[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 7170]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              UNDER SIEGE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, a friend of mine in Texas, John, sent 
me a recent article from the Tucson Weekly written by Leo Banks. The 
article shines a bright light on life in Arizona north of the border 
and the shock after the murder of Arizona rancher Robert Krentz. The 
murderer shot Rob, then his dog, and then fled down the Black Draw on 
the Geronimo Trail, headed back to Mexico. Rob's sister, Susan Pope, 
says things have gotten so bad, she can't honestly remember the last 
time she felt secure.
  The Popes' home is in the mountains and it has been broken into three 
times. Susan works as a bus driver and a teacher at the one-room Apache 
Elementary School. That elementary school has been burglarized so many 
times that nothing of value remains there. How can you teach children 
in an atmosphere like that? They say everybody there knew something 
like Rob Krentz' murder was about to happen.
  Susie Morales lives near Nogales. She said, when she cooks dinner in 
her kitchen, she can look out and see people, drug mules, with 
backpacks full of drugs. They are on a trail 75 yards from her front 
door. Another trail 50 yards from her back door exists. These trails 
are so close that, when Susie spots the paramilitary squads, she runs 
into her bathroom with her cell phone, hides and shuts the door. She 
has to keep her voice down so the drug cartels don't hear her calling 
for help, and she carries a .357 magnum with her at all times.
  Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano, however, says arrests are 
down on the border's 262-mile-wide Tucson sector. Those arrests are not 
numbers of actual crossers, however, and these misleading statistics 
are used to say border security is working.
  However, the truth is just the opposite. The people who got away from 
officially numbered arrests outnumber them three to one. Frontline 
lawmen will tell you that it is more like four or five to one to get 
away.
  The Feds boast of 628 miles of fencing now in place, but only 310 
miles of that is actually fence. The rest of it, 318 miles, is vehicle 
barriers that don't stop anybody on foot. Foot traffic still pours over 
the mountains south of Sierra Vista to the tune of 1,500 a week 
according to local citizens who count them by placing hidden cameras on 
the trails. Rancher John Ladd counted some 350 illegals on his San Jose 
ranch over a period of 18 days before this newspaper interview. He says 
he is on the phone with the Border Patrol on an average of three times 
a day, seven days a week, to report groups crossing his ranch.
  As one resident said, ``We are under the gun all the time. There are 
people watching us all the time. The smugglers have scouts on the hills 
watching us, watching Customs, watching Border Patrol. They're 
terrorists, very militaristic, and they get a high out of it. As long 
as they can get away with it, it's okay. That's their mentality.''
  They say the most dangerous thing you can do as a citizen is reach 
for your cell phone if seen by one of the drug smugglers. Forget you 
even own one. Keep your hands visible. And no sudden moves if you are 
spotted. If you encounter the wrong guy and he thinks you are calling 
Border Patrol, he might just start shooting at you.
  Now, when men go out to work at their corrals on the border on their 
ranches, sometimes miles from the house, their wives go along, too. 
They are afraid to be alone in their own home. That is no way to live, 
Mr. Speaker.
  People on the border are under siege by the crime cartels. The 
people-smuggling operations have been taken over by the drug cartels, 
and the coyotes and the drug cartels work together to smuggle people 
and drugs across the border, all in the name of money. To cross around 
Douglas, the rate has gone up to $2,500 per person. When they don't 
have the money to pay the drug smugglers and the coyotes, they carry 
drugs as payment to cross.
  Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever said in recent Senate testimony, 
``I guarantee that every group coming across that border today has a 
gun.'' Just Friday, a deputy sheriff was shot by narco-terrorists 
carrying AK-47s in Pinal County, 70 miles north of the border.
  Those ill-informed elites that don't live in a border State, but 
reside in high rises in New York or San Francisco, live in ``never-
never land'' when they criticize Arizona for trying to protect its 
people.
  The border is not safe. Ask people who live on the border, both 
Mexicans in Mexico and Americans in the United States. Those residents 
call the border a war zone.
  The United States protects the borders of other nations. It's about 
time we protect our own border.
  And that's just the way it is.

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