D
don Gabacho
Guest
Mexico migrants use cycles to cross Arizona desert
Mon Aug 21, 2006 8:31 PM ET
THREE POINTS, Arizona (Reuters) - Illegal immigrants and drug
traffickers are using
dilapidated bicycles to make a swift, night-time dash over the desert
to Arizona from
Mexico, border police say.
Border Patrol agents in the desert state are finding dozens of the
bikes dumped at
hamlets such as Three Points, southwest of Tucson, which are used as
staging areas by
smugglers ferrying marijuana and immigrants on to cities inland.
"The illegals use bicycles, either riding them on ranch roads or the
foot trails
themselves, as a quicker means of getting north," said Border Patrol
agent Kevin
Nutwell as he inspected a rusty bike discarded on one lonely trail
south of Three
Points.
Agents say it takes up to three days to walk the 45-mile (72-km) trail
from the
border to Three Points, where immigrants are picked up for an onward
journey to
Tucson and Phoenix either by truck or packed into cars.
Stealthy cyclists who make the trip in groups of up to 10 people led by
a guide or
"coyote" can make the trip in just a few hours.
Reuters saw two bicycles dumped on ranch trails outside Three Points,
one a 10-speed
mountain bike, the other a rusted Chinese model with fat tires and wing
handlebars.
"The bikes have no amenities like brakes and they sometimes are lucky
to have a seat
on them," Nutwell said.
"They spray paint the bikes flat-black and remove reflectors so that it
is easier to
travel at night undetected," he added.
Southern Arizona is the most heavily transited area along the porous
2,000-mile
(3,200-km) U.S. border with Mexico.
Last year the cactus-studded corridor south of Tucson was used by more
than a third
of the 1.2 million illegal immigrants caught crossing the international
line.
Nutwell said agents also found bicycles that had been rigged with
special frames to
carry bundles of marijuana along the back roads that crisscross the
lonely stretch of
desert.
"It's just one of the ingenious forms of smuggling that we come across;
there's no
end to it."
When the Senate passed their Amnesty Bill, the vote was 62 for, 36
against. Of the 36 against amnesty for millions, four were democrats
and 32 were republicans. 36 True Americans.
There are more American heroes in The People's House....these are the
mainly
conservative Representatives that voted to close the border and take
action
against the aliens that are in this country illegally, breaking our
laws every
day. True American Heroes.
The People's House is all that is standing between the American public
and the Senate's Amnesty Bill.
Mon Aug 21, 2006 8:31 PM ET
THREE POINTS, Arizona (Reuters) - Illegal immigrants and drug
traffickers are using
dilapidated bicycles to make a swift, night-time dash over the desert
to Arizona from
Mexico, border police say.
Border Patrol agents in the desert state are finding dozens of the
bikes dumped at
hamlets such as Three Points, southwest of Tucson, which are used as
staging areas by
smugglers ferrying marijuana and immigrants on to cities inland.
"The illegals use bicycles, either riding them on ranch roads or the
foot trails
themselves, as a quicker means of getting north," said Border Patrol
agent Kevin
Nutwell as he inspected a rusty bike discarded on one lonely trail
south of Three
Points.
Agents say it takes up to three days to walk the 45-mile (72-km) trail
from the
border to Three Points, where immigrants are picked up for an onward
journey to
Tucson and Phoenix either by truck or packed into cars.
Stealthy cyclists who make the trip in groups of up to 10 people led by
a guide or
"coyote" can make the trip in just a few hours.
Reuters saw two bicycles dumped on ranch trails outside Three Points,
one a 10-speed
mountain bike, the other a rusted Chinese model with fat tires and wing
handlebars.
"The bikes have no amenities like brakes and they sometimes are lucky
to have a seat
on them," Nutwell said.
"They spray paint the bikes flat-black and remove reflectors so that it
is easier to
travel at night undetected," he added.
Southern Arizona is the most heavily transited area along the porous
2,000-mile
(3,200-km) U.S. border with Mexico.
Last year the cactus-studded corridor south of Tucson was used by more
than a third
of the 1.2 million illegal immigrants caught crossing the international
line.
Nutwell said agents also found bicycles that had been rigged with
special frames to
carry bundles of marijuana along the back roads that crisscross the
lonely stretch of
desert.
"It's just one of the ingenious forms of smuggling that we come across;
there's no
end to it."
When the Senate passed their Amnesty Bill, the vote was 62 for, 36
against. Of the 36 against amnesty for millions, four were democrats
and 32 were republicans. 36 True Americans.
There are more American heroes in The People's House....these are the
mainly
conservative Representatives that voted to close the border and take
action
against the aliens that are in this country illegally, breaking our
laws every
day. True American Heroes.
The People's House is all that is standing between the American public
and the Senate's Amnesty Bill.
