[pct-l] Re: Southern Section and Immigrant Worries

[brick@fastpack.com (Brick Robbins)]

At 10:45 AM 3/27/01 , Saskia wrote:
>When locals tell you that in their experience they have only encountered 
>pleas for water, then why would you assume that they are wrong?


I live in San Diego.

The illegal immigrants  and border crossers ARE a real problem. We call 
them "illegals" for short.

Mexico is much less socialist than the USA, so many cross to get services 
that they cannot pay for and would be denied in Mexico.

Theft of property and killing and eating of farm animals has dramatically 
increased near the PCT.

Many Mexican bandits cross over with the Illegal border crossers, just to 
rob them (they often carry their life savings with them).

Some of the traffickers (called coyotes) will just leave the illegal 
crossers (called pollos) to die when the weather gets bad. Americans are 
good people, so our government rescues them, gives them medical attention, 
a warm place to recover, and feeds them. EVERY storm that passes ends up 
with hundreds of rescues. Guess who pays for it all? (It isn't the Mexican 
government) Should we just let them die instead? If not then why should we 
have to pay for them?

Every month or so a van with 20-25 illegal crossers gets chased by police. 
The badly overloaded and speeding vans often tip over, hurting or killing 
the occupants. Guess who pays for the hospital bills? The police get blamed 
for 'causing' the accident, because they tried to pull over a speeding vehicle.

I found a human body, near the PCT a few years back south of Hauser canyon, 
a Mexican Indian I think, but it was hard to tell, I didn't get too close . 
(I never found out how he died...). The cost of recovering the body was not 
small.

If I were to cross into Holland without a visa, show up in a hospital and 
get services and not pay for them, steal some chickens, tear down a road 
sign to cook tortillas on, then try get a job (without a visa), how would 
the local citizens like it? All these things have happened to freinds of mine.


--
Brick Robbins

Car le ballet, est bientôt terminé
Et la vraie vie, va commencer