Needs for darkness, security clash at Yuma

New, glaring, stadium-style lights along the San Luis Port of Entry near Yuma have astronomers near Tucson worried more could be heading their way. The lights send glare into the normally dark skies of Arizona, one of the most important astronomy sites in the world.

Photographs of glaring new stadium lights along the border near Yuma, taken when President Bush visited in April, sent shudders through astronomers across southern Arizona.

The 57-foot-high, thousand-watt lights, installed to illuminate the border and help U.S. Border Patrol agents see illegal crossers at night, send unshielded glare into the night sky for miles, greatly reducing the visibility of planets, stars and other celestial bodies. Astronomers worry that more lights could diminish research at area observatories and harm one of Arizona’s major industries.

“If we have those lights all across the border, you can kiss astronomy in southern Arizona goodbye,” said retired Air Force Lt. Col. Bob Gent, an astronomer and president of the board of the International Dark-Sky Association. The organization was founded by Arizona astronomers in 1988 to educate the public about light pollution and reduce its effect on dark skies, wildlife and human health.

Dark skies and dry air make southern Arizona the most important astronomical site in North America and one of the most important in the world. It is home to three of the world’s top observatories, dozens of commercial and private observatories and thousands of amateur astronomers, many of whom conduct professional-level research. The University of Arizona recently estimated the total value of investment in astronomy facilities and instruments in southern Arizona at $808 million, with another $588 million planned or under way.

The Yuma lights will eventually stretch for 9.1 miles around the San Luis Port of Entry. They are the result of a law Bush signed in October that authorized 700 miles of fencing, including a combination of lighting, sensors, cameras and barriers, along the Southwest border. The law, which was not fully funded, calls for the fence to cover all but five miles of the Arizona border and includes a 28-mile test “virtual fence” in the Sasabe area that was supposed to begin operation by June 13, but has been delayed by technical problems.

The Yuma lights have astronomers, who have worked with the Border Patrol, asking, “How did this happen?”

They also alerted them that they needed to get involved, said Gent, 59, who retired to Sierra Vista so he could conduct research on the brightness variability of stars from his backyard.

“We’re trying to meet Border Patrol and say, ‘Please, focus on infrared lights or explore other technologies, but don’t destroy the night sky for us,’” Gent said.

The Border Patrol has not said whether it will install Yuma-style lights in other parts of Arizona.

“There are plans to add additional infrastructure,” Border Patrol spokesman Xavier Rios said. “That includes additional lighting, all-weather patrol roads, fencing and so forth. Specifics, I don’t have that right now.”

Rios said the Yuma lights are based on lights in Naco that astronomers helped the Border Patrol retrofit five years ago with shields to cut glare, though he conceded the Yuma lights are not shielded.

Doug Snyder, an amateur astronomer in Palominas who made the first comet sighting in Cochise County and led the 2002 effort to shield the Naco lights, said the Yuma lights bear no resemblance to those in Naco, “unless they mean they both give off light.” The Yuma lights “are much much higher and much brighter.”

Richard Green, director of the Mount Graham Observatory, northeast of Tucson, said the lights in Yuma are “extraordinarily poorly designed.” The lights waste energy and reduce nighttime visibility because they produce too much light, causing eyes to act as if it were daytime, he said.

“You can’t see anything in the surrounding darkness. It lets people hide in the shadows,” he said. “It was a major error in terms of accomplishing what (the Border Patrol) wanted to accomplish.”

Several astronomers said they would like the Border Patrol to create a national standard based on the Naco lights to ensure all lighting along the border is more effective, less polluting and cheaper.

If more lights similar to those in Yuma are installed, Gent said, “Can you imagine what that’s going to cost? And at taxpayers’ expense. They could do much more with much less electricity if they did it right.”

Environmentalists are less optimistic that good design could help wildlife negotiate border lights.

“For some transborder species, lights effectively act as a wall because they won’t go near them,” said Travis Longcore, an ecologist with The Urban Wildlands Group, a Los Angeles conservation organization. Lights keep animals such as the endangered ocelot from critical routes between habitats.

Lights can also disorient birds, disturb the habits of nocturnal creatures such as snakes and the animals they prey on and lure insects away from where birds depend on them, said Longcore, who recently co-edited the first booklength look at the topic, “Ecological Consequences of Artificial Night Lighting.”

The impact on southern Arizona, home to one of the most biodiverse deserts in the world, could be devastating, he said.

“We don’t realize how much activity goes on at night,” he said. “This kind of thing is setting off a pollution bomb for these species.”

Astronomers have been working for decades to protect Arizona’s skies. In 1972, they helped Tucson develop one of the country’s first comprehensive light control ordinances. It mandated that all streetlights be shielded so light would pour onto streets, not into the sky. Pima County quickly followed suit. The laws became the model for lighting ordinances around the country.

Astronomers say the Border Patrol has been sensitive to their concerns. In 2003, the International Dark-Sky Association gave then-Tucson sector chief David Aguilar, who now heads the entire agency, an award for his help fixing the Naco lights. And astronomers from Whipple Observatory on Mount Hopkins negotiated with the agency to move a planned radio repeater farther down the mountain so it would not interfere with the observatory’s radio telescopes.

