REAL-LIFE HORROR STORIES: Report on the Vanishing Quality of Life Near the Border

Leo W. Banks follows one of Arizona's most popular illegal alien crossing routes and finds piles of garbage, trampled public lands, angry residents and the suspected presence of a vicious gang.

Following the Amnesty Trail
By LEO W. BANKS PUBLISHED ON FEBRUARY 15, 2007:

In the coming weeks, as President Bush and the Democrat-controlled Congress take up immigration reform, and the political talk turns to amnesty, everyone living along border smuggling routes will hunker down to wait for the worst. They know their lives will get miserable in a hurry.
The word amnesty possesses remarkable power on the Mexican side of the line. It has the same effect as a starter's pistol.
Bang! Let the land rush begin.
It happened after Jan. 7, 2004, when Bush floated his idea for a temporary worker program. The idea was broadly viewed in Mexico as amnesty, and the Border Patrol's own survey proved it. In the weeks following the proposal, the agency quietly questioned crossers apprehended at the southern border and found the president's plan had caused a big spike in illegal crossings. Forty-five percent said they'd entered our country "to get Bush's amnesty."
Nowhere will the coming stampede be more evident than on the smuggling routes that begin at the border at Sasabe, 65 miles southwest of Tucson, curl up through the Altar Valley and continue all the way to the Ironwood Forest National Monument, a full 75 miles north of the border.

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