Thursday, September 2, 2010

WHO PAYS FOR OPEN BORDERS, MEX WELFARE STATE, AND "CHEAP" LABOR ILLEGALS? Not the Rich!

OBAMA AND HIS LA RAZA DEMS; bankster donor bailouts, LA RAZA AMNESTY and BUSH’S SPECIAL TAX REDUCTION FOR THE RICH!
LIKE, WHO’S PAYING FOR THE MEXICAN INVASION AND OCCUPATION?
“THE AMNESTY ALONE WILL BE THE LARGEST EXPANSION OF THE WELFARE SYSTEM IN THE LAST 25 YEARS” Heritage Foundation
"The amnesty alone will be the largest expansion of the welfare system in the last 25 years," says Robert Rector, a senior analyst at the Heritage Foundation, and a witness at a House Judiciary Committee field hearing in San Diego Aug. 2. "Welfare costs will begin to hit their peak around 2021, because there are delays in citizenship. The very narrow time horizon [the CBO is] using is misleading," he adds. "If even a small fraction of those who come into the country stay and get on Medicaid, you're looking at costs of $20 billion or $30 billion per year." (SOCIAL SERVICES TO ILLEGALS IN CALIFORNIA ALONE ARE NOT UP TO $20 BILLION PER YEAR. WELFARE FOR ILLEGALS IN NEVADA, NOW 25% ILLEGAL, IS SOARING!)

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FAIRUS.org
U.S. Taxpayers Spend $113 Billion Annually on Illegal Aliens
America has never been able to afford the costs of illegal immigration. With rising unemployment and skyrocketing deficits, federal and state lawmakers are now facing the results of failed policies. A new, groundbreaking report from FAIR, The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on U.S. Taxpayers, takes a comprehensive look at the estimated fiscal costs resulting from federal, state and local expenditures on illegal aliens and their U.S.-born children.
Expanding upon the series of state studies done in the past, FAIR has estimated the annual cost of illegal immigration to be $113 billion, with much of the cost — $84.2 billon — coming at the state and local level.

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THE ENTIRE REASON THE BORDERS ARE LEFT OPEN IS TO CUT WAGES!

“We could cut unemployment in half simply by reclaiming the jobs taken by illegal workers,” said Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, co-chairman of the Reclaim American Jobs Caucus. “President Obama is on the wrong side of the American people on immigration. The president should support policies that help citizens and legal immigrants find the jobs they need and deserve rather than fail to enforce immigration laws.”


