[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 6121-6122]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     CONTROLLING AMERICA'S BORDERS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. TANCREDO. Madam Speaker, as we rightfully address the issues that 
are confronting us overseas and the possibility of sending American 
troops into harm's way, I think it is also important for us to think 
about those people who are here in the United States, those citizens, 
who every day, as a matter of fact, face almost warlike conditions at 
places on our borders, a place on our southern border especially, that 
I think there is no other way to describe the activities down there, 
with the number of people coming through that border illegally. That it 
is a battle zone, and there are people there who daily deal with this 
particular problem. I am periodically going to bring several of these 
folks to the attention of the House.
  Today I would like to identify Mr. Roger Barnett and his wife 
Barbara, who own a 22,000-acre ranch located only 2 miles from the 
U.S.-Mexico border near Douglas, Arizona. Mr. Barnett also owns and 
operates a towing and propane gas business with branches in Phoenix, 
Tucson, Wilcox and Sierra Vista.
  Almost any evening after dark, Mr. Barnett can get in his truck, ride 
a short distance across his own land and personally witness groups of 
20, 30, 40, 50, even 100 illegal aliens crossing the property. 
Sometimes, of course, they cross in daylight also.

                              {time}  1615

  Mr. Barnett, his brother, and his wife have personally been 
responsible over the course of the last year for detaining, calling the 
INS, and being able to actually take off of his property over 2,000, I 
say 2,000, people who are trespassing, who are coming across his 
property illegally and, in fact, coming into the United States 
illegally.
  Now, of course, that in and of itself is a challenging experience for 
anybody who lives on that border, but along with it goes a whole lot of 
other problems that are created. Mr. Barnett and all of the other 
ranchers in the area find that their fences are cut. They are 
constantly, and I mean constantly, challenged with the responsibility 
of going out and repairing the fences that have been cut, trampled, 
gates left open, cattle disappearing, cattle being butchered and eaten 
right on the spot by the people who are coming through. The water on 
the property being damaged, the water wells being damaged; the amount 
of trash that accumulates on these properties is enormous, and it 
accumulates at something called layover sites and these are simply 
sites where a large number of illegal aliens will gather and they will 
prepare to be picked up by a truck, by some sort of vehicle in a road 
not too far away from the site. They discard all of their belongings 
because they want to pack as many into these vehicles as possible, so 
they will discard all of the trash that they have been carrying with 
them and certainly a lot of the water bottles, even articles of 
clothing. It is a place of enormous trash and human waste, as a matter 
of fact. This also gets into the water on the ranch when, after a rain, 
it destroys the wells; it becomes something that the cattle cannot 
drink.
  The trucks and the buildings on this gentleman's property, as well as 
many people in the area, have been vandalized. The grasslands needed 
for food for the cattle are continually trampled by the aliens crossing 
and making new paths across the land. They discard, as I say, water 
bottles and trash and plastic bags. The cattle eat the plastic bags and 
die.
  Recently, Mrs. Barnett, Barbara, was driving her truck near her home 
and saw three illegal aliens crossing her farm. She called her husband, 
and he and his brother came out and tried to locate them. After 
following the trail for a period of time, they found a stash of 220 
pounds of marijuana hidden in the mesquite bushes.
  The Border Patrol has told him that some part of his land is used 
every single night by drug traffickers, but the Border Patrol does not 
have the manpower to stop it. Lately, these illegal groups have been 
coming closer to his ranch house using a creek bed hiding spot not 100 
yards from his home. A few months ago, he found a group of 30 and 
called the Border Patrol to come and get them.
  This is happening day after day after day to the people who live in 
this area. This is not a unique story. I identify these people as 
homeland heroes, because they are fighting a war on their own land, on 
their own property, and on the border of the United States; and they 
are doing it certainly without the help of this government. They turn 
to their own government, to the Federal Government and say, what can 
you do? How can you help? What is happening to our property and to our 
lives? Our lives are essentially being destroyed.
  They have to travel everywhere armed. They keep a rifle by the door, 
a loaded rifle by the door in almost every one of these houses up here 
because of the number of vandals that have come in, the number of times 
they have personally been threatened. People have been accosted. Their 
cars have been stolen, hijacked. The illegal aliens will put rocks up 
on the dirt road, stop the vehicles, and then hijack the vehicles.
  Again, this is something that they put up with every single day. 
Madam Speaker, what would we do if that was the way we had to face 
every single day of our lives? I mean, would we not turn to somebody 
for help and say, what is

[[Page 6122]]

going on here? This is incredible. This is, by the way, a relatively 
recent phenomenon, maybe 4 or 5 years. It is a result of a whole lot of 
things, including the fact that the Mexican Government has chosen to 
help move people into the United States illegally to serve some of 
their own needs in the country, Mexico, that is to say.
  These are travesties, Madam Speaker, and they cannot be justified in 
any way, shape, or form. These people are homeland heroes. I want to 
bring them to the attention of my colleagues, and I will continue to do 
so.

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