Humane Borders, Mexican government to give maps to illegal crossers; Jim Kolbe, Pima County support

Pima County (home of Tucson) and Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) are supporters of a plan by the Humane Borders group to pass out maps to Mexicans showing them the best places to illegally cross our border. Story - with several comments - here.

HB, headed by Rev. Robin Hoover, is working with Mexico's National Human Rights Commission, a quasi-governmental group on the scheme. The maps will be passed out in Mexico's south, not just at the border. They show various terrain features (to people who probably don't have or know how to use compasses and who are not familiar with the desert), as well as the locations of water stations and rescue beacons.

The effort is supported by Pima County, partly as an attempt to help alleviate the expense of dealing with hundreds of corpses found in the desert, said Enrique Serna, a deputy county administrator who accompanied Hoover to Mexico...

Arizona Rep. Jim Kolbe, a Republican, said he supports the maps as a way of saving lives. But the best way of keeping migrants from dying in the desert is by helping Mexico create jobs and reforming U.S. laws to better manage migration, he said.

"It's hard to disagree with giving information to your citizens to save their lives," Kolbe said. "Ideally, what I would prefer is that they hand out flyers saying You don't have to cross the desert because there are jobs in Mexico, and here is some job information.' But that isn't going to happen, because there aren't jobs in Mexico..."

I'll bet the Mongols wish there had been "liberals" and corrupt politicians in China back in the day.

Note that Humane Borders joins a growing list of U.S. organizations that are assisting the Mexican government with their agenda. See "Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law collaborating with Mexican government", MALDEF getting "moral support" from Mexico, and this report about Suffolk County (Long Island).

Here's more on Pima County.

UPDATE: The LAT offers "Mexico to Issue Border Survival Guides" and the AP offers "Maps to aid illegal Mexican migrants". And, yes, selecting the Al Jazeera version of the AP report was intentional, and the same report is here:

Mauricio Farah, one of the [National Human Rights Commission]'s national inspectors, said: "We are not trying in any way to encourage or promote migration... "The only thing we are trying to do is warn them of the risks they face and where to get water, so they don't die." ...Farah said migration "is a human right" and that "the United States should be grateful" the commission is doing something to curb the death toll, because "hundreds of thousands of Mexicans help maintain their economy".

Why can't they help maintain Mexico's economy? Oh yeah, that corruption thing.

Immigration · Tue, 01/24/2006 - 15:26 · Importance: 1