Said Arturo Garino, the mayor of Nogales, Arizona, quoted in "Trump’s troop deployment strung ‘lethal’ razor wire on the border. This city has had enough" (WaPo). The city already has an 18-foot fence, but now there are rows of coils of razor wire.
The tensions with the town have been exacerbated by the fact that federal authorities have shut out local officials from the process, Garino said.... He shared his concerns during a sit down with three agents from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection on Wednesday, but said they had a ready made response, speaking about “rapists, murderers and drug dealers,” and telling him that they had had a lot of incidents with people jumping the fence, he said.
“But that was strange, because the police chief, assistant chief and deputy city manager were there, and we don’t know of those things happening,” Garino said. “I don’t know where they’re getting their stats.... They can’t say they’re putting something up to protect us.... .They’re putting up something that’s lethal all the way to the ground.”....
The city’s fate is closely connected to Nogales, Mexico — a bustling city of a few hundred thousand on the other side of the fence with which it exchanges millions of dollars of goods and other commerce every year, Garino said. This symbiosis has given rise to a name that marries the two cities, despite the boundary between them: Ambos Nogales, or Both Nogales in Spanish.
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43 comments:
Irish Washerwoman
If they, as the mayor says, have "a lot of incidents with people jumping the fence", the razor wire is not an issue.
Pro tip: The wire does not reach out and grab people. Stay back far enough that tripping will not cause you to fall into the wire, problem solved.
Bad optics? Perhaps.
Waste of (minor) money? Maybe.
Opportunity to pander? Likely.
Ooops, make that DON'T have....
Why exactly is this guy complaining? New flash to the Mayor. The federal government has the duty to protect the rest of the country.
And, of course, the WaPo finds the one Mayor against the Wall.
Arturo Garino can run for mayor of the Mexican counterpart.
Sounds like he would be more comfortable there.
If he is a US citizen, he should be not only worried about what happens in his town, but what happens to every place those invaders travel.
Acemoglu ("Why Nations Fail") uses Nogales as proof of the influence of culture and incentives in fucking up an economy.
http://www.econtalk.org/acemoglu-on-why-nations-fail/
But if you look at a society that's ethnically, culturally, geographically very homogeneous but you divide it through a border and you set different sets of laws and incentives on one side than another, then you have something that's almost like a natural experiment. You can see how two different parts that are otherwise similar are performing under institutions. South Korea versus North Korea, Nogales, AZ versus Nogales, Sonora are examples that we can come up with. And you can see, you cross the border and you suddenly enter into a very dilapidated part, much lower levels of income, people are not in school, they have low health, buildings are in worse situation; and north of the border it's entirely different. Because one part is part of the U.S. institutions and benefits from all of those incentives and businesses from the rest of the United States.
"It's not needed because nobody's jumping the fence. Plus it will harm the people jumping the fence," complained Nogales mayor Arturo Garino.
In her younger days, my spouse lived in Arizona near Nogales, Az. Apparently she and her first husband would travel to Nogales, Mexico regularly for shopping.
A few years back, we visited her old homestead and were warned - do not travel to Nogales, Mexico. Times have changed.
Dude!
The people I let sneak in didn't rob my house, trash it, and kill my daughter--they did that to you! Why are you bothering me?
No criminals ever cross the border. It’s amazing. It would sure be nice to live in a world where you could simply leave your doors unlocked because everybody is a good person.
Of course it makes absolutely no sense to even have the power to attempt background checks on the people coming here to live by forcing them through border points.
"It's not needed because nobody's jumping the fence. Plus it will harm the people jumping the fence," complained Nogales mayor Arturo Garino.
Pretzel logic. Well, it’s not logic, it’s rhetoric, rhetoric is something that sounds like logic, but it isn’t.
Well Nogales is a different sort of border town. There is no natural boundary/barrier between Nogales AZ and Nogales Son. The river flows north to south through the towns into Mexico (unlike the Rio Grande at El Paso and Juarez). Nogales AZ lives off the commerce generated by consumers in Nogales Son and as the entry point for the Canamex highway it’s supposed to provide relatively easy passage of trades going north and south. So yes I would assume the Mayor of Nogales AZ would be pissed about a more prominent physical barrier in the middle of Ambon Nogales.
