09/03/2010
Foreign organized crime has captured and now controls huge tracts of land in Arizona — why is this not major news? Americans driving on the roads within the surrendered lands are told to keep moving, that it is not safe to be there. Whatever happened to the Land of the Free?
An occasional observation of the MSM is that Mexican drug crime “might spill over” into the United States. But it already has.
Actually, the Mexican incursion isn’t new news (see On the Border: Retreat?), but one hopes that the general public might learn the truth about the level of border anarchy that Obama permits.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration continues its program of harassment against Arizonans who defend sovereignty and borders: this week it sued Sheriff Joe Arpaio in a “civil rights probe.”
Why are billions of our tax dollars spent to defend Iraq and Afghanistan when we are losing American territory to a bunch of criminal Mexicans? Citizens should be able to travel highways in southern Arizona without fearing for their lives. Ranchers and other residents should be able to live safely on their property — which they do not.
Signs in Arizona warn of smuggler dangers, Washington Times, September 2, 2010The federal government has posted signs along a major interstate highway in Arizona, more than 100 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, warning travelers the area is unsafe because of drug and alien smugglers, and a local sheriff says Mexican drug cartels now control some parts of the state.
The signs were posted by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) along a 60-mile stretch of Interstate 8 between Casa Grande and Gila Bend, a major east-west corridor linking Tucson and Phoenix with San Diego.
They warn travelers that they are entering an “active drug and human smuggling area” and they may encounter “armed criminals and smuggling vehicles traveling at high rates of speed.” Beginning less than 50 miles south of Phoenix, the signs encourage travelers to “use public lands north of Interstate 8? and to call 911 if they “see suspicious activity.”
Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, whose county lies at the center of major drug and alien smuggling routes to Phoenix and cities east and west, attests to the violence. He said his deputies are outmanned and outgunned by drug traffickers in the rough-hewn desert stretches of his own county.
“Mexican drug cartels literally do control parts of Arizona,” he said. “They literally have scouts on the high points in the mountains and in the hills and they literally control movement. They have radios, they have optics, they have night-vision goggles as good as anything law enforcement has.
“This is going on here in Arizona,” he said. “This is 70 to 80 miles from the border — 30 miles from the fifth-largest city in the United States.” [ … ]
Rep. Ted Poe, Texas Republican and a member of the House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs committees, said the federal government’s new border security plan apparently is to “erect some signs telling you it’s not safe to travel in our own country.”
“If you are planning on loading up the station wagon and taking the kids to Disneyland, the federal government doesn’t advise going through Arizona — it’s too dangerous and they can’t protect you,” said Mr. Poe. “These signs say to American citizens, the federal government has ceded this area to the drug cartels. Don’t come here; we can’t protect you.”
Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee and a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, called the signs “an insult to the citizens of border states.”
“American citizens should not have to be fearful for their lives on U.S. soil,” he said. “If the federal government would do its job of enforcing immigration laws, we could better secure the border and better protect the citizens of border states.”
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.