The Pink Flamingo :: Reuters Great Big Border Whammy?

Anti-immigration Nativists are holding a wake for the much heralded Border Fence in Cochise County. First, it would be nice if some of these Nativists would ACTUALLY VISIT Cochise County and spent a little time there talking to someone other than the inmates at the OK Café, or the few anti-immigration neo-fascists who actually reside in Cochise County. Case in point is the mourning for the Border Fence, that a Cochise County rancher has pronounced DOA. It is tragic. So sad. But – the problem is John Ladd, rancher is question, is one of the very few people in Cochise County who is actually involved in the anti-immigration movement, so he is hardly an unbiased source – or is he? Reuters presents Ladd as a staunch anti-immigration activist. The problem is, he is not. He’s just a rancher trying to protect his land from constant through traffic by drug dealers. Read the Reuters version, then check out the local versions of his story. They are totally and completely different.

The question of the day is why is Reuters doing this story now? Actually they filed it on March 3. It has taken this long for it to see some Nativist traction.

John Ladd has been complaining for ages. He generously allowed his land near NACO to be used for the Minuteman Fence. So Reuters has pulled out the tissue and violins to bury the fence, and possibly John McCain. The problem is, it ain’t necessarily so. Glenn Spencer (a Sierra Vista resident) who is American Patrol (which is nothing but a mail boxes drop off in a shopping strip next door to Safeway in Sierra Vista) has a photo of the fence. Borderfire Report has started the trouble.
Spencer pontificates here. We need to note that Reuters is complaining about the Fed. border fence, not the minutescam fence.

SOMEONE IS LYING
The problem is someone is not telling the truth. In a Boston Globe article, Ladd was decrying the fence.

“…Tamez is one of many opponents along the border who are fighting the fence. Ranchers fear they will lose access to irrigation pumps; ecologists worry it will block the migration of endangered species such as the jaguar and ocelot; anglers and boaters do not want to be cut off from the river. And in western states like Texas and Arizona, the government's concerns over illegal immigration clash with cherished values of landowner rights, which have helped sustain U.S. President George W. Bush's Republican Party in the region. "That was everybody's dream, we'll come out here ... develop the West and civilize it. Now the government is coming and saying 'Oh, we'll take that back, because we're going to build a wall. It's unAmerican,"' said rancher John Ladd of Naco, Arizona, whose land runs for 10 miles along the border with Mexico. The U.S. Justice Department has filed dozens of lawsuits seeking court orders against reluctant landowners and the city of Eagle Pass, Texas, to gain access to property for surveying….”

There is the Douglas Dispatch version of the story:

“…n April, Simcox announced the Minutemen would begin building an Israeli-style barrier on private land along the Arizona border in hopes of inspiring a similar effort by the federal government.  But the Ladds, later identified as the owners of the land, rejected the design of the barrier, saying they preferred a smaller, reinforced barbed-wire fence that would keep out Mexican cattle and stop drive-throughs from occurring. The Minutemen said they would change their plans to respect the Ladds' wishes….”

ABC has the same version.
Then there is the 2006 Fox version.
A local version of a border fence story confirms the drug angle.

“…Some 35 miles west of Douglas, near the twin border cities of Naco, a hundred or more illegal immigrants daily cut across the San Jose Ranch owned by Jack Ladd and his son, John. The men said the violence around Cananea put a quick stop to the immigrant foot traffic on the ranch, which stretches along more than 10 miles of the Mexican border. Jack Ladd said migrants apparently stayed holed up in staging areas in and around Naco for about a week, and John Ladd said he is convinced drug cartel-associated criminal activity has been ongoing in the area since July and now has engulfed migrants. "They're running the people (illegal immigrants) now too," he said. "Instead of the mom-and-pop taxi service out of Naco, Sonora, it's the cartel that's doing it," he said. "They're associated with the drugs and the people, and it's big business. The thievery has escalated; they're stealing everything that isn't bolted down on the ranch. Ladd said a Mexican rancher friend told him that cartel operators were behind the thefts and warned, "'Don't mess with them.'" He predicted a major incident along the border was just a matter of time….”

The border violence summit
It's all about the drugs, drug runners, and the big cartels - NOT the migrant.
John Ladd has much more credibility than the minutemen:

“…"My wife's family initially settled this ranch in 1896."

Jack Ladd is rocking in a plush recliner next to the picture window that frames the San Jose Mountains a few miles south in Sonora, Mexico. He is 79, with hearing aids in both ears, a mild voice, gentle blue eyes. Each word is chosen carefully, because Ladd is nothing if not a thoughtful man. He spent years as director of labor relations for Phelps Dodge Mining Co. He knows a bit about compromise.

He holds a pile of papers - six 8 1/2-by-11 pages of single-spaced, neatly scribed reflections on illegal immigration and what might curb the problem and help bring some peace to his final years on the family cattle ranch.

