Butler County, Ohio, Sheriff Richard K. Jones, an outspoken critic of U.S. government efforts to control illegal immigration, has posted a video report on his department's Web page and on a channel on YouTube about his recent trip to the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona.
In Part 1 (of 2), Sheriff Jones provides background on his state's tactics against illegal immigration and describes one of the most popular ports of entry.
Part 2 decribes the rampant drug smuggling through Cochise County, AZ.
Traveling to Cochise County, one of the country's most popular alien and drug smuggling corridors, Sheriff Jones said he wanted to get a firsthand look at how secure America's borders are four years after the creation of Homeland Security and the establishment of the "One Face at the Border" program. But, he said, what he and his traveling companion, Ohio State Rep. Courtney Coombs, saw was more of the "insecurity of the border."
Sheriff Jones, a member of the National Sheriff's Committee on Immigration Issues, says in the 15-minute video report that he wanted the public to know exactly what he saw and what he was told about the problem of illegal immigration by Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever.
"Don't believe all these people are coming for a better life," he said, adding that many drug dealers are paying illegal aliens to smuggle marijuana and cocaine over the mountains and desert from Mexico into the United States.
Sheriff Jones has asked the Department of Homeland Security and the Mexican government to reimburse him in his fight against Mexican-based drug rings in his county. He said the Senate's failure to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill is reason enough for states to target illegal aliens themselves and called on state officials to enact legislation to deal with what he called a "continuing illegal-immigration crisis."
"Let's create stricter state laws to go after employers who hire persons who are in this state illegally," he said.
The sheriff has been advocating immigration reform for more than two years, when illegal aliens started swamping the Butler County jail. He had vigorously derided the cost of housing illegal-alien inmates and targeted the employers who hired them, openly expanding his campaign to include the cost to taxpayers for illegals who use the county's schools, hospitals, courts and law enforcement.
"Just in this county alone, the cost to the taxpayers is $1 million," he said. "Add to that the cost to the citizens throughout the United States and that taxpayer burden is in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
"The law is the law. We must enforce the law we have. The only additional change in the law should be that our local law enforcement should have the authority to enforce the federal immigration law without having to obtain federal permission," he said.
— Jerry Seper, national reporter, The Washington Times
Comments (4)
I believe that the way our U.S. borders are currently "protected" is highly inefficient! I spent ten years in the communist country and the borders with the West were managed in the following way:
Minefields, barbed wires,2000 volts electrical wires,visual contact towers with the automatic machine guns,high powered light reflectors, german shephard dogs were released when any movement was noticed,system of the very thin wires attached to the signal flares if any contact was made, half mile wide dead zone with the smoothly plowed earth, and finally the communist military prepared to shoot anybody when found in the proximity of this system. Should any unlucky persons be apprehended, they were sent to the work camp for many years and exposed to a realy hard labor such as uranium mining, coal mining etc. Just ask any East German, Pole, Hungarian, Czech, and anybody who lived under the communist. Such system tried to keep people inside; similar logic has to apply if one wants to keep the undisirable people outside of the country! Forget for a while about the human rights for the bandits! They are disrupting our western civilization,cost untold millions of dollars taken from our citizens. Some are going to kill our people either by bringing any kind of deseases or by the ciminal intent. They do not think about the political correctness, civil rights, human rights, and any other rights as our weak politicians. Our public is still very generous and mild with the illegal and parasitic elements! What it will take before our nation wakes up? Another 9/11 or worse?
I do not fully subscribe to the above mentioned methods but it seems that the present ones are definitely not meeting the strong desire to protect this nation's present and its future security interests!
Posted by Antonin Kovar | November 15, 2007 11:02 AM
Bravo! Keep it up! I live in Tucson, and face these anti-American criminals everyday. I'm sick of it.
Posted by Karla A. Skinner | November 23, 2007 12:17 PM
If you believe in the politicians in this country have your best interest at heart,we just as well legalize drugs,the reason the Democrats or the Republicans will not do anything about illegal immigration is that America has too many Americans and they want people who will vote for them if they give them everything they want! Just remember this, our politicians and Hugo Chavez and Irans president, The saudis ,the un officials ETC all have one thing in common and that is Swiss bank accounts and or accounts in the Bahamas. JMHO
Posted by Chuck Allen | November 23, 2007 8:34 PM
Thank you, Sheriff Jones, for making this video. I have passed it on to a great many interested Americans via the tom tom wireless. The Border Patrol agents will tell you, on the side without attribution, that for every 1 illegal apprehended by the BP at each apprehension, easily 3 4, 5+ get away. Add to that, many of those apprehended by the BP are released into the US soon after. The real numbers of illegals in the US, whether they have crossed our borders illegally or are visa overstays, easily reach into 30 million, 40 million and possibly more. At this very moment, the US Senate has voted to give Social Security to illegals. The feds are so far behind reality that honest officials on the local and state level like you chose to risk losing your jobs to spread the information that the feds very clearly ignore. I have been to Cochise County. I have a friend there who would like to sell her land along the border. The only buyers are "fronts" for Mexican drug lords.
Posted by susan lukowski | November 25, 2007 12:43 AM