More Dems buck plan to let taxes increase for rich
By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writer 1 hr 4 mins ago
WASHINGTON – Congress seems increasingly reluctant to let taxes go up, even on wealthier Americans.
Worried about the fragile economy and their own upcoming elections, a growing number of Democrats are joining the rock-solid Republican opposition to President Barack Obama's plans to let some of the Bush administration's tax cuts expire.
Democratic leaders in Congress still back Obama, but the willingness to raise taxes is waning among the rank and file as the stagnant economy threatens the party's majority in the House and Senate.
"In my view this is no time to do anything that could be jarring to a fragile recovery," said Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia, a first-term Democrat.
The most sweeping tax cuts in a generation are due to expire in January, and that's setting up a showdown when lawmakers return from their summer vacations this month. By waiting to act on the tax cuts until just before congressional elections in November, Democratic leaders have raised the stakes, politically and for taxpayers.
If Congress fails to act — a possibility given the gridlock that has gripped the Senate — workers at every income level would face significant tax increases next year.
Taxpayers making between $40,000 and $50,000 a year would get hit with an average income tax increase of $923 next year. Those making between $50,000 and $75,000 would face an average increase of $1,126, according to estimates by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation.
Obama wants to make the tax cuts permanent for middle- and low-income families while allowing them to expire for individuals making more than $200,000 and married couples making more than $250,000.
Republicans want to make all the tax cuts permanent, adding nearly $4 trillion to the national debt over the next decade. Most Democrats in Congress support Obama's plan, but a growing number have come out in favor of extending all the reductions for a year or two, leaving the outcome very much in doubt.
"It's going to be hard to resist a one-year extension for everybody, given the state of the economy," said Clint Stretch, a tax expert at the consulting firm Deloitte Tax LLP. "That's where I think the ball is moving."
The tax cuts were enacted in 2001 and 2003 under President George W. Bush. They provided help for both rich and poor, reducing the lowest marginal rates as well as the top ones and several in between. They also provided a wide range of income tax breaks for education, families with children and married couples.
Taxes on capital gains and dividends were reduced, while the federal estate tax was gradually repealed, though only through this year.
Connolly said the nation cannot afford to make all the tax cuts permanent, which would add about $3.9 trillion to the national debt over the next decade according to updated estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
"I would say certainly a year, until we feel more confident about the economic growth of this economy," he said.
Another freshman Democrat, Rep. Bobby Bright of Alabama, said he would like to see all the tax cuts extended for two or three years, if lawmakers cannot agree on a more permanent plan.
"Party leaders are not my directors or my boss," Bright said. "My boss is my constituents, and I've heard from a vast majority of my constituents that they don't believe in tax increases on anybody at this point in time."
Bright is high on the re-election endangered list, one of roughly four dozen Democrats in districts won by Republican presidential nominee John McCain in 2008.
In the Senate, where Democrats need unity and at least one Republican vote to overcome filibusters, at least three Democrats and independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut have said they want to extend all the tax cuts temporarily.
Several Democratic candidates for Senate have also come out in favor of extending them all, including Robin Carnahan in Missouri and Jack Conway in Kentucky.
"Jack Conway was in favor of the Bush tax cuts when they first passed (in 2001 and 2003), and he's in favor of extending the Bush tax cuts now," said spokeswoman Allison Haley.
Obama first staked out his position on taxes during the presidential campaign, and his administration has been adamant that the nation cannot afford to extend the reductions for top earners.
The president's plan is less expensive than extending all the tax cuts, but it would still add more than $3 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, including the cost of an annual fix that spares the middle class from being hit with the Alternative Minimum Tax.
Obama's plan would let taxes increase by a little more than $38 billion next year, with nearly 80 percent of the increase falling on families making more than $1 million, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.
Taxpayers making between $200,000 and $500,000 would face an average tax increase of $532, according to the analysis. Those making from $500,000 to $1 million would average an increase of a little more than $9,800. Taxpayers making more than $1 million would average an increase of just over $95,000.
This week, White House economic adviser Jason Furman said it would be a bad idea to extend tax cuts for the wealthy, even for just a year, because it would open the door to making them permanent. Last week, Vice President Joe Biden said Republican claims that small businesses would be hurt by the proposed tax increase are a "bunch of malarkey."
On Thursday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said extending cuts for the wealthy would do little to improve the economy.
"We are focused first and foremost and only on extending tax cuts for the middle class," Gibbs said.
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LOS ANGELES UNDER MEXICAN OCCUPATION

There are only eight states with a population greater than LOS ANGELES COUNTY, where 47% of those with a job are ILLEGALS USING STOLEN SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS!

Welfare for illegals here is more than $600 million per year! Mex gang crime has spread from Los Angeles to all over the country!

95% of all warrants for arrest are for MEXICAN ILLEGALS.

The tax-free Mexican underground economy is calculated to be $2 BILLION PER YEAR!

1 in 5 births are “anchors” which puts an illegal Mexican, who hopped the border for “free” birthing, on 18 years of welfare! For the rest of the country, it’s 1 in 8 births!

LA RAZA AGENDA:
Richard Alatorre, Los Angeles City Council "They're afraid we're going to take over the governmental institutions and other institutions. They're right. We will take them over. . We are here to stay."



Jose Pescador Osuna, Mexican Consul General We are practicing "La Reconquista" in California."

