I took this series of photographs on April 24
and 25, 2005,
while Brad Beebe and I worked the Minuteman Project line
near Naco, Arizona, on the Mexican border.
To keep the size of the file manageable there are only a few
images per page. Use the scroll buttons to see them all.
Looking due south into Mexico, across miles of scorching
Sonoran desert to the distant mountains, you can see a well worn
path leading to the hopelessly inadequate fence separating us from
them. You can see how the lower barbed wires have been cut away
and pushed to the side, removing any obstacle for the countless
illegals who walk similar paths all along the unguarded border.
Standing at the rickety border fence, we watched the slow moving
freight train less than a mile into Mexico, which illegals ride
to get close to their incursion point. Plainly visible with binoculars
were multiple blue water flags, placed there by Mexicans, to signal
the jump off point and provide refreshment for the passportless
immigrants.
A Minuteman's car drives the hopelessly dusty dirt road that follows
the single strand barbed-wire border between the U.S. and Mexico.
The Border Patrol sometimes smoothes the sand here, so they can
count footprints in the morning and estimate how many illegals passed
on through. A Border Patrol captain told us they are pretty good
at such estimating but that it is an imperfect science. Traffic
from the Minuteman Project upset this of course, but since the illegals
avoided our patrolled areas, or were largely spotted and captured,
it didn't really matter. Privately, BP agents made it plain they
were glad we were there.
