Post by Okwes on Sept 23, 2006 10:51:33 GMT -5
As Border Crackdown Intensifies, A Tribe Is Caught in the Crossfire
By John Pomfret
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 15, 2006; A01
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/14/AR2006091401827.html
[foto attached] Ofelia Rivas, a Tohono O'odham activist, is tracked by the
Border Patrol whenever she visits Alir Jegk, near the border. The tribe is
closing the border crossing behind her, one of its traditional paths to
Mexico, at agents' request. (John Pomfret -- The Washington Post)
ALIR JEGK, Ariz. -- Elsie Salsido was breast-feeding her baby when Border
Patrol agents walked into her house unannounced this summer. "Are you
Mexicans?" they demanded.
Salsido's four other children cowered on the bed of her eldest, a girl in
second grade. Night had fallen on this village on Arizona's border with
Mexico, nestled in a scrubland valley of stickman cactuses hemmed in by
mountains that look like busted teeth. The agents explained their
warrantless entry into Salsido's house as "hot pursuit." They said they
were chasing footprints, she recalled, of illegal immigrants sneaking in
from Mexico, just 1,000 feet away. But the footprints belonged to
Salsido's children -- all Americans.
As the United States ramps up its law enforcement presence on the border
with Mexico, places like Alir Jegk, a village of 50 families in
south-central Arizona, are enduring heightened danger, as they are
squeezed between increasingly aggressive bands of immigrant and drug
smugglers and increasingly numerous federal agents who, critics say, often
ignore regulations as they seek to enforce the law.
Alir Jegk's experience is complicated by the fact that it is on the
second-biggest Indian reservation in the United States, belonging to the
Tohono O'odham, or Desert People, who hunted deer and boar and harvested
wild spinach and prickly pear in this region before an international
border was etched through their land in 1853. Now, the Tohono O'odham
Nation occupies the front line of the fight against drug and immigrant
smuggling -- costing the poverty-stricken tribe millions of dollars a year
and threatening what remains of its traditions.
"We have the undocumented and drug smugglers heading north and law
enforcement heading south. We're smack in the middle," Vivian
Juan-Saunders, chairwoman of the tribe, said in an interview at the tribal
headquarters in Sells, Ariz. "We are being squeezed."
In testimony to the U.S. Senate, the tribe's vice chairman, Ned Norris
Jr., described a "border security crisis that has caused shocking
devastation of our land and resources."
About 11,000 Tohono O'odham live on a 2.8 million-acre reservation, the
size of Connecticut, with a 75-mile-long border with Mexico. A rickety
four-foot-tall, three-strand barbed-wire fence delineates the border,
which is punctuated by 160 trails and four cattle crossings. For decades
the nation saw little or no illegal traffic from Mexico. The main movement
was members of the Tohono O'odham who live in the Mexican part of the
reservation trickling into the United States for health services in Sells.
In the mid-1990s, however, the Clinton administration cracked down on
illegal crossings in San Diego and El Paso. Instead of stopping illegal
immigration and drug running, however, the operations simply rerouted
traffic through the deserts of the Southwest. And in Arizona, Tohono
O'odham land, bisected by State Highway 86 -- an easy link to Phoenix to
the north and California to the west -- became ground zero.
The flow of drugs and undocumented immigrants through the reservation has
caused a host of problems. Juan-Saunders estimated that about 1,500
illegal immigrants cross reservation land each day, depositing on average
six tons of trash. Some well-traveled knolls have been renamed "Million
Backpack Hill" because of the refuse.
The tribe routinely devotes more than 10 percent of its budget to coping
with the crisis. Annually, Juan-Saunders said, the 71-member Tohono
O'odham Police Department spends $3 million on problems related to illegal
immigrants and drug traffickers. The reservation pays an additional $2
million each year to provide emergency health services for undocumented
travelers. Since 2002, 315 crossers have died on the reservation's land,
including, this year, a 3-year-old boy and an 11-year-old girl.