And finally lets remember it all started as a part of Mexico before the Gadsden Purchase.
If the laws of the United States were enforced within the U.S., the old customary informalities along the border would not be a problem.
A city like this with an easily breached border gives illegals like people coming here to subvert our wage levels, labor laws, overwhelm our emergency rooms because they are willing to work without benefits, etc, plus drug smugglers, and other assorted criminals drawn here, a way to disappear into the population immediately. Rather than risk being caught crossing open country.
Where else would gang members cross? It’s where I would cross if given their set of options.
Blogger Hagar said...
If the laws of the United States were enforced within the U.S., the old customary informalities along the border would not be a problem.
Chamber of Commerce/Koch Bros Republicans want the cheap exploitable labor.
Democrats want the votes.
The rest is noise.
Phil 3:14
So perhaps the entire fence should be removed. Think the mayor would be cool with that? The citizens? Or is fence good but razor wire bad?
Isn't it ironic that in every western movie, the crooks and bank robbers always wanted to head to Mexico. The crooks apparently felt safe south of the border. Now the crooks head north.
"..... because that's where the money is." (Willie Sutton)
You want a fence where there's US population because crossers can blend into the population and are hard to find. In the open, they're not.
Before: Only Obama controls the border. If he wants to leave it open, there is nothing anyone can do.
After: Everyone but Trump controls the border. If he wants to close it, there is nothing he can do.
Chamber of Commerce/Koch Bros Republicans want the cheap exploitable labor.
Democrats want the votes.
Not to mention the dot.com billionaires and their H1B visas.
But all of those problems are caused by us and are our responsibility to resist.
Yes it's just the way it is:
https://features.propublica.org/navy-accidents/uss-fitzgerald-destroyer-crash-crystal/
Nothing but trucking companies and warehouses on one side of the border--nothing but trucking companies and warehouses on the other side. Some only a few hundred feet apart.
That was Nogales the last time I was there, some 20 years ago. It seemed like once a week the border patrol would bust a warehouse with large. elaborate tunnels to their counterparts in Mexico.
Move the fence so both Nogales are on the Mexican side. Problem solved.
“Not to mention the dot.com billionaires and their H1B visas.”
The problem with H1B visas is that they have made citizenship extremely difficult for the holders of such. The logical immigration policy would be to give them a path to citizenship. They are often the best and the brightest from around the world. Many of the ones I knew and worked with had either an MS or PhD. Just the sort of people you would want for immigrants, as contrasted to the illiterate, often subpar intelligence, peasants, that you get so many of with chain migration. Supposedly, you are supposed to pay them what they would make as Americans, but they tend to fall behind, because the new employer has to pick up their H1B, etc. during the last serious push for comprehensive immigration reform, they were going to have to go back to their native country in order to switch to another company. We argued that this essentially made them even more the indentured servants than they alredy were. Luckily, the legislation went down in flames at the end.
That legislation was backed by an unholy alliance of Democrats seeking ignorant peasant immigrants as new voters in order to build a permanent majority, and the big tech companies that were looking for cheap, indentured, PhDs. They provided the money. Huge buckets of money, probably hundreds of millions of dollars of lobbying money, while the Democrats supplied the votes.
In one of his classic studies on the rise of the Medieval City, the Belgian historian, Henri Pirenne describes how WALLS became both an attribute and catalyst of the economic revitalization of European life. Originally built as a defensive feature behind which the aristocracy (church and secular powers) lived, the rising merchant classes, and their artisan suppliers began to set up markets and shops OUTSIDE the town walls. Inside was both too crowded and too expensive.
In brief, walls helped emerging towns economically, especially on the outside of the old perimeter. Throughout Europe and South Asia, one sees the evidence of this evolution as earlier walls are absorbed into housing and newer walls are built farther out to encircle the old suburb into the new merchant or craftsmen quarters. The same thing is happening in Jerusalem--as one enters the city from the Ramalah bypass gate, a raft of impromptu shops selling auto parts, garden statuary, vegetables, and cool drinks. People have to stop to go through security, which is excellent for business. Totally missing from all the bruhaha.
