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The Obama government whipped out their white surrender flag, and handed some 3,500 acres of U.S. land to the worst of Mexican drug smugglers and human traffickers, keeping their entry into the U.S. completely unimpeded. Actually the white flag flew in 2006. Essentially the same closure notice by the Government was issued then, as was issued yesterday. It appears the Arizona area has been closed to the public since 2006 and the was never officially re-opened. We've surrendered to the same enemy...twice. What is going on? See important 6-18-10 update below.
Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge
At RadioViceOnline I read that an area of the Park had been closed for the same reasons - Mexican crime of the worst sort, in 2006 by G. W. Bush. RadioVice links to a pdf of the 2006 closure notice. Then at Mexico's Drug War, they also link to the 2006 notice, and apparently they cannot find where the closure notice was ever rescinded and I can't find it either.
"Rippling grassland flanked by mountains, and riparian zones rich in bird life," - is how the U.S. fish and Wildlife Service describes the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. Sounds beautiful and very American.
Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge provides approximately 118,000 acres of habitat for threatened and endangered plants and animals.
The semidesert grassland supports the reintroduction of masked bobwhite quail and pronghorns.
Prescribed and natural fires play a major role in maintaining and restoring the sea of grass that once filled the Altar Valley. Riparian (wetland) areas along Arivaca Cienega and Creek attract an abundance of birds.
Brown Canyon is nestled in the Baboquivari Mountains, where a sycamore-lined stream meanders through oak woodland.The map of the area closed in 2006 and the map of the area closed this week appear to be the same.
This from an interview in April 2010:
We’ve had numerous officers that have been killed by illegal immigrants in Arizona,” Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu said Monday at a Capitol Hill news conference. “And that shouldn’t happen one time.”
Babeu said the violence in Arizona has reached “epidemic proportions” and must be stopped. “In just one patrol area, we’ve had 64 pursuits -- failure to yield for an officer -- in one month,” Babeu said. “That’s out of control.”There is a transcript of undated testimony before the 109th Congress in 2006 by Mitch Ellis, the Buenos Aires Refuge Manager. Here is a snippet:
I have been invited here today to describe the stark realities of managing lands on the border. To do that, I would like to focus on the area I manage - The Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, located south of Tucson, Arizona....
The refuge is bounded on the west and east by rugged mountains, making the valley a prime avenue for illegal border crossings. The staff at Buenos Aires are faced with the difficulty of continuing the conservation program at the refuge while being constantly affronted by border-related distractions and security issues.Mitchell gives the numbers of those arrested, those who made it through the Park in 2005 (235,000), the homicides, rapes and woundings. Nothing new there.
But this is a National Park, and our taxes pay for it each and every year. So here is how Mitchell says WE were treated:
Our visitors are also being impacted. Staff at our visitor center have been listening to complaints for years regarding the problems associated with illegal border crossers. Many of these visitors state they won't be coming back to the refuge. They relay stories about having their food, water and other belongings stolen. A few have had their vehicles stolen. And there have been a few cases of visitors forcibly removing illegal border crossers from their vehicles to prevent them from being stolen. Fortunately, none of those incidents have resulted in injury. Bur we are extremely concerned about this trend of boldness and violence exhibited by legal border crossers recently.
Human Waste - As the masses of illegal migrants move through the area, human feces and toilet paper litter the landscape. The impacts are health risks to visitors, fouling of wildlife waters, and compromising the aesthetics of the refuge.I found documents with Environmentalists furious that a fence was being erected. Apparently, there is some fence, but not much. Sheriff Barbeau said Obama stopped the fence.
From Don't Press "One" For English:
The closure zone runs right along the Mexican border for a distance of roughly four miles and extends about a mile into U.S. territory. The total area is about 3,500 acres.
Armed Mexicans chasing Americans off U.S. soil? What's President Obama doing about it? Not a damn thing.
What should be done. Send about 2,500 soldiers to the area with orders to shoot anything on two legs. Since Americans aren't allowed in the Refuge, anyone there is an invader. No need for arrests or trials.
Just shoot the bastards and take back our land.If the area was closed in 2006 and never re-opened, why the announcement this week? Have we just let people continue to drive in? Were the signs not prominent enough? And if it was closed in 2006, four years later, why do we still have the problem?
I cannot believe we cannot clean up, and clean out our government for not securing our borders - and should have done the same going back many administrations. The first responsibility of the government is to keep us safe. I contend that we must never, never, never let any administration do this to us again. Never.
Update 6-18-10:
A reader left a comment on this article, saying the area of the Park just closed, is not the same as that closed in 2006:
"The part being ignored is that the Buenos Aires Refuge area was partially closed in 2006 - butthe new closures are farther west and north. Tourism advisories from the BLM cover the Sonoran Desert National Monument, which is near Highway 8 between Casa rand and Gila Bend."
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