By DEXTER DUGGAN
PAYSON, Ariz. — From a soaring escarpment above this mile-high central Arizona vacation town, one sees lonely looking, conifer-covered mountains stretching to the horizon. Human habitation and the southern U.S. border seem far away.
In fact, 15,000-person Payson is about a 45-minute winding drive downhill from the Mogollon (MUGGY-own) Rim escarpment, while border-straddling Nogales is about four hours to the south. But what comes across the border knows no limits.
The Wanderer stopped by Payson to ask about people’s views on a few election issues. Payson is about a 90-minute divided-highway drive northeast of Phoenix and nearly 4,000 feet higher in elevation than Arizona’s capital city.
Coincidentally, another one of the endless violations that bleed over the international line was in the news on October 24, when a twice-deported illegal alien was arrested as a suspect in a northern California shooting spree that left two lawmen dead and one wounded.
The suspect, identified as Luis Enrique Monroy-Bracamonte, reportedly had been deported from Arizona years ago for a narcotics conviction.
The voice of Maricopa County’s Joe Arpaio, sheriff of the county where Phoenix is located, soon was heard on the news. Arpaio, a Catholic, again lamented the numbers of illegal aliens in his jails, often criminals who only are released back into the general population by the federal government when it gets the chance.
Arpaio’s office issued a news release on October 27 saying that Monroy-Bracamonte had been arrested four times by Maricopa County law enforcement.
“Moreover, says the sheriff, the history surrounding this one illegal alien exposes the inherent dishonesty and ineptitude surrounding the federal government approach to illegal immigration,” the news release said.
The border chaos has worsened as Barack Obama welcomes anyone who saunters across, even while the president promises to issue a lawless executive order after the November 4 elections to confer the allurement of amnesty on yet-unspecified millions.
This is the bitter fruit of self-deluded organizations that lobby to maintain open borders, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The Wanderer stopped by a Payson hall with juniper scent in the air as some area Catholics socialized and had coffee and sweets after Sunday morning Mass on October 26.
One of them, Cindy Leischner, said, “I’m just really disappointed in the president. He ignores the Constitution. He does whatever he wants. The media and his minions just kowtow to his every whim. . . . He’s trying to turn us into a socialist country. And Obamacare is a joke.”
When The Wanderer asked about Obama’s proposed executive order on immigration, Leischner replied, “It’s unconstitutional. He’s made himself head potentate and head dictator, and that’s not what our country was founded on, and . . . that’s not what we stand for.
“And the main thing that keeps me going is that God is in charge, and prayer is one of the biggest parts of my life, and that gives me comfort,” she said.
Sally Glemba told The Wanderer, “Obama’s been nothing but a total disaster.” If he issues his immigration executive order, “I think that’s against the will of the people, and if he does that, it’ll be rescinded somewhere along the line.”
Illegal immigration is “a bad situation,” Glemba said. “I have empathy for them, but they broke the law.”
Bob Reiver said he left the Republican Party to become an independent about eight to ten years ago because he was disillusioned by the GOP failing to be conservative.
Asked about Obama’s proposed immigration order, Reiver said, “I personally believe they should start articles of impeachment because he continually defies the law, and his appointees all hide behind executive privilege, to do things contrary to the Constitution.”
However, he added, Congress for years also has been acting contrary to the Constitution, so its members deserve criticism as well.
Ed Burgin said he wouldn’t be surprised if Obama even issues an executive order allowing himself to run for a third presidential term, contrary to the Constitution.
“Nothing he does surprises me. The most astonishing thing is the inactivity of Congress,” which should assert itself more, Burgin said. He added that Congress “earned” people’s disrespect by failing to be “very good stewards” in its spending decisions.
Al Shiya strongly opposes Obama’s plan for executive amnesty but thinks he’ll impose it.
“I expect Obama to do what he says he’s going to do: act in blatant in-your-face, I-don’t-give-a-damn defiance of the will of the American public. We are back to a political state that inspired the American Revolution. The people have zero power to change the government. The democratic process is over,” Shiya said.
“We have a virtual dictatorship with an illusion of choice. General amnesty for illegals will be a major dagger in the heart for those who still believe we have representative government. And there’s not a thing we can do about it,” he said.
Meanwhile, the chairman of the Maricopa County Republican Party, A.J. LaFaro, told The Wanderer on October 26 by email that he thinks Obama will issue his immigration executive order once the November 4 election results “are final and canvassed.” [Editor’s Note: This issue of The Wanderer went to press on October 30.]
“Based on my research this afternoon concerning Obama possibly granting amnesty to the illegal aliens here in the U.S. after the November 4 election, I believe Obama will make a serious mistake that will bring the wrath of the American people down on him and his administration like America has never seen before,” LaFaro said.