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"This is country belongs to Mexico" is said by the Mexican Militant. This is a common teaching that the U.S. is really AZTLAN, belonging to Mexicans, which is taught to Mexican kids in Arizona and California through a LA Raza educational program funded by American Tax Payers via President Obama, when he gave LA RAZA $800,000.00 in March of 2009!
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Lou Dobbs Tonight
Monday, February 11, 2008
In California, League of United Latin American Citizens has adopted a resolution to declare "California Del Norte" a sanctuary zone for immigrants. The declaration urges the Mexican government to invoke its rights under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo "to seek third nation neutral arbitration of ....disputes concerning immigration laws and their enforcement." We’ll have the story.
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Lou Dobbs Tonight
Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Gov. Schwarzenegger said California is facing “financial Armageddon”. He is making drastic cuts in the budget for education, health care and services. But there is one place he isn’t making cuts… services for illegal immigrants. These services are estimated to cost the state four to five billion dollars a year. Schwarzenegger said he is “happy” to offer these services. We will have a full report tonight.
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MAYOR OF LOS ANGELES, LA RAZA FASCIST PARTY, ANTONIO “TACO RUNT” VILLARAIGOSA, also a member of racist Mexican party of M.E.Ch.A.

40% of all workers in L.A. County are working for cash and not paying taxes. This is because they are predominantly illegal immigrants.
( L.A. County has 10.2 million people)
95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens.
75% of people on the most wanted list in Los Angeles are illegal aliens.
65% of all births in Los Angeles County are to illegal alien mexicans on Medi-Cal, whose births were paid for by taxpayers.
35% of all inmates in California detention centers are mexican nationals here illegally.
60% of all occupants of HUD properties are illegals.
29% of inmates in federal prisons are illegal aliens.
70% of the United States' annual population growth (and over 90% of California, Florida, and New York) results from immigration.
2% of illegal aliens are picking our crops, but 29% are on welfare.
Over 300,000 illegal aliens in Los Angeles County are living in garages.
The FBI reports half of all gang members in Los Angeles are most likely illegal aliens from south of the border.
And our politicians want them to vote?
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Some Interesting Quotes from Hispanic "Leader” :
“Through love of having children, we are going to take over.” AUGUSTIN CEBADA, BROWN BERETS, THE LA RAZA FASCIST PARTY

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Anchor Babies Grab One Quarter of Welfare Dollars in LA Co

The anchor baby scam has proven lucrative for illegal aliens in Los Angeles County, at considerable cost to our own poor and downtrodden legal citizenry.

The numbers show that more than $50 million in CalWORKS benefits and food stamps for January went to children born in the United States whose parents are in the country without documentation. This represents approximately 23 percent of the total benefits under the state welfare and food stamp programs, Antonovich said.

"When you add this to $350 million for public safety and nearly $500 million for health care, the total cost for illegal immigrants to county taxpayers far exceeds $1 billion a year -- not including the millions of dollars for education," Antonovich said.

I love children and I'm all for compassion -- smart, teach-them-to-fish compassion. But when laws, the Constitution, and enforcement allow illegal aliens (the operative word here being "illegal") to insinuate themselves into our nation and bleed us of our precious financial resources, then laws, the Constitution and enforcement need to be changed.


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MEXICANOCCUPATION.blogspot.com
FAIRUS.org
JUDICIALWATCH.org
ALIPAC.us
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JUDICIAL WATCH
SANCTUARY COUNTY LOS ANGELES SPENDS $600 MILLION ON WELFARE FOR ILLEGALS
County Spends $600 Mil On Welfare For Illegal Immigrants
Last Updated: Thu, 03/11/2010 - 3:14pm
For the second consecutive year taxpayers in a single U.S. county will dish out more than half a billion dollars just to cover the welfare and food-stamp costs of illegal immigrants.
Los Angeles County, the nation’s most populous, may be in the midst of a dire financial crisis but somehow there are plenty of funds for illegal aliens. In January alone, anchor babies born to the county’s illegal immigrants collected more than $50 million in welfare benefits. At that rate the cash-strapped county will pay around $600 million this year to provide illegal aliens’ offspring with food stamps and other welfare perks.
The exorbitant figure, revealed this week by a county supervisor, doesn’t even include the enormous cost of educating, medically treating or incarcerating illegal aliens in the sprawling county of about 10 million residents. Los Angeles County annually spends more than $1 billion for those combined services, including $500 million for healthcare and $350 million for public safety.
About a quarter of the county’s welfare and food stamp issuances go to parents who reside in the United States illegally and collect benefits for their anchor babies, according to the figures from the county’s Department of Social Services. In 2009 the tab ran $570 million and this year’s figure is expected to increase by several million dollars.
Illegal immigration continues to have a “catastrophic impact on Los Angeles County taxpayers,” the veteran county supervisor (Michael Antonovich) who revealed the information has said. The former fifth-grade history teacher has repeatedly come under fire from his liberal counterparts for publicizing statistics that confirm the devastation illegal immigration has had on the region. Antonovich, who has served on the board for nearly three decades, represents a portion of the county that is roughly twice the size of Rhode Island and has about 2 million residents.
His district is simply a snippet of a larger crisis. Nationwide, Americans pay around $22 billion annually to provide illegal immigrants with welfare benefits that include food assistance programs such as free school lunches in public schools, food stamps and a nutritional program (known as WIC) for low-income women and their children. Tens of billions more are spent on other social services, medical care, public education and legal costs such as incarceration and public defenders.

