Immigration Border Tour II - Winter 2006

• In a hardscrabble area of the inner city of El Paso, we visited the Annunciation House -- a shelter for illegal immigrants just coming across the border.  I met with Director Rubin Garcia who said the shelter is supported by a network of churches here that are interested in promoting social justice.  Note:  On an earlier tour, we walked the dusty Westside streets of Juarez, Mexico, just across the border from El Paso.  Some 200,000 people live in cobbled together shacks with no running water, no electricity and little food.  Our administration would do everything possible to try to help these people -- on both sides of the border.
•    In Las Cruces, New Mexico, my daughter Sarah and I sat in on a workshop at Our Lady of Health Church.  Part of the workshop included attendees talking about how they "...longed to see God's face."  I said it's actually not hard to see God's face.  That is, Jesus said whenever we do something for "the least of these," we do it for Him.  So it only stands to reason that we can see God's 'face' every day-- in the 'face' of the poor. Note:  Although that is harder to do in Las Cruces these days.  An ordinance was passed several years ago banning the homeless from begging on the streets here.
•    In Las Cruces, we also met with Sheriff's Deputy Jimmy Beasley who has been with the Department the past 19 years here.  He said drugs coming across the border is a tremendously big issue.  He said the drug cartels south of the border are powerful and quite networked.  He said no matter how much security, they will find a way to get at least some, if not a lot, of the drugs through.  So common sense would indicate we have to find more ways to decrease the demand for drugs on this side of the border.  One way to do this is through the DARE Program, which Deputy Beasley has helped coordinate the past 16 years now.  The program helps students develop positive peer groups and make responsible choices around drinking and drugs.
•    I was interviewed by reporter Kevin Buey of the Headlight newspaper in Demming, New Mexico.  The day before, Buey had written an excellent piece about the "Southwest Desert Sustainability Project" slated for the area.  Southwest Desert Sustainability is a non-profit organization developed to help homeowners evaluate their energy efficiency.  These reviews are offered in conjunction with: "Rebuild New Mexico."  A thrust of the project is to show homeowners in this area how to retrofit with more insulation in tandem with adding solar devices.  (The sun shines more than 300 days a year here on average.)  I told Buey our platform asks Americans to considerably ratchet up their "environmental stewardship" to reverse global warming.
•    In Quartsite, Arizona, we met a man who had served in the Army and had been dispatched to Hiroshima shortly after we dropped the atomic bomb there.  He said the city was absolutely decimated.  And the image that particularly stuck in his mind was the outlines of bodies actually burned into the concrete where adults and children were incinerated when the bomb detonated.  Note:  Our platform calls for a U.S. Department of Peace to head this off in the future, while building more worldwide camaraderie.