Two weeks ago, Border Patrol Assistant Sector Chief John Fitzpatrick, who declined a request for an interview with the Tucson Citizen, met with Whipple astronomers to discuss the potential impact of the permanent checkpoint planned for Interstate 19 and other plans for border lights and radar.

“It went well,” Dan Brocious of the observatory said. “We established communication. Now we’re waiting for details.”

In the photo at left, glaring, unshielded border lights in Naco light the night sky. On the right, the same lights are retrofitted with shields to cut the glare.

Bob Gent, president of the board of the International Dark-Sky Association, gazes through a telescope on his porch in Sierra Vista.

———

RELATED STORIES
Stay up-to-date with border issues with our comprehensive border page.

Governor shelves decision pending fate of border bill

Gov. Janet Napolitano said Wednesday that she has made a decision on whether to veto an Arizona bill to crack down on businesses that hire undocumented workers.

But she said she won’t announce her decision until next week, when the Senate is expected to be done working on federal immigration legislation.

Napolitano, a Democrat, spoke from Washington, where she travelled to help lobby for passage of the bill. After a speech Wednesday morning, she said the outcome could influence how she handles the Arizona legislation – but not the decision she has made.

“I’m going to act on that on Monday, so I don’t want to tip my hand on that at this point,” she said. “I have decided what I’m going to do. How I articulate that may change based on what happens this week in Congress.”

The proposed state law would suspend and eventually revoke the business licenses of firms that knowingly hire illegal immigrants. If Napolitano signs it, it would become one of the strictest state laws in the country dealing with workplace enforcement.

Chuck Freitas of Falcon Pools in Tucson said the bill might stop or slow down companies that flagrantly use illegal immigrants, but he worried that it could also unleash a chain of accusations some companies might use to hurt competitors.

“All they have to do is make the allegation, and then the problems start,” Freitas said.

Chris Niccum, who owns the landscaping company Sonoran Gardens, worried the bill would aggravate the labor shortage and said the federal government has to find a way to legalize the country’s estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

“How do you replace 12 million workers?” Niccum asked. “There are not 12 million people looking for jobs. We need reform. We don’t need penalties.”

Niccum also expressed concern that the bill could make Arizona less attractive to businesses considering moving here.

Napolitano emphasized that she has supported sanctions against companies that employ illegal workers, but also highlighted some possible problems with the Arizona bill.

The bill under debate in the Senate this week could make the state proposal moot if it passes. It would allow most illegal immigrants to get legal status, require employers to verify the work status of their workers and allow foreigners to come here temporarily for jobs in the future.

Sens. Jon Kyl and John McCain, both Arizona Republicans, helped craft the bill, working with the White House and a bipartisan coalition.

After her speech, Napolitano went to Capitol Hill to try to persuade some liberal Democrats to support the immigration bill despite misgivings from many labor unions over the temporary worker programs.

“What happens if this bill doesn’t pass?” Napolitano asked. “Nothing good.”

Gannett News Service contributed to this article.

Site gives chances of dying, based on day’s high temperature

There’s a 48 percent chance Monday that someone will die illegally crossing the border in Pima County, a 52 percent chance Tuesday, and a 60 percent chance Wednesday, when temperatures are expected to top out at 107 degrees.

The predictions come from a new Web site designed to prevent migrant deaths by advising people how dangerous the U.S.-Mexico border is on any given day.

They are based on research from the University of Arizona’s department of emergency medicine that analyzed the number of migrant deaths from 2002-05 in Pima County. The busiest and deadliest corridor for illegal immigrants along the Southwest border is in Pima County, with deaths clustered around the Altar Valley and the Tohono O’odham Nation.

“This is the most lethal disease in Arizona, period,” said Dr. Samuel M. Keim, the UA associate professor of emergency medicine who led the study and helped design the Web site. “If there’s maybe 1,000 to 2,000 border crossers out in the desert today, and the risk is greater than a 50 percent chance that one or more of them will die, no other disease striking any population in Arizona comes close to that.”

The level of risk is tied to temperature and increases dramatically when the temperature goes over 100 degrees, Keim said. The Web site targets those living and working along the border, especially those who work directly with migrants such as humanitarian aid groups and the Border Patrol’s rescue unit, BORSTAR.

“A day at 100 is very different than a day at 105, so this will allow them to better distribute their resources,” Keim said.

The project will also record a corrido, a popular musical form in Mexico that relates current events, written by UA sociology professor Celestino Fernandez and performed by a professional musician, to get the message to migrants preparing to cross.

“Border crossers aren’t watching or reading billboards,” Keim said. “They’re getting ready to cross, and many of them are listening to the radio.”

The bilingual Web site was launched last week at the biannual Arizona Mexico Commission meeting held in Tucson. It can be found at http://borderrisk.med.arizona.edu/crossingRisk.html

Gov. Janet Napolitano blasted proposed cuts to the federal program that helps states pay for imprisoned illegal immigrants in a letter to congressional leaders.

The Commerce Justice and Science Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee voted this week to cut funding for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, or SCAAP, for fiscal year 2008.

“Border states like Arizona are reimbursed only pennies on the dollars we spend incarcerating criminal aliens,” Napolitano wrote in the letter. SCAAP requires that the federal government take custody of illegal immigrants that commit crimes or reimburse states for the cost of incarceration.

