Blog Redirect: The New Jersey Four

BFP has an update on the New Jersey Four and a link to a new website up at her place. Click.

Teen drowns crossing the border

For once, someone in border patrol is showing some compassion.

PROGRESO - A teenage boy apparently drowned Sunday night trying to illegally swim across the Rio Grande River, officials said.

His body has not been recovered, but apparently the boy screamed to his mother and two other siblings who were unable to help him. A family relative reported the incident to Border Patrol who spent the afternoon in the area of the Progresso International Bridge searching for his body.

“The mother is hurt and she really could not have seen (her son) in the dark,” said Oscar Saldaña, a local spokesperson for the Border Patrol. “She did hear her son cry out for help that he was drowning last night.”

At this point, Saldaña said Border Patrol agents are not investigating the crossing of the other family members.

“There will be another time for the issue,” Saldana said. “We would just like to bring closure to this assistance call.” [Full story]

Via hermana resist, who draws attention to the disgusting comments some people are leaving in response to this story. [Source]

I can’t imagine ever making a comment like this one: “did they find his bloated body yet? maybe we can put it on our side of the river as a PSA to quit coming over illegaly. then maybe we can poke it with a stick” All I can think of is, “How would I feel if that were my sister? My mother? My niece?” I can’t imagine what that poor boy’s family must be going through.

You know, I’ve been poor. There were a couple of times when my family had to borrow money to eat, a couple of times when that meant nothing but Kraft Mac and Cheese and peanut butter sandwiches for a week or two at a time, occasionally supplemented by packaged foods rescued from grocery store dumpsters. But even so, we were never at the point where we had to sneak into a country where the government taught people to hate us just so my parents could feed us kids. We were never at the point where our family would have risked life and limb to get somewhere else, where hard work for low pay in unsafe conditions would have looked good.

It’s time for people in the U.S. to stop hating people in that position, and start solving the issues that cause those problems. Because the U.S. has had a major role in causing them. NAFTA has made it extremely difficult for farmers in Mexico to compete with market prices for crops. Biofuel research is driving up the cost of basic crops everywhere, and people are turning to those crops rather than raising food. It’s not even helping the environment — in fact, it might be increasing global warming. [Source]

A loud majority of people in the U.S. do not think of people in other countries as people. It’s time that stopped.