National Geographic Channel : Border Wars

My wife has been watching NGC, the National Geographic Channel, for years...including, of late, the Border Wars program. She complained that it seemed California and Texas were getting all the attention, though--didn't "they" realize Arizona was in the thick of things as well?

Her attitude changed this morning. Border Wars had discovered Nogales, Arizona. I sat down to watch with her, snapping screen shots the entire time. The action was intense, too, requiring a click-the-shutter rate five times as fast as when I'm photo-shooting Sarah Palin's Alaska. A single hour of this stuff provides enough material for a dozen hubs.

Let's start with just one, the first focus of which is: Money and guns. Here, for the first time ever, I have to give an appreciative nod to our Homeland Security Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano. She has introduced the border Port of Entry practice of closely checking southbound traffic for guns and/or money headed into Mexico--not just northbound traffic for drugs headed into the United States.

As we watched, BP  (Border Patrol, not British Petroleum) agents snagged a southbounder attempting to smuggle more than $340,000 in cold, hard cash back to the cartels. That not only hits the cartels where it hurts; it also helps us by keeping a fair chunk of change here in America.

In federal hands, to be true, but still....

Secretary Napolitano, you've actually done something right; kudos to you!

Another BP mission on the Border Wars program focused on finding 18 illegal immigrants lost in the unforgiving desert before the desert killed them. They'd been out there for days, and their coyote (human-smuggling guide) had taken off like a rabbit with real coyotes on its tail when his charges could no longer continue. Only the cell phone he'd left behind saved them; they were able to contact the Border Patrol.

It was still very, very close despite BP's use of a Blackhawk helicopter to aid in the search. The Sonoran desert is not a small place. Putting the chopper on the ground wasn't easy, either, but the pilot finally managed it--stone blind in the rotor-generated sandstorm swirling about his craft, yet he got it done.

Then came the discovery: These weren't just people looking for work. Not all of them. Among their number were two eight year old girls, darling twins that were most likely slated for the slave trade, scheduled to become prostitutes for a few years until they were worn out and "discarded". A man among the adults in the group at first claimed to be their father, but the kids themselves put the lie to that. Then the fellow admitted his fib...and also let officers know that he was supposed to take them to New York. Possibly to their parents, from whom they'd been separated for years...

...but probably not.

Thousands of girls are smuggled in from Mexico and reduced to slavery, worked as owned prostitutes in America, every single year. It's not just drugs for which our nation has a considerable appetite..or which the Mexican cartels are willing to sell for cash. But these girls did not have to face that horror. In the end, they were turned over to the Mexican Consulate.

All of which brings up three specific thoughts:

1. Border Patrol, we're with you all the way, from the agents riding in those white-with-green-stripe vehicles to those on bicycles, on horseback, or skyriding the helicopters. Keep up the good work.

2. Representative Raul Grijalva, o' ye boycotter of thine own state, what are you thinking? We know you push tirelessly for entirely open borders, but why? Don't you care that border crossers die in the desert every year by the hundreds? Don't you care that your policies assist in the degredation, rape, and sometimes even the murder of innocent children who are bought and sold like so many refried beans?

3. Readers, if you would like to truly understand the Border Wars, there's no better way to do it than to sit down in front of your TV set, tune the receiver to NGC (National Geographic Channel)--which comes in via DirecTV in this area on Channel 276--and watch.

The only way to gain any greater insight would be to physically run with either the illegal border crossers or the Border Patrol agents themselves...which is not an activity recommended for beginners.