He has titled this, "Jack Ladd Observations." It describes the three groups of 15-20 migrants he saw crossing his ranch in broad daylight not long ago. "I dread the flood of illegals that would result if amnesty was actually granted ..." he writes. But he also bemoans as "just for show" politicians' proposals for more walls, more lights, more agents. "They are not the answer," he says.

Nor is any absolute ban on the employment and presence of illegal workers in the United States, he says. "I don't believe this is realistic, possible or humane."

So Ladd's answer goes something like this:

1. Establish a system to register and identify illegal workers.

2. Provide such workers with counterfeit-proof IDs.

3. If employers need additional workers, put in an order with the immigration service, which could allow the required number in.

4. Expedite citizenship for those now waiting and allow illegal residents to apply, but consider them only after those already in line.

"That's dreaming, I'm sure," he concludes. "But that's the way it could work."

A dog barks, and John Ladd walks into the ranch house. He is the contrary yang to his dad's composed yin.

He uses the pejorative term "wetback," saying he refuses to be politically correct. Pro-migrant rallies incense him because he believes some Hispanics are looking to "take back" the Southwest.

Nevertheless, the 50-year-old son agrees with his father on the need for a worker program and a mechanism to expedite the citizenship process. "Anybody that doesn't believe we need workers coming in is an idiot," he says.

Though it pains him, he also agrees with Arizona's Democratic governor, Janet Napolitano, that walls and fences won't solve anything. The Ladd ranch has a wall, a few hundred feet of steel barricading a small slice of border. John calls it "ugly"; immigrants walk around it. He'd much prefer a shorter rail barrier that migrants could hop but that would keep his cattle penned in and Mexican cattle out.

"Show me a 50-foot wall," he says, "and I'll show you a 55-foot ladder."…”

From the local Palominas community publication. I’m doing a copy and paste. From it you should be able to realize the anti-immigration activists ARE NOT LOCAL. They are people coming in from locations other than Cochise County. This is terribly important and completely unreported. The locals, for the most part, are not involved in any of this activity. Fact is, when you stop in Palominas and start asking a few questions, the locals have a tendency to make fun of the outsiders who come in to stop the “alien invasion”.

Volunteers travel from afar to build border fence (5/29/2006) By Jonathan Clark
Herald/Review  PALOMINAS — For many people, building a barbed-wire fence under the burning Arizona sun would probably be the last way they would want to spend their Memorial Day weekend. Not Minuteman Project volunteer Christie Czajkowski, however. She signed up for the group’s weekend fence-building inauguration almost as soon as she heard about it — even though it meant driving 15 hours from her home in Chula Vista, Calif.  “What else am I going to do, go to another beach party?” laughed the 33-year-old baker as she paused from a turn at stringing wire. “No, I need to do something to protect my country.”  Czajkowski is among the several dozen volunteers spending the long weekend at Jack and John Ladd’s ranch in Palominas. They are constructing the first stretch of a barrier that the Minutemen hope will cover all of the Ladds’ 10 miles of border frontage by summer’s end.  After that, the group says it will keep on building border fences until the federal government relieves them of the task.  For her part, Czajkowski is only planning to stick around in Palominas until tonight. After that, she needs to get back to her job and her two children, aged 7 and 9, who are spending the weekend with their grandmother.  But she expects to join up again with the project when the Minutemen break ground on a border fence in El Centro, Calif, later this year. And she plans on bringing her kids — both fledgling patriots — to the event.  “I send them to school every day in American flag T-shirts,” said Czajkowski, who was decked out Sunday in her own “American Mom” T-shirt topped with a USA-logo baseball cap.  Czajkowski was far from the only volunteer to travel great distances to Palominas this weekend. At Saturday’s groundbreaking ceremony, master of ceremonies Stacey O’Connell, director of Minuteman operations in Arizona, asked the crowd to identify where they had come from.  Hands shot into the air were followed by shout-out answers ranging from “Georgia” and “Ohio” to “New Hampshire” and “Boston.”  Robert Hassett, 63, drove two days from Franktown, Colo., in his Mitsubishi Montage to help build the fence, which had stretched to about 1.2 miles of 4-foot metal post and barbed wire by early Sunday afternoon. Another 150 feet of 15-foot, Israeli anti-terrorist-style barrier is also planned for the site.  Hassett, who recently retired after 33 years in the insurance business, said he had two reasons for coming to build border fencing in Arizona.  The first was a feeling that the government was not doing its part to stem the tide of illegal immigration. The second was that he was recently diagnosed with terminal cancer and wanted to make the most of his remaining time.  Sweating under the midday sun and fighting to catch his breath after pounding a fencepost into the ground, Hassett acknowledged that the strain of the job was probably not the best medicine for his condition.  “If my doctor knew what I was doing, I think he’d have a heart attack,” he said.  “But this reminds me of when I was in the Marines and I felt like I was really doing something for my country.”  In addition to volunteering with the Minutemen, Loch David Crane of Ocean Beach, Calif., also likes to play Santa Claus for needy children at Christmas. During the rest of the year, he puts on a western comedy magic show under the stage name “Bafflin’ Bill Cody,” complete with Lakota Indian props.  Crane is also a big “Star Trek” enthusiast, and when he’s back at home in California, he drives around town in a vehicle he calls the “Star Trike,” a three-wheeled motorcycle designed to replicate the Enterprise space craft from the popular TV show. Not long after he returns home from his Memorial Day fence-building weekend, Crane will help host a convention of fellow “Trekkies” in Anaheim.  He saw little connection between his Trekkie and Minuteman activities, however.  “Trekkies live in a world of fantasy and the future,” he said. “But the Minutemen are very much of the moment. If there wasn’t a threat right now, we wouldn’t be here.”  Crane, 53, is already retired from the everyday working world. But when Czajkowski was asked what her restaurant co-workers thought of her decision to drive to Arizona and build a Minuteman fence, she said that some were so excited that they packed her van with 12 coolers of drinks and snacks to share among the volunteers.  Her undocumented co-workers — of which she has many, she said — would probably not be so approving if she had told them what she was doing. After all, she noted, she recently turned a few of them in to the INS.