Since 2004, the governor has sent invoices to the Justice Department for the costs to Arizona of housing criminal illegal immigrants in state prisons. The latest invoice, sent in February, 2007, was for more than $327 million and covered fiscal 2003-2006 and a portion of 2007.

Through early February, 2007, the state had received only $18.9 million, according to the Governor’s Office.

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., is working with the governor to fight the cuts.

“The Tucson sector is the most porous area along the U.S.-Mexico border,” Giffords said in a press release.

“As a result, our state and local law enforcement officials are burdened with related violence, human and drug smuggling and criminal activity every day. This is an unfunded mandate and the federal government must reimburse these agencies at the highest level possible.”

———

The U.S. Border Patrol rescued an illegal immigrant Tuesday trapped in a 30-foot-deep well on the Tohono O’odham Nation.

The woman had climbed down to find water for her sister and her three nieces.

The five had been walking through the desert with four others for several days when the 29-year-old woman, her sister and her sister’s daughters, age 6, 10 and 16, stopped because they had run out of water and were too weak to continue in the 112-degree heat, said Border Patrol spokesman Sean King.

Everybody in the group was from Puebla, Mexico, he said.

The remaining four went to look for help, King said. They found Border Patrol agents around 10:45 a.m. and told them they had left five people behind. The Border Patrol’s Search Trauma and Rescue team (BORSTAR) coordinated a search with Customs and Border Protection air and marine units and Border Patrol canine units.

A Border Patrol agent found the sister and three girls around 2 p.m. near Cowlic, south of U.S. Route 20, and they led him to the well.

The woman was trapped on a narrow ledge, waist-deep in water, her face covered with more than 20 bee stings from a nearby beehive.

“She was hysterical,” said Ron Bellavia, who heads the BORSTAR unit and directed the search. “She had difficulty breathing because her face was so swollen with the bees’ stings. She was crying and said she was too tired to hold herself up and was worried that she was going to go under.”

The woman had slid down a pipe leading into the well to get water for the children, who were dehydrated.

“But she didn’t have a plan to get back out,” Bellavia said. “She was too weak to pull herself up.”

The Border Patrol agent threw down a 40-foot nylon strap agents normally use to tow things from their trucks so she would have something to hold on to, King said.

“It was the only thing he could find,” King said.

Within an hour, agents specially trained in vertical rope rescue arrived on the scene and sent down an agent who held on to the woman as both were pulled out of the well.

“We’ve never rescued somebody from a vertical position,” Bellavia said, “although we’ve trained for it for the last several years, and that training really paid off today.”

The woman was treated on the scene for dehydration and an allergic reaction to bee stings. Her sister and nieces, some of whom needed IVs, were also treated on the scene. All refused further medical attention and have been voluntarily returned to Nogales, Mexico, along with the other four from the group, Bellavia said.

Tucson Sector Border Patrol agents rescued 200 people from Oct. 1, 2006, to May 31, 2007, according to the U.S. Border Patrol.

———

RELATED FEATURES
Stay up-to-date on immigration issues with our border page.

The Lukeville Port of Entry turned into a traffic jam Sunday that stretched for miles as Rocky Point visitors waited up to six and half hours to cross back into the United States.

Leslie Pearl said she and her boyfriend left Rocky Point at 1:30 Sunday afternoon and figured they’d have enough time to get to a 7 p.m. wedding in Tucson. They ended up crossing the border a little before 9 p.m. and missed the wedding.

Normal driving time between the two cities is just more than four hours when there is little to no wait at the border crossing.

“I could have skipped backward and made it faster,” said Pearl, 49, who owns a Tucson advertising firm.

To pass the time, drivers broke into their coolers and started drinking, Pearl said. Others drove erratically, trying to cut ahead of traffic. Children cried in the heat, and Sonoyta residents along the road made extra cash charging desperate travelers to use portable toilets in their front yards, she said.

By several accounts, Sunday’s wait was extreme, but travelers can expect to wait from two to three hours on a typical Sunday afternoon, starting in March during college spring break and lasting through the summer, said Sostenes Picos, who manages the duty-free shop in Lukeville.

Checkout time at most condos and hotels in Rocky Point is noon, and the waits are caused by thousands of vacationers descending upon the highway at the same time, said Norm Nelson, a retiree who lives in Rocky Point full time but regularly drives to Tucson. So many people attempt to avoid the crunch by extending their weekends that the long waits have spilled over into Monday afternoon, he said.

Nelson avoids the rush by traveling during off times and suggests that weekend travelers leave Rocky Point early Sunday.

Felipe Garcia of the Metropolitan Tucson Convention & Visitors Bureau waited in line Sunday with his wife and two small children for five hours.

Long waits don’t bode well for the economy and may discourage Mexican tourists, who spend a million dollars a day in Tucson, Garcia said.

The number of cars passing through Lukeville the past six years has actually decreased from a high of 443,000 in 2001 to 393,000 in 2006, but security measures have been increased, causing longer wait times, Levin said. “The threat we’re facing is not the same as before 9/11,” Levin said.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Brian Levin said the Lukeville Port of Entry is not designed to handle the amount of traffic that goes through now and that the agency is negotiating with Arizona officials about adding two more lanes.