OBAMA, THE LA RAZA OWNED COWARD!

Governor Brewer responds to Senator Schumer's letter (Real Courage and Leadership)
June 3, 2010
Read Senator Schumer's letter

The Honorable Charles E. Schumer
Chairman

Re: Correspondence on Border Security

Dear Senator Schumer:

I appreciate your interest in helping us secure our border and recognizing my duty as Governor to address the public security concerns of Arizonans.

Arizona's border regions, extending into metropolitan Phoenix and Tucson, have become increasingly lawless because the federal government has not effectively controlled our international border and enforced its immigration laws. The federal government's policy of securing the border in the El Paso and San Diego areas has turned Arizona into the superhighway of illegal drug and human smuggling activity. The City of Phoenix has earned the dubious distinction of being the kidnapping capital of the United States, ranking only second behind Mexico City in the world. Busts of drop houses, where illegal immigrants are often held for ransom and otherwise severely abused, are not uncommon occurrences in some Arizona neighborhoods.

HOW MUCH WILL OBAMA ASSAULT AMERICANS FOR ILLEGALS' VOTES? He's Only Just Getting Started!

OBAMA’S LONG HISTORY OF HISPANDERING….
"This is country belongs to Mexico" is said by the Mexican Militant. This is a common teaching that the U.S. is really AZTLAN, belonging to Mexicans, which is taught to Mexican kids in Arizona and California through a LA Raza educational program funded by American Tax Payers via President Obama, when he gave LA RAZA $800,000.00 in March of 2009!
OUTSIDE OF MEXICO CITY, THE LARGEST NUMBER OF KIDNAPPINGS IS IN PHOENIX.

EVERYDAY THERE IS A KIDNAPPING BY A MEXICAN IN PHOENIX!

http://arizona.mugshotlist.com/

http://arizona.mugshotlist.com/mugshots/male/

http://arizona.mugshotlist.com/mugshots/female/
TEN MOST WANTED CRIMINALS IN CALIFORNIA ARE MEXICANS!
http://ag.ca.gov/wanted/mostwanted.php?fid=mostWantedFugitives_2010-01
Lou Dobbs Tonight
CNN -- July 27 Pilgrim: Well presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama voiced support for yesterday's court ruling that struck down Hazleton's illegal immigration law. Senator Obama called the federal court ruling a victory for all Americans. The senator said comprehensive reform is needed so local communities do not continue to take matters into their own hands. Senator Obama was a supporter of the Senate's failed immigration bill, which would have given amnesty to millions of illegal aliens.
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Feds sue Arizona sheriff in civil rights probe
From the Associated Press


The U.S. Justice Department sued Sheriff Joe aaio on Thursday, saying the Arizona lawman refused for more than a year to turn over records in an investigation into allegations his department discriminates against Hispanics.

The lawsuit calls Arpaio and his office's defiance "unprecedented," and said the federal government has been trying since March 2009 to get officials to comply with its probe of alleged discrimination, unconstitutional searches and seizures and having English-only policies in his jails that discriminates against people with limited English skills. Arpaio had been given until Aug. 17 to hand over documents it first asked for 15 months ago.

Arpaio's attorney, Robert Driscoll, declined immediate comment on the lawsuit, saying he had just received it and hadn't yet conferred with his client.