“If Obama does grant amnesty, he more than likely will do it right after the election, while the Democrats still have control of the Senate,” LaFaro said.
“Once the Republicans take control of the Senate and the House in January 2015, then it will be a completely different scenario, with impeachment proceedings being a strong possibility, along with an increase in Senate and House hearings that will embarrass Obama, the Democrats and any Democrat presidential candidates, and keep them on the defensive nonstop for the next two years,” said LaFaro, a Catholic.
Daunting Statistics
As for the deadly northern California shootings, Cable News Network reported on October 26:
“Authorities said by the time the spree was over on Friday [October 24], the suspects had killed two sheriff’s deputies in two counties, wounded a third deputy, attempted three . . . carjackings and shot a driver in the head — all during a span of six hours. Those events prompted a handful of school lockdowns and a massive manhunt.”
The other suspect was identified as Monroy-Bracamonte’s wife, Janelle Marquez Monroy.
The Sacramento Bee reported that Monroy-Bracamonte was believed to have used multiple identities, including the name Julian Beltran.
“On the ‘Beltran’ [Facebook] page, one photo shows him with a belly tattoo declaring ‘Mexican Pride’ and ‘Sinaloa’ on his chest, and indicates he is from Culiacán, Sinaloa,” the Sacramento newspaper said.
The news release from Arpaio’s office on October 27 listed Monroy-Bracamonte’s four encounters with Arpaio’s department, stretching back to 1996, with the illegal alien’s whereabouts eventually unknown each time.
The news release said the sheriff was calling for a congressional hearing “to find out why illegal aliens arrested by my deputies and other police officers for often serious crimes are handed over to ICE [federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement], only to end up back in my jail, arrested again on more charges.
“Either ICE is letting these individuals go out the back door, free to commit more crimes,” Arpaio said, “or is the border so open that even though they’re being deported, they turn around and immediately return?”
The news release said: “The statistics are daunting. For the past nine months, back to the beginning of 2014, of the approximately 4,000 ICE detainers . . . on incoming criminal offenders arrested by local police and sheriff’s deputies in Maricopa County, a stunning 1,382, translating to 38 percent of the total, were repeat offenders.
“Nor were these necessarily minor crimes, but encompass the full range of criminal offenses, including kidnapping, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, armed robbery, child molestation, sexual abuse, conspiracy, dangerous drugs, and more,” the news release said.
Reaping What
Obama Has Sown
One of The Wanderer’s border sources is Gary Meinert, a Wisconsin native who retired to southern Arizona planning to play golf but became an activist against illegal immigration when he learned of the problem facing his adopted state.
He continues calling attention to the problem, including authoring a column for a twice-weekly Wisconsin newspaper, The Lakeland Times, and also serving on the Citizens Advisory Board of the Nogales Border Patrol station.
He concluded his October 20 column for the Wisconsin newspaper, “In my opinion, the surge of illegal aliens from Central America will have a devastating effect, possibly for generations,” on the U.S., but the Border Patrol shouldn’t receive blame for this.
In an October 24 email, Meinert told The Wanderer: “…I think Obama will grant amnesty to anyone who has come to this country and hasn’t committed a crime — maybe even then!. . . Merely by his statements that if you set foot on our soil and are considering yourself a ‘refugee,’ you will be granted asylum status opens the door to huge numbers and fraudulent ones for certain. What would Obama’s definition of ‘refugee’ status [be]? It could be anything.”
Listing Obama’s actions that he didn’t favor, Meinert said, “Maybe I’ve become cynical in my old age, but it looks like Obama wants to destroy our country. . . . [T]hat’s hard to believe, but the evidence keeps piling up.”
In another recent column, Meinert wrote that while beheadings by Muslim terrorists excite people’s revulsion, “That barbaric act repeats itself every day and has for many years just south of our border. Every Mexican cartel I’ve studied beheads their victims and doesn’t limit the act to males. Females and the young are not exempt.
“When I was giving Power Point presentations on the subject, I kept a ‘black file’ on my podium. It contained photographs too graphic to show on the screen, but I provided them to those who asked. . . .
“Obama must certainly realize the border is not secure when 60,000 illegal aliens cross with ease and turn themselves in to Border Patrol agents,” Meinert wrote. “The president of the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers offered this statement: ‘This is not a humanitarian crisis. It is a predictable orchestrated and contrived assault on the compassionate side of Americans by her political leader that knowingly puts minor illegal-alien children at risk for purely political purposes.’
“If these illegal aliens seem harmless, other than carrying Third World diseases,” Meinert wrote, “conjure in your minds what hundreds of MS-13 gang members, Mexican cartel barbarians, and ISIS terrorists will do to our citizens as they pass easily into our country. No, the ISIS terrorists are not restricted to the Middle East. . . . Unless we secure the border, it’s just a matter of time before we reap what our president has sown.”
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