Hundreds expected to assist with desert patrols this summer

Seventy-five-year-old retired geologist Ed McCullough walked hundreds of miles through the desert in the last year, carefully charting a web of migrant trails in the hope of saving lives.

The former University of Arizona professor turned his findings into maps for volunteers with the humanitarian aid group No More Deaths, which will patrol the desert around Arivaca in search of distressed illegal immigrants for the fourth straight summer.

The group kicks off its effort Saturday with an opening ceremony at its round-the-clock camp east of Arivaca, where hundreds from around the country, including doctors and nurses, are expected to volunteer.

New Jersey native Matt Mittelstadt, 27, recently came to Tucson to join No More Deaths after spending a year as a volunteer with the Presbyterian Church Peace Fellowship in Colombia.

Mittelstadt said he first heard about the dangers illegal immigrants face crossing the border from Salvadorans he used to work with at a restaurant.

“I’m humbled by them,” he said.

For years, Arizona has been the busiest and deadliest crossing point for illegal immigrants, who often succumb to the region’s three-digit summer temperatures and harsh, barren terrain.

McCullough put his skills as a geologist to use after his first summer of volunteering with the group three years ago, when he found himself largely wandering the desert.

“It was just pretty much serendipity,” McCullough said. “We would drive the roads, hoping to find people that needed help. There wasn’t any real pattern to it and you have to think, ‘There’s got to be a better way.’ ”

McCullough focused on a series of heavily trafficked corridors, each made up of three or four trails that weave and intersect, leading from Mexico between the Tumacacori Mountains to the east and the Baboquivari Mountains to the west. Volunteers go out with one of McCullough’s maps and a hand-held Global Positioning System so they can find their way back.

“Hopefully, we will be able to get out walking these trails and find people before they die,” he said.

The U.S. Border Patrol has recorded 210 deaths of illegal immigrants along the entire U.S.-Mexico border between October 2006 and May 2007.

No More Deaths has intensified the training of volunteers this year, and more than 20 have taken a 72-hour emergency medical course to become Wilderness First Responders. The group will also have bicycle teams and a mobile unit this year to target areas with heavy traffic, and it will continue its partnership with Sonora’s migrant aid office to staff aid stations at the Mariposa and downtown ports of entry in Nogales, where migrants are voluntarily returned after failed attempts to illegally cross the border. The group is seeking donations of socks, shoes, water and food to stock the aid stations.

No More Deaths is still working out the details of its policy on transporting ailing migrants with Robert Gilbert, new chief of the Border Patrol’s Tucson sector, said Gene Lefebvre, a retired minister and co-founder of No More Deaths.

The group stopped transporting ailing migrants in July 2005 after federal authorities charged two No More Deaths volunteers with smuggling for driving three illegal immigrants to a medical clinic. A federal judge later dismissed the charges.

For more information about No More Deaths, call 245-7560.

Deaths increase 12 percent even as fewer try to cross

Fewer illegal immigrants may be crossing the Arizona desert than last year, but more are dying.

Authorities found the bodies of at least six migrants along the border during the first six days in June, adding to a death toll that has outpaced last year’s, despite falling arrest figures.

According to the U.S. Border Patrol, 96 illegal immigrants had died as of Wednesday, a 12 percent increase over the same period last year, when the Border Patrol counted 86 dead.

At the same time, the Border Patrol has reported that apprehensions decreased 10 percent, from 299,776 arrests in fiscal year 2006, which began Oct. 1, 2005, to 269,721 arrests in fiscal year 2007.

According to a recent report on migrant deaths in Arizona from the Binational Migration Institute at the University of Arizona, the increase in deaths could be linked to expanding migration from Mexico’s impoverished and largely indigenous southern region.

Migrants from states such as Chiapas and Oaxaca are less aware of the dangers of crossing the Arizona desert and lack the networks of migrants from immigrant-sending communities, said senior researcher Melissa McCormick, who co-authored the study.

“Many of them don’t even speak Spanish,” McCormick said. “They speak indigenous languages. It makes it harder for the government and humanitarian aid groups to reach out to them.”

The increase could also be attributed to migrants taking more remote routes to avoid increased border security, she said.

Several offices that record the number of deaths have counted similar increases.

The Mexican Consulate in Tucson, which counts only the number of Mexican nationals who die, reported a 20 percent increase in the number of deaths since the start of the calendar year, from 58 in 2006 to 70 in 2007.

“If we look at the number of people dying, we can’t say that border crossings have decreased,” said consular official Alejandro Ramos.

The Cochise County medical examiner’s records show a 75 percent increase in deaths, from eight in fiscal year 2006 to 14 in 2007. The deaths were concentrated during the warmer months of April and May, which had three deaths each.

The Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office reported a smaller increase, from 80 deaths in fiscal year 2006 to 83 deaths in 2007. Eight of the deaths have occurred since June 1, according to office manager Patti Nelson.

Of the six deaths reported in June by the U.S. Border Patrol, three were women, including one found at 4:45 a.m. Tuesday near the Tohono O’odham village of Vamori. The body of a 31-year-old man from Nayarit, Mexico, was found Wednesday morning around 5 after a friend flagged down help off Interstate 19 near milepost 56.

