Border Life With Illegals And Smugglers
By BARBARA SIMPSON
(Editor’s Note: This commentary was first published by WorldNetDaily on November 19, 2021.)
- + + As I scroll through the news on the Internet as well as in local newspapers, I’m struck that the reports concerning illegal aliens crossing our southern border tend to focus on numbers — the increase of border crossers over the month or year.
We’re told the border is wide open, that the Biden administration has done no more than eliminate Donald Trump’s programs to control illegal border crossings. The result has been that there is virtually nothing to stem the illegal crossings, which, we are told, have increased more than 130 percent over last year.
These millions of people are gathering again under that infamous Texas bridge while hundreds are being flown at government expense into the interior of this country and just dropped into cities and towns with no notice to local governments.
Thomas Feeley, who spent 25 years with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, just retired as ICE director in New York State. In an interview with the New York Post as well as with Tucker Carlson on Fox News, Feeley was to the point and blunt. He said he left the federal agency out of frustration over how the Biden administration’s border policies were jeopardizing national security — adding, “We’re pretty much screwed as a country.”
He said he is more than concerned about the lack of attention from Washington concerning the border and “what the good men and women of ICE are not being allowed to do.”
In other words, ICE is being told by the administration not to follow the laws passed by Congress — with the result being mass illegal immigration into this country. These people are not being checked for criminal backgrounds; there are no health examinations, and many are infected with COVID. The effect of this on Americans is being ignored by the feds.
Feeley noted, “As a member of the Senior Executive Service, a service entrusted by the public to ensure whatever administration is in charge follow the law, we currently are not. To fight and argue every day about not arresting or releasing horrible criminals to the street, quite frankly is disgusting.”
I don’t know about you, but I am proud there are honorable men like Feeley in government and distressed that they leave because of administration politics.
Another aspect of the border issue concerns the people, U.S. citizens, who own land along the border and have to contend on a daily basis with the illegal aliens crossing their property.
It seems that national news outlets aren’t interested in their problems, but if you check with local news coverage or publications dealing with ranch issues, you will find out what is going on.
And it isn’t good.
A front-page story in the October 28 Western AG Reporter is headlined, “A Lifestyle Sadly Disrupted.”
The article describes the incidents on the border ranch of Erica Valdez and her family. Erica Valdez was speaking to the October meeting of the South Dakota Women In AG. She and her husband raise cattle and registered quarter horses on their ranch in Animas, N.M., in the very southwest corner of the state. They have a homeschooled 15-year-old daughter.
She said that over time, they mostly traded labor with three or four area families, of which there are few.
She also said illegals from Mexico have long been a presence on their ranch — mostly families looking for food, water, and work. But now, she says, “that population has changed.”
This is what she told the audience: “Heavily armed men in camouflage have replaced families, with most carrying 50-pound bales of drugs.
“Some of them are human smugglers bringing people in and out of the U.S.”
Valdez told of one occasion when she was on horseback and encountered four men in camouflage and black masks watching her. She rode past with no incident, and when the area was checked the next day it was revealed to be a spotters’ camp on a slope, manned by someone with high-tech optics and radio to stay in touch with drug dealers.
There have been many such incidents. The first was in 2010, when a rancher checking on such issues radioed the Border Patrol to say there was an illegal alien in distress. He said he would check on it. Nothing was heard from him; the next morning his body and that of his dog were discovered. The shooter was tracked to Mexico and never apprehended.
Another incident was in 2015, when a man was kidnapped from his home by illegals who filled his truck with drugs and drove him to Willcox, Ariz., leaving him there. A public meeting was held. More than 1,200 attended, but nothing came of it.
A third incident was in March of this year and involved a family with three daughters, ages 12, 8, and 6.
The six-year-old was kidnapped from the kitchen, and no one heard a sound. Fortunately, the Border Patrol found her six hours later, wandering down a road.
Beyond the danger to humans, Ms. Valdez told of the physical damages — fences cut, drained water lines, stolen vehicles, attacks on livestock, and break-ins to houses and outbuildings.
The New Mexico border is 181 miles long; the Trump wall covered 103 miles, but Biden has taken down most of that. According to Valdez, landowners are responsible for 100 percent of the repairs or breaks in their own fencing.
Bottom line: What is needed is more manpower on the border, and that will not happen until Joseph Biden is honest with the American people as to what is happening on the border, what he intends to do about it, and what it will mean to our freedom.