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The Yuma 14 desert01
Introduction
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A Broken Immigration System
The Devil's Highway
The Yuma 14
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© Charlene Garcia Simms

square1 Legislature

Immigration laws are endless, with the implementation of several border enforcement operations such as: Operation Hold-the-Line, Operation Rio Grande, Operation Safeguard, and Operation Gatekeeper. A good resource that details the most recent laws is a recently published book, Crossings, Mexican Immigration in Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco, published by Harvard University Press.

The operation that affected an increase of crossers in Arizona was Operation Gatekeeper.  It was launched on October 1,1997, on the San Diego border, the busiest in the nation. The crossers switched to more dangerous areas such as the southern desert of Arizona to cross.

[http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/jun1999/ins-j25.shtml]
(Note: if this link does not work type in Operation Gatekeeper in your browser).

Most recent initiative:In March 2004, an announcement was made that the Arizona Border Control Initiative (ABC) will add 200 agents, two unmanned aerial vehicles, four helicopters and new holding facilities in the form of air conditioned tents in Florence, capable of holding about 500 more illegal entrants. The initiative is expected to cost more than $10 million, to start in June and run through September 2004. Asa Hutchinson, Undersecretary of Border and Transportation Security for The Department of Homeland Security, stated that current immigration polices are broken and no longer work, and that the Arizona Border Control Initiative coupled with the president's guest worker program, will make a difference. Meanwhile Humane Borders is preparing 20 more water stations for the crossers.   Arizona shares more than 100 miles of border with Mexico. Much of the land on the U. S. side is federal land that provides habitat for endangered species. Rep. Raúl Grijalva states that pushing people into the desert will not solve the problem and it will harm our fragile environment. We need to know what environmental impact this plan will have on places like the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge and the Organ Pipe National Monument, but the agencies have not revealed this potential impact. He further states that the ABC initiative is clearly another effort by the Bush administration to bypass environmental laws without public involvement.

A Marshall Plan for Mexico?
[http://www.azcentral.com/news/specials/migrants/viewpoints.html]