The first 3 articles in this 4 part series argued that:
1) Arizona land ownership and use is a mess only partly because 74% of the land in Arizona is federally owned—in parks, wildlife preserves, Indian reservations, forest lands, BLM lands—or in limited use land owned and managed by the AZ Land Trust (14%.) https://arizonadailyindependent.com/2016/02/15/who-owns-arizona-land-who-benefits-taxpayers-arizona-the-feds/
2) It has been clear since at least 1964 that economic development in Arizona is hampered by the fact that only about 12% of the land in Arizona is privately held land that contributes to private enterprise and the tax base. At least one reputable study has shown that the Feds lose about $0.27 per dollar spent whereas a western state earns over $14.00 per dollar spent. https://arizonadailyindependent.com/2016/02/22/who-owns-arizona-land-part-ii-recovering-land-from-the-feds/
3) Land in most states west of the 13 original colonies was owned, at first, by the Feds, not by the states. However, federal claims to most of that land were “extinguished” so that most land in states east of the Rocky Mountains is no longer federal but state and private land. While the Feds are now reluctant to “extinguish” their claims to western land, there is substantial evidence that states manage public lands better at less cost than the Feds do; moreover, there are strong legal arguments that support the notion that western states could claim title to much of the Federal land within State borders. https://arizonadailyindependent.com/2016/02/25/who-owns-the-land-in-arizona-part-iii-making-the-legal-case/
Part IV Border Issues
Much of AZ land on our southern border is, for practical purposes, “no man’s land.” Most of the information below is from an interactive map that I’ve become fond of and from an informative website about the Border Patrol.
http://gis.azland.gov/webapps/parcel/?loc=-111.8170,35.2216,12&layers=3,1,0
The US Border Patrol web site has many details that support the conclusion that our southern border is a “no man’s land.” Consider this quotation “If he (Charles Manson) were loose today and living in Mexico he could just cross the Mexican border and into the United States. For a thousand miles of our southern border there’s essentially no one there to stop him.” Mr. Manson was convicted of murdering 6 people; invoking his name is done for dramatic effect but it suggests that he would not be atypical of border crossers. Many border crossers are good folks; I know that: I’ve been to the border and met some of them personally. But the majority these days are traffickers, except for recent arrivals from South America who came here after POTUS put out the welcome mat for them.
http://www.usborderpatrol.com/Border_Patrol87.htm
Here is a quotation about the Yuma Sector from the USBP site:
“The Sector’s western boundary runs just inside the California state line and then eastward to include the United States Marine Corps’ huge Barry M. Goldwater bombing range. The vast open spaces make for easy traversal by illegal aliens and drug smugglers.” The first 16 miles are mostly Bureau of Reclamation land with a bit of private land and a bit of BLM land. The Goldwater Range ranges about 35 miles along the border with Mexico. The US Border Patrol website gives many details of all the things the Border Patrol does to protect us in the Yuma Sector.
Another Yuma Sector quotation:
“Thanks to the confluence of open desert, a bombing range, several government agencies who may or may not talk to each other that much, the drug smugglers often operate in convoy.” (Italics added to foreshadow a key point about why Arizona’s southern border is as open and unpatrolled as it is: most of the border land is owned by this or that federal agency; federal agency bureaucrats are not necessarily supporters of the enforcement work of the Border Patrol.)
The US Border Patrol site does an excellent job of describing the situation on the Arizona border. You can click and go to sections to get specific information on Sex Slaves, Border Images, Tunnels, USBP weapons, and so on. There is a wealth of jarring information that neither the majority of our elected officials nor mainstream journalists have ever been able to find.
The top brass of the Border Patrol are probably not fond of this site. It exists courtesy of the First Amendment: “This site is maintained by supporters of the United States Border Patrol and is not an official government site. The contents of this site are privately managed and not subject to the direction of the United States Border Patrol.”
A caveat: The USBP web site includes accurate but outdated information as well as currently accurate information. For example, the section on Eastern Arizona contains this item: “A small group of citizens in the town of Tombstone have gathered together to form “The Minutemen” to call attention to the current border situation.” In truth, the Minutemen stopped doing border watch activities a few years ago when 3 things happened: 1. the cartels took over both human and drug trafficking using heavily armed escorts, 2. loud talkers spread unfounded rumors about our work, and 3. Minuteman leadership split apart on tactics. A spinoff group, the AZ Border Defenders, continues border work. The Border Defenders web site has pictures, videos, links to border news articles, and links to several informative sites, including the AZ Legislature Joint Border Security Advisory Committee. http://azborderdefenders.org/about-us/
Additional current information—as well as links to other information sources—can be found on a site also not affiliated with the Border Patrol: http://www.americanborderpatrol.com/About.html An informative and official site is: http://www.cbp.gov/border-security/along-us-borders/border-patrol-sectors/tucson-sector-arizona
Please take an imaginary journey along the rest of the border; the actual journey is too dangerous to take right now. If you were driving in Mexico (you could, there’s a highway there but none on the US side) the Cabeza Prieto National Wildlife preserve would be just north of you for the next 55 miles. Next is the Organ Pipe National Monument which runs roughly another 33 miles. You might have seen images of the signs the Feds put up warning one and all that it is a dangerous place to go because of all the illegal activity. They helpfully put up signs; it is just that protecting US citizens isn’t a top priority. Pictures of destruction and other bad things in Cabeza Prieto and Organ Pipe can be found here: http://www.desertinvasion.us/index.html The website has some of the most comprehensive information I’ve seen on desert damage.