Arpaio's office had said it has fully cooperated in the jail inquiry but won't hand over additional documents into the examination of the alleged unconstitutional searches because federal authorities haven't said exactly what they were investigating.

It's the latest action against Arizona by the federal government, which requires police officers to determine the status of people they have legally detained whom they suspect of being in the country illegally.

The actions of the sheriff's office are unprecedented," said Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general for the department's civil rights division. "It is unfortunate that the department was forced to resort to litigation to gain access to public documents and facilities."

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Phoenix and names Arpaio, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office and the county.

Arizona's new law -- most of which a federal judge has put on hold -- mirrors many of the policies Arpaio has put into place in the greater Phoenix area, where he set up a hot line for the public to report immigration violations, conducts crime and immigration sweeps in heavily Latino neighborhoods and frequently raids workplaces for people in the U.S. illegally.

Arpaio believes the inquiry is focused on his immigration sweeps, patrols where deputies flood an area of a city -- in some cases heavily Latino areas -- to seek out traffic violators and arrest other offenders.

Critics say his deputies pull people over for minor traffic infractions because of the color of their skin so they can ask them for their proof of citizenship.

Arpaio denies allegations of racial profiling, saying people are stopped if deputies have probable cause to believe they've committed crimes and that it's only afterward that deputies find many of them are illegal immigrants.

The sheriff's office has said half of the 1,032 people arrested in the sweeps have been illegal immigrants.

Last year, the federal government stripped Arpaio of his special power to enforce federal immigration law. The sheriff continued his sweeps through the enforcement of state immigration laws.

Last year, the nearly $113 million that the county received from the federal government accounted for about 5% of the county's $2-billion budget. Arpaio's office said it receives $3 million to $4 million each year in federal funds.

In a separate investigation, a federal grand jury in Phoenix is examining allegations that Arpaio has abused his powers with actions such as intimidating county workers by showing up at their homes at nights and on weekends.
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HOW MUCH WILL OBAMA EXPAND MEX WELFARE STATE?
high cost of illegals

Arizona’s illegal immigrant population is costing the state’s taxpayers even more than once thought -- a whopping $2.7 billion in 2009, according to researchers at the public interest group that helped write the state's new immigration law.

Researchers at FAIR – The Federation for American Immigration Reform -- released data exclusively to FoxNews.com that show a steady cost climb in multiple areas, including incarceration, education and health, in the last five years.

FAIR’s cost estimates – compiled for a comprehensive national immigration report it plans to release next month – include several new cost areas, including welfare and the justice system, that weren’t in previous reports.

FAIR admits that the cost to implement the new law in some of those categories, such as incarceration, will add to the economic strain on the state. But overall, it says, the loss of immigrants either from the deterrent effect of the law, voluntary exodus or from mass deportations, will help the state financially.

Also, the savings to the state will far overwhelm any fallout from boycotts (estimated at between $7 million and $52 million) being threatened in the wake of the law's passage, according to FAIR spokesman Bob Dane.

FAIR's new breakdown shows that illegal immigrants take $1.6 billion from Arizona's education system, $694.8 million from health care services, $339.7 million in law enforcement and court costs, $85.5 million in welfare costs and $155.4 million in other general costs.

The organization concedes that enforcing Arizona SB1070, the new law that allows local police to ask for immigration documents and arrest those who don’t have them, will increase the state’s incarceration costs, police training budgets and prosecution expenses -- but it says those numbers can’t yet be estimated with certainty. Also, it says, some of those costs will be offset by revenues from fines levied against businesses charged with knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, as well as from immigrants themselves who might be charged with minor crimes and fined before being deported.

But the Immigration Policy Center, a major opponent of the new law, says FAIR's data do not accurately portray SB1070's potential outcome. “They count the costs and don’t look at the benefits. We tend to look at the benefits more closely,” said Council spokeswoman Wendy Sefsaf.

“It is like having a roommate and counting how much they cost in toilet paper and incidentals without looking at the benefits of having help with the rent,” she said.

“Overall, every comprehensive study has shown that immigrants are a net benefit to states. If you add their children, they are a very great benefit.”

The Center’s cost crunching found that "if all unauthorized immigrants were removed from Arizona, the state would lose $26.4 billion in economic activity, $11.7 billion in gross state product and approximately 140,324 jobs,” -- a disaster for the Grand Canyon State.