The Mexican Consulate in Tucson is kicking off its fifth annual campaign to reduce migrant deaths with a series of posters and radio and television advertisements it hopes will discourage people from crossing the border.

In the first television ad, a woman in a prison uniform and chains warns would-be crossers from using fake papers to cross the border.

“I never knew I could get 20 years for doing this,” the woman says.

In another ad, a man lies in a coma after surviving a rollover accident.

One of three posters shows a coroner’s tag attached to a pair of feet.

“Don’t leave your life in the desert!” the poster warns.

The ads will be distributed in Tucson, Nogales and Sasabe, as well as to consulates across the United States and immigrant-sending communities in Mexico.

Security was tight as hundreds of law officers from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border gathered for a three-day intelligence-sharing and training conference.

Issues vital to both countries include human and drug smuggling, cross-border violence and the illegal exportation of guns to Mexico.

About 500 officers were to attend the conference, sponsored by the Policia International Sonora-Arizona, or PISA. The conference began Monday and offers training on firearms identification, homicide investigations, prison gangs, interview techniques and auto theft investigations.

Contributing agencies include the FBI, the state Department of Public Safety and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The 23rd annual conference, held this year at the Hilton El Conquistador Resort, comes on the heels of increased violence along the border, including a drug-related shootout in Cananea that left 22 dead, including five Mexican police officers.

The incident led conference organizers to take extra precautions, said Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall, whose office led the security effort.

“If anybody wanted to do any harm, all the police chiefs, the attorney generals of both states are here,” LaWall said. “This would be a place ripe for terrorism.”

Sonora Attorney General Abel Murrieta Gutiérrez, who, along with Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, gave opening remarks at the conference, said the smuggling of guns into Mexico, which tightly restricts gun sales, from the United States has fueled much of the violence.

“We have asked the United States to guarantee that the arms aren’t going to be illegal exported to Mexico,” Murrieta said. “This isn’t just Mexico’s responsibility, but both countries’.”

At least one of the weapons used in the Cananea shootout was traced to the United States.

Goddard said the conference allows law officers from both sides of the border to develop effective policing strategies.

Three years ago, Sonoran officers at the conference said they needed a better way to track stolen U.S. cars in Mexico, Goddard said.

“They would stop somebody in Mexico and suspect it was probably a stolen vehicle, but it was taking them sometimes days to find out,” he said. “They couldn’t hold anybody that long, so they need instantaneous information.”

In response, Goddard’s office developed a Web site where officers could immediately trace stolen Arizona cars. One-third of the site’s users come from Mexico, Goddard said.

“It’s been very effective,” he said.

Catalina High student and Sudanese refugee Josephina Thal, 17, used photos and writing to document her new life in Tucson.

Aminata Sawyer does not remember the rebel attack that took her father’s life. She was just a baby.

But the 16-year-old has a clear memory of other attacks in her native Liberia, and still more in Sierra Leone, where her aunt and uncle fled with her as refugees.

“They would lock people in their homes and set them on fire. That is what the flame is for,” Aminata said, pointing to a closeup photograph of her face divided by a long flame. “My life was like that in Africa. A lot of fire and suffering.”

Aminata is a refugee and student of English as a second language at Catalina Magnet High School. She and 46 other ESL students from 10 countries, including the Marshall Islands, Sudan, Afghanistan and Mexico, spent the semester exploring their lives in Tucson and comparing them to their lives in their home countries through a joint writing and photography project. Their photos and writings will be displayed in an exhibit that opens Monday night in City Councilwoman Nina Trasoff’s office. The free exhibit will run through July 31.

For many of the students, life in Tucson means opportunity.

Aminata took a photograph of a gurgling fountain to reflect her life today.

“The water is cool. Not like my life in Africa. Here I have a chance to go to school and become a great person,” Aminata said in softly accented, clearly enunciated English. Aminata has picked up English quickly in the year and half she has been here. It’s her fifth language, after African tribal languages Kiro, Mende, Temne and Limba.

Aminata’s teacher Julie Kasper said the project engages her students.

“They grow up with TV and video games so the images really grab them,” she said.

Students stretch their English skills by writing poems, letters and essays that accompany the photos and by interacting with the many visitors who come to the class to speak about refugees, immigrants and photography.

“I’ll get kids voluntarily turning in four drafts of work,” Kasper said. “That normally just doesn’t happen.”

Kasper co-taught the project with Josh Schacter, a Tucson-based photographer and educator.

Sadaf Hakeem, 15, from Afghanistan, came to the United States as a refugee from Pakistan, where her family fled to escape repression under the Taliban during the 1990s.

She used the project to explore the balance of her older beliefs with newfound freedom.

In one photo, she shows her 18-year-old sister partially obscured by a head scarf.

Girls in Pakistan had to wear such scarves outside and had little opportunity to go to school, Sadaf said.

She is proud of her Muslim faith and wears the scarf when she prays, but here she can get an education and wants to become a doctor.

Many of the students speak readily about the greater opportunity the United States offers them, but it is not without cost, and their photos reflect that.

