So. Arizona tribe wants more federal help for border security

Associated Press

http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/hourlyupdate/142709.php

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 08.18.2006

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PHOENIX - A southern Arizona Indian tribe wants more federal help to battle illegal immigration and smuggling on its reservation, saying it is spending $3 million a year to secure a 75-mile stretch of the Mexican border.

The Tohono O'odham Nation has spent years trying to limit intrusions onto its land, with little obvious success. The reservation is crisscrossed with at least 160 smuggling trails, littered with trash and even shrines erected by migrants. The tribe has given unprecedented access to the U.S. Border Patrol in hopes of stemming the tide.

Now the tribe wants more direct financial help from the Department of Homeland Security, tribal officials said.

"We're caught in the middle of this whole problem," Tribal Chairwoman Vivian Juan-Saunders said. "It creates a really high stress level for our people."

The 25 tribes along the southern and northern U.S. borders are forced to appeal for money directly from states because the Homeland Security Act of 2002 does not recognize Indian nations as sovereign governments. That adds a layer of bureaucracy and brings complaints than tribes are left out of the federal decision-making process.

Juan-Sanders said Tohono O'odham tribal leaders have met with top Department of Homeland Security officials, including Secretary Michael Chertoff, in the past month in an effort to solve the problem. U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., said he wants to help the tribe, but doubts legislation could make it through Congress this year.

"They're supplementing this enforcement activity, and they deserve to have a direct pipeline," Grijalva said. "I think their request is more than justified; I think it's overdue."

All the lobbying and official visits have so far led nowhere, Juan-Sanders said.

Smugglers are still operating on the vast reservation, which covers 2.8 million acres, the size of Connecticut. The tribal police department has 65 officers who are spending 60 percent of their time on illegal immigration. Border Patrol agents scour the tribe's land, and the tribe recently approved allowing the National Guard onto the reservation.

Since 2001, the tribe has received about $900,000 in security grant money distributed by the state to purchase equipment to deal with emergencies, Juan-Saunders said, and an extra $200,000 after Gov. Janet Napolitano declared a state of emergency along the border. But that's far below the costs to the tribe.

Undocumented immigrants crossings are down from the peak of 1,500 a day a few years ago, but still high, Juan-Sanders said. They dump trash, and they die. So far this year, the tribe has paid for autopsies on at least 51 migrants, including three children, at a cost of $1,200 to $1,400 each.

"These resources should be spent on education and health care and infrastructure and economic development," she said.

"But we have no other choice than to do what we can to protect our people.

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