But FAIR’s numbers tell a far different story.

(Because of the polarizing nature of the debate and the lack of solid figures on everything from the number of illegal immigrants in the state to how to accurately figure their share of the costs, there are no numbers either side agrees on or has not challenged.)

Jack Martin, the chief researcher on the report, says his data, in fact, do include benefits like the estimated $142.8 million in taxes paid by an estimated 500,000 illegal immigrants, and he says the Council’s numbers are unrealistic.

“They assume every illegal alien will leave right away," Martin said. "That is not going to happen.”

He said FAIR'S new estimates far exceed the report he wrote in 2004, which helped gain support for the passage of the Arizona law. In 2004, he said, he estimated that illegal immigrants cost the state $1.3 billion -- less than half the new estimate.

He said the new numbers put a reliable cost estimate on the economic impact of illegal immigration -- not just in Arizona, because the debate there largely ended with the passage of the immigration law, but nationally, as the debate spreads across the country.

”The numbers just keep growing,” Dane said.

Both Dane and Martin said that among FAIR’s most important findings was an estimate that tax revenues to the state will actually increase if illegal immigrants leave.

“We discovered after looking at places where big raids were made that salaries went up after the raids because employers now had to pay competitive wages to Americans.” Martin said. “And that will mean more money for the state.”

WHEN WILL MEXICO STOP EXPORTING ITS POOR? When Obama Stops Inviting Them In!

WHEN WILL MEXICO DO SOMETHING FOR THEIR POOR OTHER THAN EXPORTING THEM?
When Obama and the LA RAZA DEMS stop handing them our jobs, free birthing, welfare, free medical, free education and guaranteed LA RAZA SANCTUARY CITY SUPREMACY!
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“THE AMNESTY ALONE WILL BE THE LARGEST EXPANSION OF THE WELFARE SYSTEM IN THE LAST 25 YEARS” Heritage Foundation
"The amnesty alone will be the largest expansion of the welfare system in the last 25 years," says Robert Rector, a senior analyst at the Heritage Foundation, and a witness at a House Judiciary Committee field hearing in San Diego Aug. 2. "Welfare costs will begin to hit their peak around 2021, because there are delays in citizenship. The very narrow time horizon [the CBO is] using is misleading," he adds. "If even a small fraction of those who come into the country stay and get on Medicaid, you're looking at costs of $20 billion or $30 billion per year." (SOCIAL SERVICES TO ILLEGALS IN CALIFORNIA ALONE ARE NOT UP TO $20 BILLION PER YEAR. WELFARE FOR ILLEGALS IN NEVADA, NOW 25% ILLEGAL, IS SOARING!)