Kathya Castro, 16, who moved here four years ago from Obregon, Son., works after school until 11 p.m. as an assistant manager in a Mexican restaurant to help her parents and two younger brothers. She squeezes in homework during lunch or after work. Her manager quickly promoted her for her hard work.

One of her photos shows her asleep at the table in the restaurant, exhausted.

The project helped her examine her life and express her feelings, she said.

“I feel like I’m sacrificing my teenage years,” Kathya said. “I feel like I’m living like an adult.”

NORMA JEAN GARGASZ

Tucson Citizen

Afghanistan native and Catalina Magnet High School sophomore Sadaf Hakeem, 15, (right) talks about her experiences growing up in Pakistan. Her photograph of her sister (left) is in the exhibit.

———

What: An opening reception for an exhibit of photographs and writing by Catalina Magnet High School English as a Second Language students

When: 5-7 p.m. Monday

Where: Ward VI Office, 3202 E. First St.

For more information call, 791-4601.

Giffords: Time running out on negotiations

'People want to be here legally, though the U.S. has every right to control who becomes legal. Nobody who has problems with the law should be allowed to stay.'

MANNY FLORES, 43, a cook at a roadside grill, predicting illegal immigrants would come forward if Congress agrees on a bill

The coalitions needed to pass immigration overhaul bills in both the House and Senate could be torn apart by presidential election politics if a bill isn’t approved by the end of the summer.

“The reality is, if we do not pass this before August, we will have missed an opportunity we won’t have again for 18 months,” said U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz.

But though there is broad support for some method to regularize the status of people in the U.S. illegally, a sizable contingent calls such a move “amnesty” despite a proposed $5,000 fine.

The Senate version, brokered in part by U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., includes beefed-up border security, harsher penalties for companies that hire illegal immigrants and a system to grant probationary visas, called “Z” visas, for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., provided they pass a brief background check.

That bill was to be drafted Friday, Kyl said. A bill already introduced in the House addresses many of the same issues. Reconciling the two will mean another round of negotiations.

A stalemate would be fine with state Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, who called the Senate immigration agreement “horrible” and “treasonous.”

Pearce has been behind a series of ballot measures overwhelmingly approved by voters that restrict the state government from issuing benefits to people who can’t prove they are in the country legally.

“The public has spoken loud and clear on this issue,” Pearce said. “It is absolutely outrageous and treasonous. When are they going to get the message in Washington?”

Kyl said the deal is not amnesty, because it establishes a series of hoops that mean at least an eight-year wait before illegal immigrants can begin the process to get permanent legal status that could put them on a path to citizenship.

“With all those features, I think it is very difficult for anyone to call it automatic amnesty,” he said.

It’s not the bill he would have written, but he decided it would be better to get into the negotiations and make it “more conservative” than to let the Democrats craft a more liberal and lenient bill, he said.

“You can sit on the sidelines or get in the game,” Kyl said. “I rolled up my sleeves and got into it.”

If he had not, he said, the bill would not have included a merit-based system for awarding visas and 371 miles of border fencing to be built before any visas are issued. He also said it would end chain migration that allows entire extended families to immigrate to America.

He said this is as far as he’s willing to compromise.

“This is it,” he said. “If they dramatically change it, we can stop it. The reality is, the final bill is going to be very darn close to this bill.”

U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., does not support the Senate proposal but knows, as a congressman, that’s not his job.

“The Senate did what they had to do,” Grijalva said. “Now the House needs to do something comprehensive that raises the bar.”

One aspect Grijalva especially didn’t like was the shifting of immigration policy from a family-based system to one that awards visas based on the country’s employment needs.

Grijalva said he’s been pursuing immigration reform largely to keep migrant families together.

“It’s tentative and unfinished legislation that negates family unification,” Grijalva said.

Treating immigrants like economic units bothers Jennifer Allen, director of the Tucson-based Border Action Network.

“As a country, we should not look at people as disposable,” Allen said. “We need to look at them as human beings with rights and dignity.”

The Rev. Robin Hoover of the migrant aid group Humane Borders criticized the proposal for delaying the guest worker program until the border build-up is complete.

“If you would have comprehensive immigration reform first, then you would have enough agents to have national security,” Hoover said. “We’ve got enough people out here to do serious border enforcement if we didn’t have to mess with the migrants. Even the Border Patrol agrees with that.”

U.S. Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar and Tucson sector Chief Robert Gilbert have both recently said getting economic migrants out of the desert through a guest worker program would allow agents to focus on the drug smugglers and other criminals illegally crossing the border.

Gov. Janet Napolitano voiced concern that the guest worker program cannot be put in place for at least 18 months because of “triggers” that must be met first.

Pearce vowed to campaign to defeat any elected official in Arizona who supports the deal, up to and including Kyl.

“Call it what you want. It’s amnesty,” Pearce said. “Kyl is headed down a road that is going to a road that’s going to do real damage to himself and to the party.”

Giffords defeated a get-tough-on-immigrants Republican in 2006 to win a seat in Congress and said her victory was a mandate for comprehensive reform over the enforcement-only crackdown Pearce favors.

That Kyl and Arizona’s other Republican senator, John McCain, have supported the comprehensive approach is proof enough for her, she said.