The Tohono O'odham are a poor nation, with an average per capita income of
$8,000 a year, well below the U.S. average of $23,000 and the Indian
average of $13,000. Forty percent of the families on the reservation live
below the federal poverty line, and unemployment is at 42 percent.
Juan-Saunders said an increasing number of nation members are sucked into
the drug- and immigrant-smuggling business.
Two of Juan-Saunders's relatives have been arrested on drug-related
charges, tribal officials said. And in Alir Jegk, drug smugglers have
plied Elsie Salsido's sister with so many narcotics over the years in
their attempts to turn her into a mule that the woman has never been the
same, residents say.
"The pressures have dramatically increased on the tribe over the last five
years," said Robert A. Williams, a law professor at the University of
Arizona who works as a judge in the tribe's courts. "The community is
fairly well isolated, so they are very vulnerable to coyotes [immigrant
smugglers] and drug runners. We've seen signs of gang activity coming from
L.A. and Mexican gangs coming up."
Fifteen years ago, the nation, invoking its limited sovereignty, barred
the Border Patrol from the reservation because its agents harassed the
population, said Eileen M. Luna-Firebaugh, an expert on American Indian
policy at the University of Arizona. But that policy changed after drug
and immigrant smuggling skyrocketed, although the tribe was always more
focused on narcotics, she said.
The tribe is home to the Shadow Wolves, a storied, largely Indian unit of
U.S. Customs and Border Protection that uses ancient tracking techniques
to chase down drug smugglers. But after the creation of the Department of
Homeland Security, the Border Patrol has run the Shadow Wolves and has
shifted their focus away from drugs and toward immigrant smuggling,
prompting several senior officers to quit.
Nonetheless, under Juan-Saunders's leadership, which began in 2003, the
tribal council has welcomed more federal law enforcement. It has allowed
the Border Patrol to establish two permanent facilities on its land. It
recently agreed to the construction of a 75-mile vehicle barrier, costing
more than $1 million a mile, to replace the wobbly fence.
The tribe has complied with Border Patrol wishes to close one traditional
gate connecting the American side of its land to the Mexican side. It has
also recently consented to allow the National Guard to operate on the
border, on the condition that the Guard repairs roads and "respects the
people and the laws of this land," Juan-Saunders said.
Winning that respect, however, has not been easy. Tribal members are
routinely harassed by federal agents, Juan-Saunders said. "They cross
property without asking. They enter homes without knocking," she said.
In March, Juan-Saunders was driving her 8-year-old son in her Jeep, going
45 mph in a 55 zone, when she was ordered to pull over by a Border Patrol
officer. She stopped by the side of the road, and the officer leapt out of
his vehicle and pointed his gun at her. "Now I know what my constituents
are experiencing," she said.
Juan-Saunders acknowledged having mixed feelings about ceding more of her
nation's sovereignty to federal agencies. "But we are in dire straits
here," she said.
Chuy Rodriguez, a spokesman for the Border Patrol in Tucson, said
relations between the Border Patrol and the tribe are "getting better and
better over time."
"There's a lot more dialogue with folks in positions of power," he said.
He said that Border Patrol community relations officers make regular
visits to the reservation and that his agency has established a process
for complaints. Tribal representatives instruct Border Patrol agents about
the tribe and its traditions.
"We can't go into anyone's property," he said. "We have to get someone
from the Tohono O'odham police to come. However, if it's hot pursuit, it's
a different story."
Back in Alir Jegk, Margaret Garcia, 68, and an older neighbor, Francisco
Garcia, sum up the pressures facing the tribe.
Margaret Garcia, who lives in a two-room shack with, at last count, 19
cats and six dogs, said she awoke late one night to discover that Border
Patrol agents, with shotguns and night-vision goggles, had established an
observation post in her yard.
Francisco Garcia, on the other hand, used to live in Mexico. He was kicked
out of his village by drug dealers, so he moved to the American side of
the line. "I didn't want to die," he said.
"A long time ago there was no one but us," Margaret said. "It was
peaceful. When the cactus was ripe, my daughters would go out with a stick
to harvest the fruit. Now if we go out, the Border Patrol follows us.