Minuteman fence: Israeli-style barrier planned for Palominas (5/23/2006)  By Jonathan Clark

Herald/Review  BISBEE — A plan by the Minuteman Project to build an Israeli-style border fence on the property of a local rancher over Memorial Day weekend is raising concern with county officials — as well as with the rancher himself.
The leader of the civilian border watch group, Chris Simcox, announced the barrier-building effort in April as a response to the government’s failure to secure the nation’s porous southern border. He said the Minutemen had chosen a design based on Israeli fences in Gaza and the West Bank that have proven effective in curtailing terrorist attacks.  On Monday, the group’s national executive director, Al Garza, confirmed that the Minutemen were still planning on the Israeli design as they prepared to break ground this weekend at a Palominas ranch — a prospect that troubled some local officials.  “I do agree that people should be able to build fences, and I don’t think the government should inhibit that,” said Cochise County Supervisor Paul Newman.  “But seeing the diagram (posted on the Minuteman website), it concerns me that it really is a military-like structure — in fact it’s designed after an Israeli military barrier.”  Assistant County Administrator Jim Vlahovich said that while no formal permission is needed for building fences in the county’s rural areas, the structure proposed by the Minuteman — two parallel 12-to-15-foot fences with anti-vehicle ditches and eight feet of coiled barbed wire on either side — could constitute an exception.  “I think this moves out of the category of fence,” he said.  Palominas rancher Jack Ladd, the owner of the property where the fence is to be built, also expressed unease with the barrier design.  “(The Minutemen) had a diagram of what they wanted to build, and we did not want something like that,” he said.  “What we want is a barbed-wire fence with metal railings that will keep the drive-throughs from occurring and keep Mexican cattle out.”  Garza said his group was willing to alter its design to suit the ranch owner, but not the county government.  “It’s going to be (Ladd’s) preference, obviously, so if he wants to change it, he certainly will have the option,” he said.  But Garza did not feel the group was obligated to clear its plans with local officials.  “How do illegal immigrants get into our country? Do they ask permission? They do not,” he said.  “The bottom line is we’ve already tried our local government, we’ve tried our federal government, we’ve tried everything we could think of to ensure the security of our citizens,” Garza continued. “This is a critical time and we need to do everything and anything in our power to secure our border.”  Newman said Ladd’s conception of a border fence would not be likely to cause a conflict with the county. But he said he would consult with the county attorney’s office and with planning officials to consider a course of action if the military design were to be used.  When Simcox announced the project last month, he said six private ranches in Southern Arizona were being considered as locations for a 150-foot length of fence. Last week, Garza confirmed that the barrier would be built in Cochise County, but citing security concerns, did not release the name of the selected site.  On Monday, however, Ladd told the Herald/Review that his ranch would be the site of this weekend’s fence construction.   According to the Minuteman Project website, more than 1,000 people have signed up to help build the barrier and supporters have donated more than $225,000 to the effort. The group hopes to raise another $10 million to build more fencing along the border.  The Memorial Day fence-building weekend kicks off Friday night in Tombstone with an outdoor showing of the documentary film “Cries from the Border” by local director Mercedes Maharris. On Saturday, Minuteman Project volunteers will check in at the Palominas Trading Post before being escorted to the ranch for a groundbreaking ceremony.  Guest speakers at the event will include Simcox; Garza; Republican gubernatorial candidate and Minuteman member Don Goldwater; and former presidential candidate and conservative political analyst Alan Keyes.  Colin Hanna, president of WeNeedaFence.com, will also speak at the event. He is credited with contributing the Israeli-style barrier design to the effort...."