“Arizonans want to see action,” she said. “I don’t think anyone could accuse John McCain and Jon Kyl of being liberal.”

McCain, himself a candidate for president, said it was good to see Democrats and Republicans working together on the issue – though he has become far less vocal in recent months.

“We are off to a good start on immigration reform,” he said. “The status quo is unacceptable.”

Senate action seemed tenuous last week, and the breakthrough was good news for business, said Jack Camper, president and chief executive officer of the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.

“We’ve been saying all along that this is the federal government’s responsibility, and they have to step up,” Camper said. “It sounds like they are on the way to doing it, and that’s great.”

Giffords

Napolitano

———

WHAT DEAL WOULD DO
● “Probationary status for Z workers” and their immediately families, as well as visas for agricultural workers, would be in place fairly quickly.

● Before the actual Z visa program and guest worker programs begin, the Department of Homeland Security would have to confirm certain “triggers” are met, including:

- Hiring thousands more border agents.

- Building 370 miles of fencing and installing 200 miles of vehicle barriers.

- Having 70 ground-based radar and camera towers along the southern border.

● Penalties for hiring illegal immigrants would be increased. An electronic employment-verification system would be created. The Social Security system and Department of Homeland Security would have to share data, and a new, tamper-resistant Social Security card would be developed.

● Z nonimmigrant visas would apply to the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. Principal applicants must be employed and pay a fine of $5,000. Applicants would be fingerprinted and cleared by one-day background checks. Such visas would be good for four years and be renewable.

● Z visa holders would be able to seek lawful permanent residence only after an eight-year backlog of applications were cleared. That backlog is caused by legal immigrants applying to bring extended families to the U.S.

● Timeline: U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., predicts the House won’t debate its bill until July. Debate on the Senate floor of a bill being drafted now begins next week.

● President Bush is likely to sign any bipartisan bill the House and Senate can agree on.

———

By Blake Morlock, Claudine Lomonaco

Valenzuela

Last year, Tomás León could barely drag people to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s press conference backing comprehensive immigration reform. He was the only speaker to the handful of reporters and supporters who attended.

What a difference a year makes.

This year, the chamber’s conference room was packed with reporters, supporters, and a long line of business owners who lined up behind León to speak out for immigration reform.

The threat of an employer-sanction measure on November’s ballot has brought the issue home for many businesspeople, making them more willing to publically support immigration reform, Leon said after the media conference Tuesday.

“Their backs are against the wall and they’re saying, ‘Wait a minute. Why am I being targeted? This is the responsibility of everybody, not just the employers,’ ” León said.

Bill Valenzuela, who owns W. G. Valenzuela Drywall Inc., felt the squeeze three years ago when government officials confiscated his company’s records for its 340 workers. Valenzuela, who said he checks Social Security numbers for all employees, said immigration officers arrested a couple of workers but told him to fire 14 others, who were all related. The immigration officers told him they didn’t arrest those workers because even they weren’t sure if the workers were legal or not.

“What chance do we stand?” Valenzuela asked.

Six months ago, Martin Headlee, of the Tucson based Headlee Roofing, joined Arizona Employers for Immigration Reform, a coalition of business owners from a broad sector of industries. The group encourages employers to speak directly to their federal representatives about their need for legal immigrant workers.

If Arizona legislators are left to handle the situation, “we think things will be terrible,” Headlee said.

León laid out the chamber’s four-pronged position on immigration reform, which calls for enhanced border and national security, a guest-worker program and increased visa quotas, streamlined citizenship and access to education, and an economic development partnership with countries such as Mexico to strengthen their economies.

The chamber supports the STRIVE (Security Through Regularized Immigration and a Vibrant Economy) Act, which U.S. Reps. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., recently introduced.

“It’s the strongest legislation we’ve seen so far,” León said.

More stories on immigration
Immigration deal a tough call for Kyl

Immigration overhaul talks advance

Leon

Lawmaker also wants more agents

In a letter to Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona asks that the agency move a temporary checkpoint from Interstate 19 north of Tubac and station more agents in the area to reduce the impact of human and drug smuggling on residents and businesses.

Giffords’ letter, dated May 14, comes amid reports of increased violence in the communities around the checkpoint and the Border Patrol’s push to build a seven-lane, permanent checkpoint along the I-19 corridor.

The letter detailed residents’ concerns that smugglers were circumventing the semipermanent checkpoint, which has been there since November, and invading neighboring communities. Residents experienced threats to their homes and have been affected by violence associated with what appears to be a war among drug smugglers, Giffords wrote.

“This is completely unacceptable,” she said, “and local law enforcement cannot be expected to manage the problem alone.”

Giffords also asked the Border Patrol to deploy “more sensors, radar, cameras and other technology” to alert authorities to smugglers going around the checkpoint so they can be apprehended.

Border Patrol spokesman Xavier Rios said that Aguilar had likely not received the letter yet but would respond to Gifford as soon as he does.

The smugglers told the first dozen illegal immigrants to lie down on the floor of the van. Then they told the second dozen or so to lie on top of them and stay down.

It’s a common trick among smugglers. Keep the human cargo below the windows and out of sight.

Only this time, in Friday’s stifling 102-degree heat, it had tragic consequences.