Everyone is a suspect."
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
By John Pomfret
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 15, 2006; A01
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/14/AR2006091401827.html
[foto attached] Ofelia Rivas, a Tohono O'odham activist, is tracked by the
Border Patrol whenever she visits Alir Jegk, near the border. The tribe is
closing the border crossing behind her, one of its traditional paths to
Mexico, at agents' request. (John Pomfret -- The Washington Post)
ALIR JEGK, Ariz. -- Elsie Salsido was breast-feeding her baby when Border
Patrol agents walked into her house unannounced this summer. "Are you
Mexicans?" they demanded.
Salsido's four other children cowered on the bed of her eldest, a girl in
second grade. Night had fallen on this village on Arizona's border with
Mexico, nestled in a scrubland valley of stickman cactuses hemmed in by
mountains that look like busted teeth. The agents explained their
warrantless entry into Salsido's house as "hot pursuit." They said they
were chasing footprints, she recalled, of illegal immigrants sneaking in
from Mexico, just 1,000 feet away. But the footprints belonged to
Salsido's children -- all Americans.
As the United States ramps up its law enforcement presence on the border
with Mexico, places like Alir Jegk, a village of 50 families in
south-central Arizona, are enduring heightened danger, as they are
squeezed between increasingly aggressive bands of immigrant and drug
smugglers and increasingly numerous federal agents who, critics say, often
ignore regulations as they seek to enforce the law.
Alir Jegk's experience is complicated by the fact that it is on the
second-biggest Indian reservation in the United States, belonging to the
Tohono O'odham, or Desert People, who hunted deer and boar and harvested
wild spinach and prickly pear in this region before an international
border was etched through their land in 1853. Now, the Tohono O'odham
Nation occupies the front line of the fight against drug and immigrant
smuggling -- costing the poverty-stricken tribe millions of dollars a year
and threatening what remains of its traditions.
"We have the undocumented and drug smugglers heading north and law
enforcement heading south. We're smack in the middle," Vivian
Juan-Saunders, chairwoman of the tribe, said in an interview at the tribal
headquarters in Sells, Ariz. "We are being squeezed."
In testimony to the U.S. Senate, the tribe's vice chairman, Ned Norris
Jr., described a "border security crisis that has caused shocking
devastation of our land and resources."
About 11,000 Tohono O'odham live on a 2.8 million-acre reservation, the
size of Connecticut, with a 75-mile-long border with Mexico. A rickety
four-foot-tall, three-strand barbed-wire fence delineates the border,
which is punctuated by 160 trails and four cattle crossings. For decades
the nation saw little or no illegal traffic from Mexico. The main movement
was members of the Tohono O'odham who live in the Mexican part of the
reservation trickling into the United States for health services in Sells.
In the mid-1990s, however, the Clinton administration cracked down on
illegal crossings in San Diego and El Paso. Instead of stopping illegal
immigration and drug running, however, the operations simply rerouted
traffic through the deserts of the Southwest. And in Arizona, Tohono
O'odham land, bisected by State Highway 86 -- an easy link to Phoenix to
the north and California to the west -- became ground zero.
The flow of drugs and undocumented immigrants through the reservation has
caused a host of problems. Juan-Saunders estimated that about 1,500
illegal immigrants cross reservation land each day, depositing on average
six tons of trash. Some well-traveled knolls have been renamed "Million
Backpack Hill" because of the refuse.
The tribe routinely devotes more than 10 percent of its budget to coping
with the crisis. Annually, Juan-Saunders said, the 71-member Tohono
O'odham Police Department spends $3 million on problems related to illegal
immigrants and drug traffickers. The reservation pays an additional $2
million each year to provide emergency health services for undocumented
travelers. Since 2002, 315 crossers have died on the reservation's land,
including, this year, a 3-year-old boy and an 11-year-old girl.
The Tohono O'odham are a poor nation, with an average per capita income of
$8,000 a year, well below the U.S. average of $23,000 and the Indian
average of $13,000. Forty percent of the families on the reservation live
below the federal poverty line, and unemployment is at 42 percent.
