NPR is reporting this morning that illegal migrants are being kept in unofficial camps in the California desert. Near the small town of Jacumba (pop: 600) is a miles-long gap in the unfinished border wall. There, each night for months, human smugglers have dropped off on average of 300 illegal migrants. The Border Patrol arrives at the gap every morning for daily processing, then takes the newcomers to one of several nearby open-air camps and told to wait. If they leave, they are warned, they will be deported.
The “camps” consist of nothing more than empty desert, with makeshift tents the migrants erect from tarps, rocks, and wood they have scrounged. The Border Patrol exercises no control over them and rarely even visits, except to drop off and pick up. Supplies and aid come from local volunteers.
Many of the locals are unhappy with the situation, including the owner of the land on which one of the camps sits. His name is Jerry Schuster, and he himself 40 years ago was a (legal) immigrant from Yugoslavia. The migrants are destroying his property, he says, often cutting down trees for firewood to fight off the desert night’s chill. They sometimes approach his home and at least once had to be frightened off with gunfire. Schuster has appealed to the Border Patrol for help, but is always told they can do nothing. His ranch, he says, was “his American dream,” but now that dream is dead:
Our government [is] just leaving us behind. American dream is gone. It’s not here no more. . . . That’s just a dream. That’s all that’s left. Just the dreams.
Other Jacumba residents resent what has happened to their community. As volunteers are loading up supplies to take out to the camps, a local woman in a pickup truck pulls up and shouts, “That food over there, is it for Americans? Or do you only help immigrants?” She refuses to give her name, for fear of losing her job, but says, “Nobody is doing nothing about it. Except, ‘Oh let’s help them out.’ ”
A local supporter of the migrants, former social worker Karen Parker, is unhappy as well. She says she comes to the camps to administer first aid for a variety of injuries and illnesses:
Scabies. Parasites. Necrotic scorpion bites. People have had seizures. Diabetic emergencies. Broken bones. Burns, lots of burns.
While sympathetic of the migrants, Parker blames the federal government for inaction:
They’re not taking any kind of responsibility or accountability. They need to let people in through the port of entry. They need to secure our border. I am for a secure border.
The migrants themselves come from all over the world: Latin America, China, Kurds from Turkey, everywhere. Some will ultimately be deported, but statistically, the odds are most will be allowed to remain in the U.S., albeit illegally, awaiting a general amnesty that may or may not be forthcoming.
Thus does the richest and most powerful nation in history maintain its borders.
For more, see NPR.