Before long, two of the unlucky men on the bottom would be dead.

Luis Latorre, 34, of Hidalgo, Mexico, was one of them, officials said.

He and his father had crossed the border on foot with the group Wednesday near Sasabe, Son., south of Three Points, a Mexican Consulate official said. They walked across the desert until Friday, when temperatures hit 100 for the first time this year, then boarded the van they hoped would carry them to California.

When Latorre became ill, likely from a combination of dehydration, exhaustion and lack of oxygen, the driver forced him and his father, who was not identified, out of the van in a farm field southwest of Eloy, said Pinal County Sheriff’s Office homicide Detective Dave Hausman.

By the time his father flagged down help around 9:30 Friday night near the intersection of Harmon and Sunland Gin roads, Latorre had died, Hausman said. Meanwhile, authorities had already responded to calls about another dead body around 20 miles northeast.

Police believe another passenger died in the van shortly after Latorre and his father were thrown off, Hausman said. The driver dumped his body and belongings on the side of the road near the intersection of Tweedy Road and Selma Highway, east of Casa Grande, he said.

Authorities linked the two cases when they interviewed Latorre’s father, who was admitted to Casa Grande Regional Medical Center. The elder Latorre was suffering from dehydration, exhaustion and blistered feet and is in stable condition, said Alejandro Ramos, a spokesman for the Mexican Consulate in Tucson. Latorre and his father, like others in the group, came from Hidalgo, Mexico, Ramos said.

The Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office will perform autopsies on the two men this week, Chief Examiner Bruce Parks said.

In an unrelated incident, two U.S. Border Patrol agents on all-terrain vehicles found the body of an illegal immigrant Saturday morning 16 miles north and eight miles east of Sasabe. The man was 20 to 25 years old and came from Puebla, Mexico, Border Patrol spokesman Gus Soto said.

It was the first heat-related cluster of deaths in what the National Weather Service expects to be a hotter-than-average year.

“Unfortunately, we’re going to deal with a lot more of these deaths in the summer,” said Pinal County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Ray Roerdink.

Both the Pima County medical examiner and the Mexican Consulate report that illegal immigrant deaths this year have kept pace with last year. The Medical Examiner’s Office has counted around 55 deaths, and the consulate has counted 41.

The Border Patrol, which released figures only through the end of April, has recorded a 15 percent decrease in deaths this year, down to 60 for fiscal 2007 from 71 in fiscal 2006. Fiscal 2007 began Oct. 1, 2006.

The Pinal County Sheriff’s Office, along with officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is investigating solid leads in the case, Hausman said without elaborating.

Smugglers adjust their methods to escape detection, Hausman said. Smugglers know, for example, that police look for overloaded vehicles leaning in the back, so they fix rear axles to make the vehicle ride level, he said.

A Tucson fifth-grader reached back centuries into her roots to pen a poem about immigration and won second place in a national writing contest.

Maya Ohana, a home-schooled 10-year-old, is black, Cherokee Indian and Asian on her mother’s side and German and Scottish on her father’s side.

“I am the faces of those who walked ‘The Trail of Tears,’ ” Maya wrote. “I am the faces of enslaved cargo ship holds brought to America. I am the faces of the worker who built the railroad across the country.”

Maya’s poem “I am America” was one of 5,000 submissions in a creative writing contest jointly sponsored by The American Immigration Law Foundation and the American Immigration Lawyers Association. A student from Chicago won first place, and a student from northern California won third. The top five submissions were judged by some members of Congress and several children’s authors.

Maya learned in March that she won first place in Tucson out of 200 applicants and was informed last week about her national award.

“I wasn’t expecting first place for Tucson,” Maya said. “I was speechless with the second place overall.”

Gloria Goldman, a Tucson immigration lawyer who helped organize the local competition, said Tucson has never placed so high. The competition is meant to help children think about the contributions immigrants make, she said.

“I think it’s important to understand the positives of immigration because I think it’s the fiber of our country,” Goldman said. “It always has been.”

As part of the program, Goldman and handful of volunteer lawyers make classroom visits during the school year and talk with students about immigration.

Maya’s mother, DeRose Yuhuru-Ohana, a school nurse, learned about the contest from a bulletin board where she works.

“This is awesome,” Yuhuru-Ohana said. “It’s not every day you win a contest that represents the foundation of the country.”

When not writing poetry, Maya spends time raising guinea pigs and taking care of the family’s five horses, which she shows in 4-H competitions. She hopes one day to become a veterinarian.

The top 10 students from Tucson will be honored at a luncheon Friday at El Parador Restaurant.

———

‘I AM AMERICA’
By Maya Ohana

I am the faces you see of immigrants coming to America

I am the faces of the pilgrims who sailed across the Atlantic

I am the faces of those who walked “The Trail of Tears”

I am the faces of enslaved cargo ship holds brought to America

I am the faces of the worker who built the railroad across the country

I am diversity

I am sacrifices

I am civil rights

I am democracy

I am the mixture of sweet potato pie, tortillas, pretzels, fry bread, rice and pasta of many shapes and sizes

When you look at me you see faces of those from around the world

I am the modern day 21st century melting pot

I am the immigrant past, present and future

I am freedom

I am laughter

I am pride

I am America