Arizona desert crossing lures migrants, despite deadly risks
By AMANDA LEE MYERS and JULIE WATSON
The Associated Press
NOGALES, Mexico —
Hector Ortega stumbled across the body of a fellow migrant as he walked across Arizona's desert in the searing summer heat. He tried not to look too closely.
With nothing to be done for the dead, Ortega and the others trudged on, guided by a smuggler across the U.S. border, determined to complete their illegal odyssey as they endured record-high temperatures and fever-pitch resentment.
At 64, the farm laborer with a weathered face, strong hands and silver hair protruding from his baseball cap was unfazed by the body, someone's journey cut short near a stand of scrub bush and cactus.
"What can you do about it in the desert?" he asked.
Deaths of illegal immigrants in Arizona have soared this summer toward their highest levels since 2005, a fact that has surprised many who thought that the furor over the state's new immigration law and the 100-plus degree heat would draw them elsewhere along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border.
But at the Pima County morgue in Tucson, Ariz., the body bags are stacked on stainless-steel shelves from floor to ceiling. A refrigerated truck has been brought in to handle the overflow at the multimillion-dollar facility.
In July, 59 people died, 40 in the first two weeks when nighttime temperatures were the highest in history, hovering in the low 90s. The single-month death count is second only to July 2005, when 68 bodies were found.
Of this July's deaths, 44 were on the Tohono O'odham Nation, a reservation the size of Connecticut that shares 75 miles of Arizona's border with Mexico.
Eighteen more people died in the first 23 days of August.
"Easier" crossing
Even with the prospect of a painful death and the bitter wrath they face in Arizona, immigrants, including Ortega, say the state's vast, sparsely populated terrain is still the best place for border jumpers.
"In Tijuana, you have two walls that you have to get over," said Ortega, who first came across in 1976 to work in West Coast agricultural fields. "This is much easier here. You just have to watch out for the snakes. That's why I prefer to walk in the daytime and not at night."
He admits he's afraid when he crosses, but said, "It's worth the risk."
Even though — after two days of traversing the desert — he and his group were caught by U.S. Border Patrol agents when the group reached a freeway and its ride wasn't there.
Resting at a shelter for failed border crossers atop a steep hill in Mexico overlooking Nogales, Ortega expanded on his motives. "It's the only way to make a little money to support my family," he said.
The shelter is a simple but large home with warnings about the dangers of the crossing posted on its walls. It gives those who have been sent back across the border a hot meal of tortillas, rice and beans, and provides bunk beds stacked three high.
One room has been converted into a chapel. On a recent night, a woman sobbed quietly while another migrant tried to comfort her.
Ortega knows risks. He is from Apatzingán in Michoacán, where drug gangs have shot up federal agents and terrorized the impoverished farm town.
Roberto Hernandez de Rosas, 18, said his family paid a smuggler $1,500 to take him and his brother across the Arizona desert and on to Los Angeles.
Hernandez's brother had made the trip three times, and the smuggler told them Arizona was still the easiest place to cross.
He was told it would cost twice as much to cross from Tijuana, where smugglers sell immigrants fake documents to walk through the port of entry.
"The town where I'm from, it's like being in jail, it's like a death," said Hernandez, who is from a mountain village in the impoverished southern state of Puebla. "You have to think twice about crossing the desert, but when you don't have any money, you need to look for a better life."
Back to the shelter
Hernandez and his brother were seen by a Border Patrol helicopter in the morning after walking through the desert during the night. Authorities returned Hernandez to Mexico but his brother was jailed because he'd been deported before.
Most of those who trickled into the shelter planned to try the crossing again, shrugging off Arizona's new law giving local authorities the power to arrest them, a law stayed by a federal court order. They are also unfazed by the Mexican government's warning to its citizens to avoid the state.
Sofia Gomez, of an aid group called Humane Borders, said crossers are traveling through even more remote areas than in previous years. At the same time, anger over illegal immigration has led to people shooting up the water stations her group has placed in the desert.
"They're taking a higher risk and they're not making it," Gomez said.
The body count for the year is at 171, the same number the Pima County Medical Examiner's Office had seen at this time in 2007, the year the office saw a record 217 deaths.
Most of the dead were young, healthy men, at least at the outset of their trips. By the time they reach the morgue, many are in advanced stages of decomposition and beyond recognition. Bag after bag is tagged with "John Doe" or "Jane Doe" as officials wait for families to report loved ones missing.
"We thought the political climate in Arizona would be a significant deterrent to people crossing, but as far as the deaths are concerned, they certainly have been what looks like is going to be the highest they've ever been," said the morgue's Dr. Eric Peters.
Rescuers and smugglers
Agency statistics show that Border Patrol agents helped 1,281 people last fiscal year. That's up from 1,264 rescues the previous fiscal year, but down from the record high of 2,845 rescues in fiscal 2006.
Border Patrol Agent Colleen Agle, who works in the agency's Tucson sector, said smugglers often lie to immigrants, telling them they'll only walk a couple of hours when they walk for days.
Even so, the agency discourages water stations because authorities say it encourages people to risk the journey.
Kevin Riley, 28, of Hopewell, N.J., came to the desert a year ago to volunteer for No More Deaths, a humanitarian group.
He and other mostly 20-something volunteers from across the country hike up to 12 miles a day to fill desert water tanks stationed along popular migrant paths that cross terrain dotted with palos verdes, mesquites and saguaro.
Riley recently found a 34-year-old man who had been vomiting for days and was curled up with cramps, no longer able to walk. The man was rescued and hospitalized for four days.
He was one of the lucky ones.