Juan-Saunders said an increasing number of nation members are sucked into
the drug- and immigrant-smuggling business.
Two of Juan-Saunders's relatives have been arrested on drug-related
charges, tribal officials said. And in Alir Jegk, drug smugglers have
plied Elsie Salsido's sister with so many narcotics over the years in
their attempts to turn her into a mule that the woman has never been the
same, residents say.
"The pressures have dramatically increased on the tribe over the last five
years," said Robert A. Williams, a law professor at the University of
Arizona who works as a judge in the tribe's courts. "The community is
fairly well isolated, so they are very vulnerable to coyotes [immigrant
smugglers] and drug runners. We've seen signs of gang activity coming from
L.A. and Mexican gangs coming up."
Fifteen years ago, the nation, invoking its limited sovereignty, barred
the Border Patrol from the reservation because its agents harassed the
population, said Eileen M. Luna-Firebaugh, an expert on American Indian
policy at the University of Arizona. But that policy changed after drug
and immigrant smuggling skyrocketed, although the tribe was always more
focused on narcotics, she said.
The tribe is home to the Shadow Wolves, a storied, largely Indian unit of
U.S. Customs and Border Protection that uses ancient tracking techniques
to chase down drug smugglers. But after the creation of the Department of
Homeland Security, the Border Patrol has run the Shadow Wolves and has
shifted their focus away from drugs and toward immigrant smuggling,
prompting several senior officers to quit.
Nonetheless, under Juan-Saunders's leadership, which began in 2003, the
tribal council has welcomed more federal law enforcement. It has allowed
the Border Patrol to establish two permanent facilities on its land. It
recently agreed to the construction of a 75-mile vehicle barrier, costing
more than $1 million a mile, to replace the wobbly fence.
The tribe has complied with Border Patrol wishes to close one traditional
gate connecting the American side of its land to the Mexican side. It has
also recently consented to allow the National Guard to operate on the
border, on the condition that the Guard repairs roads and "respects the
people and the laws of this land," Juan-Saunders said.
Winning that respect, however, has not been easy. Tribal members are
routinely harassed by federal agents, Juan-Saunders said. "They cross
property without asking. They enter homes without knocking," she said.
In March, Juan-Saunders was driving her 8-year-old son in her Jeep, going
45 mph in a 55 zone, when she was ordered to pull over by a Border Patrol
officer. She stopped by the side of the road, and the officer leapt out of
his vehicle and pointed his gun at her. "Now I know what my constituents
are experiencing," she said.
Juan-Saunders acknowledged having mixed feelings about ceding more of her
nation's sovereignty to federal agencies. "But we are in dire straits
here," she said.
Chuy Rodriguez, a spokesman for the Border Patrol in Tucson, said
relations between the Border Patrol and the tribe are "getting better and
better over time."
"There's a lot more dialogue with folks in positions of power," he said.
He said that Border Patrol community relations officers make regular
visits to the reservation and that his agency has established a process
for complaints. Tribal representatives instruct Border Patrol agents about
the tribe and its traditions.
"We can't go into anyone's property," he said. "We have to get someone
from the Tohono O'odham police to come. However, if it's hot pursuit, it's
a different story."
Back in Alir Jegk, Margaret Garcia, 68, and an older neighbor, Francisco
Garcia, sum up the pressures facing the tribe.
Margaret Garcia, who lives in a two-room shack with, at last count, 19
cats and six dogs, said she awoke late one night to discover that Border
Patrol agents, with shotguns and night-vision goggles, had established an
observation post in her yard.
Francisco Garcia, on the other hand, used to live in Mexico. He was kicked
out of his village by drug dealers, so he moved to the American side of
the line. "I didn't want to die," he said.
"A long time ago there was no one but us," Margaret said. "It was
peaceful. When the cactus was ripe, my daughters would go out with a stick
to harvest the fruit. Now if we go out, the Border Patrol follows us.
Everyone is a suspect."
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