The next 75 miles border on the Tohono Indian Reservation. If you’d like to know what representatives of the Tohono O’odham Nation think of border security, just go to the US Border Patrol web site and click the link to Mid Arizona. Read along about 4 pages until you come to testimony given before congress. (Short version: The Tohono O’odham are not happy.)
The next 40 miles is a few miles of private land followed by the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, the Coronado National Forest and Nogales, Sonora/Nogales, AZ.
The final 115 miles or so of the journey would take the traveler through some of the notorious Tucson Sector, home to the most active smuggling of drugs and humans along the entire southern US border. A traveler would move past quite a bit of private land where the Border Patrol is invited to do its work. But a traveler would also pass more of the Coronado National Forest, some BLM land, some Land Trust land, the Coronado National Monument, Douglas, AZ., and the San Bernardino National Wildlife Reserve before passing a bit more private land on the way to Arizona’s eastern border with New Mexico.
A flavor of the Tucson Sector can be found in statements on the Eastern Arizona section of the US Border Patrol site:
“The 370 miles of Arizona’s border with Mexico is also some of the most dangerous and violent land on earth. Each year, over a million illegal aliens race north across this part of the Mexican border and into Arizona.” (It might have been closer to 800,000 in 2015.)
“The smuggling business in Arizona is quite lucrative (it costs an average of $2,000 to be smuggled into the United States and smuggling just ten “pollos” means $20,000 in tax free cash) and gunfights between various smuggling groups are carried even to Arizona’s network of highways.
Included in this stampede are people from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. In addition, smugglers use this most desolate part of America’s border as a freeway to traffic thousands of pounds of heroin and cocaine to America’s cities.” (Carrying drugs is a way for poor families in Mexico or Guatemala to earn the money to pay the $2000 fee.)
“Arizona highway gunfights are real and the smoke from burning vehicles can be seen even to the horizon. Bodies can be strewn across the roadways causing inconvenient traffic delays. All of this is now part of the rich tapestry of life in Arizona — especially southeastern Arizona.”
(I have never seen bodies on the roadways or burning vehicles, though I have seen burned out vehicles and pictures of bodies, sometimes complete with heads, sometimes not.)
The quotations support the main point. Arizona’s southern border is far from secure; on the contrary, it is an ungoverned and dangerous place, a no man’s land. Access by the Border Patrol is limited, sometimes by the terrain but also because use of the land is governed by the Forest Service, the Department of Interior, the National Park Service, Wildlife Refuges, military sites, and Indian reservations. Drug and human traffickers pay little attention to access rules but Border Patrol agents must adhere to them.
Want more? The Arizona desert is being trashed. The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality has a program to deal with some of it. https://www.azbordertrash.gov/about.html
You can organize and document your own cleanup effort to detrash an area such as one of those pictured on the azbordertrash site. The desertinvasion and the azborderdefenders sites have many more pictures. I have many similar pictures, some taken inside the Tucson city limits. When last I checked there were drop off sites in Tucson where weary desert travelers could dump their traveling clothes and put on their “go to Nashville or Albany or wherever” clothes and get picked up for a van ride to public transportation. (FYI–A cleaned-up site tends to become a trashed site within a few weeks. That’s bad but even worse is near-permanent damage to the desert flora and fauna from all the tromping, trashing, and cartel vehicular traffic.)
I fear that the violence will continue as long as our border is chopped up into many little pieces each managed by decent people who have conflicting missions. Well over 200 miles of the border are NOT owned, managed, or controlled by the Arizona government or citizens. NONE of the Federal owners have the protection of the border as a major part of their mission. Like it or not, the border is indeed a “no man’s land,” an open border.
That was perfectly fine for many years but not after two things occurred: 1. US consumers of illegal drugs created a huge market and 2. lax enforcement of immigration laws created a demand for workers to illegally infiltrate the country.
The Washington, D.C. BSIC (Big Shots in Charge) are not dealing with the problems. Or, I should say, are dealing with them ineptly. See https://arizonadailyindependent.com/2016/02/26/dhs-budget-calls-for-300-fewer-border-patrol-agents/ The Feds won’t control the border; in spite of the best efforts of a few Congressmen and a Senator or two, they turn a blind eye to the damage done to the desert, the Arizona citizens who live along the border, and to the Arizona economy.
Shouldn’t we regain control of what happens within Arizona borders? For starters, maybe the Governor and Legislature could work together to carve out a half mile strip all along the border. Building the fence that was approved by Congress years ago would be OK too, especially if the Arizona Sheriffs were allowed to help and the Border Patrol had a work road along the border so they could actually patrol.