I should also note that Helen and I were told by firefighters that they are continuing to see illegal immigrants, by day and by night (through night-vision binoculars), who are traversing the Chiricahua Mountains, even as they burn, even through the newly-burned region.
If you really would like to help Portal, the Chiricahua Mountains, and other Borderland communities, please support immediate enforcement of our immigration laws and (as a separate issue) reform of our immigration policy, including reinstituting a rational, national workers’ program, such as the Braceros program which the US had for many years during and after World War II. It worked.
Such a worker program would prevent the sufferings and occasional deaths of workers attempting to enter the country illegally––and it would alleviate problems in places like Portal, where fully 1/4 of all homes were broken into last year by illegal immigrants. It would also address an economic need in the US. You have only to stay a short while in our Border communities to sense the growing desperation, as the federal government holds back from dealing with this complex problem, out of fear of losing votes.