, 2001.

But the Tucson station of the Tucson sector also saw an increase in apprehensions in those periods over the past year. The number of apprehensions rose 8 percent, from 29,667 through June 13 of fiscal year 2000-01, to 32,184 through June 13 of fiscal year 2001-02. The fiscal year starts Oct. 1.

The influx of border crossers also helped Organ Pipe National Monument gain its second straight "Most Dangerous National Park" ranking from a park rangers union. The National Park Rangers of the Fraternal Order of Police rated Organ Pipe first "due to numerous incidents involving international drug trafficking, inflow of illegal aliens and a work force that is understaffed to safely manage the problem."

Critics say the Gatekeeper policy has driven border crossers into the heart of the desert where they're much more likely to die in extreme heat.

"We called you here today to talk about death in our sacred desert," Ramon told a gathering of reporters outside St. Augustine Cathedral, 192 S. Stone Ave. "The sands of our sacred desert are forever stained with the blood of our neighbors, our brothers and sisters, our sons and daughters - in the eyes of our Great Creator, we are one."

Ramon and Wilson urged Tucson residents to contact U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl and Rep. Jeff Flake, both Arizona Republicans, and urge them to hold hearings on the Gatekeeper policy.

Ramon and Wilson took turns reading from a prepared statement.

"The death, the pain, the suffering, the torture, must stop now," Wilson said. "Our neighbors are not criminals; they only come north to feed their families. You and I would do the same for our children. For this, they do not deserve the death penalty."

Kyl Monday was flying across the country to Washington from Phoenix after Father's Day weekend and wasn't available for comment, said Matthew Latimer, the senator's press secretary.

Ramon said tribal officials will be meeting with other O'odham families as soon as possible to try to work out the water issue.

Wilson, the church's pastor for eight months, has been putting out water in stashes of up to 25 1-gallon jugs for more than six weeks along active border- crossing trails. Opponents have raised concerns that the jugs will attract more illegal crossers.

But he and Ramon told reporters that the water issue wasn't the purpose of Monday's news conference.

"The reason for the meeting is to address Operation Gatekeeper," Wilson said.

But others say more enforcement, not less, is needed if the United States is serious about saving lives and securing the border.

Wes Bramhall, president of Arizona Immigration Control, an immigration reform advocacy group that opposes illegal immigration, said the deaths and rescues scattered throughout the desert and the Tohono O'odham Nation last week were unfortunate, but they point out how dangerously porous the border remains.

"If the U.S. is serious about ending the tragedy," said Bramhall, there is "absolutely only one thing that can be done
. . . put the military on the border to help the Border Patrol. The mere fact of the military's presence may make a lot of them think about coming in the first place."

More enforcement on the border makes sense, whether it involves illegal immigrants or securing the U.S. border from terrorists, agreed Rick Oltman, western field director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which opposes illegal immigration, and supports restrictions on legal immigration.

Local human rights activists say the U.S.-Mexican border, and Arizona's southern border in particular, is already a militarized zone where civil liberties have been eroded and people live in a climate of fear and oppression.

"We think it's definitely a bad idea. It would push people into even more dangerous areas," said Chris Ford, co-director of the Tucson-based Southwest Alliance to Resist Militarization, which is opposed to the use of the military on the border.

"But I think the possibility of that happening has definitely increased, especially with the focus now on homeland security. When you start bringing troops into the border, you increase the climate of fear and you increase the potential for something disastrous to happen," Ford said.

Federal troops have been on the border for years under the Department of Defense's Joint Task Force 6. It coordinates military training activity - everything from road building to aerial reconnaissance and surveillance - between the military and law enforcement agencies, including the Border Patrol.

But the Border Patrol doesn't necessarily need the Army. The alliance maintains that in recent years, the Border Patrol itself has become a formidable militarized force in its own right, employing military tactics and high-tech weapons.

U.S. Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., said, "I do not favor militarizing the border. It doesn't make sense. . . . But I don't think the answer is to simply give up on enforcing our laws.

"Having more Border Patrol elements there, patrolling, looking for people, is important. I've long felt that more resources up close to the border help to stop them at the border and could save lives, rather than waiting and looking for them 30, 40, 50 miles north of the border."

The use of the military on the border is a federal issue, but the prospect of sending soldiers to the border doesn't appeal to Arizona Gov. Jane Hull, even if their presence might save lives, said spokeswoman Francie Noyes.

"No one wants people dying out in the desert," she said. "The governor has always worried that militarizing the border is the wrong signal to send. We clearly have questions to be resolved regarding how we handle the border.

"It's going to take a coordinated effort of both nations, and state and federal authorities, to find a solution that ends this terrible tragedy."

* Contact reporters Tony Davis at 807-7790 or verdin@azstarnet.com, and Ignacio Ibarra at (520) 432-2766 or at nacho1@mindspring.com.

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