Reading the mayor's complaint and looking at Nogales on Google Maps is most instructive as an interesting replication of urban development lending some support to Pirenne's thesis. To the north of the border, there is a Walmart super shopping center. To the south, there is the Palace Bingo & Sport Bets Casino (c) [palacecasino.mx] and the Centro de Estudios Universitarios del Nuevo Occident (a trade school).
As a piece of Visual Sociology, I think the problem is really one of aesthetics: the Burghers on BOTH sides of the wall are offended that what is being offered is U-G-L-Y. And judging by the online images, it is really bat-shit ugly. Especially for an area that is undergoing incredible economic development.
Come on; the issue is of Olmsted Proportions. The Democrats are the stingy ones here and the Republicans are pushing for something more upscale--maybe not the Walls of Avignon; but, something with a bit more class. After all, what Border Security is REALLY about is Economic Development. It's a classic Walled City: come through the Gate to go to the Market and attend Mass; exit the Gate to go have fun AND go to school. What is not to like; except that sorting out the various cross border trade will undoubtedly draw business (and fun) from the leisure classes from the north.
The current butt ugly Barrier is driving away BUSINESS for both sides of the Wall.
"I always say this is one city of 400,000 people"
I always say that it's two cities because it is two cities, one city of about 20,000 people and one city of about 200,000 people, which doesn't add up to the 400,000 people you get by using Math for Politicians.
I bought a stuffed raccoon and a silver-plated iguana in Nogales and the U.S. border goons enjoyed wasting everyone's time trying to steal the raccoon.
And finally lets remember it all started as a part of Mexico before the Gadsden Purchase.
Why?
Having been stationed at Ft. Huachuca a couple of times (just across the Huachuca Mountains from Nogales), I can assure you that the border there is porous. We were warned not to travel too far into the mountains because of the drug smuggling that took place - this was in the 70s and 80s. Later, I remember seeing our intel guys getting experience using an Aerostat balloon with sensors to patrol the border. So this mayor is either lying, ignorant or FOS (I know - embrace the power of "and").
Bruce, just the "hundreds of millions of dollars of lobbying money" should be enough to tell you that this program is not good for anybody but the lobbyists and certainly not for the country.
When the local [state] authorities wanted to check immigration status in Arizonal the Dems sued and the SCOTUS decreed it was purely a federal responsibility and so they essentially told Arizona to butt out.
Now all these towns want to have a say in how immigration is enforced. When will the Repubs file lawsuits against them?
A highway is lethal if you try to cross it, even if you look both ways.
I’ve been to Nogales. It’s disgusting on both sides of the border.
There is a reason Tucson has the highest crime rate in AZ.
You can’t make good walnut bread without crushing a few Nogales (Spanish for walnuts).
Ah Phil let us also remember that California was part of Mexico before the Bear Flag Revolt. So maybe we should give Alta California back to Baja California--that would remove Senators Feinstein and Harris from the Senate at leasdt.
Ah Phil let us also remember that California was part of Mexico before the Bear Flag Revolt. So maybe we should give Alta California back to Baja California--that would remove Senators Feinstein and Harris from the Senate at leasdt.
Hell, let's give them the whole state! And then extend the wall.
WaPo crap. When I was prosecuting Customs and the Border Patrol would pass drug smugglers and other offenders through Santa Cruz County (Nogales) into Pima County (Tucson) where they would be intercepted and arrested by the Arizona Highway Patrol. The reason: the feds believed officials in Nogales, Arizona, were corrupt - Mexico corrupt. There is no reason to believe that has changed or that the belief is groundless.
Consequently, local officials would not be fully informed of criminal activity, including illegal immigration. Nor would they be consulted about steps needed to stop it.
This is a favorite theme of the Tucson left. Why would razor wire bother anyone who was not trying to climb over the wall?
The razor wire can only hurt you if you try to go through it. This article sounds to me like the Nogales, Arizona politicians have been actively helping border crossers. It really is impossible to interpret this article in any other rational way.
Maybe they should see if they can find one of those “laydars” that lefties were mocking Trump about just a month or two ago. Problem solved!
A living solution: emigration reform and unPlanned Parenthood.
cry me a river
The real problem with a wall is that it would work.
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