Kings Anvil Ranch Unit 36C

[sea cowboy]

May 11, 2006, 6:10 a.m.

 

In Our Backyard

If only McCain and Kennedy lived on ranches in southern Arizona.

 

By Leo W. Banks

 

I know how to kill the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill and the illusions that inspire it. We need every citizen to spend a day at John and Pat King's Anvil Ranch in southern Arizona. The experience would create an overnight revolution in America's view of this domestic crisis.

 

 

The Kings live every day with barking dogs, vandalism, guns at their bedside, trash on their land, and most tragically, human remains. The bodies of seven illegals were found on the 50,000-acre Anvil last year.

 

?Can you imagine dying of heat prostration out there?? says Pat King, a 62-year-old former nurse. ?It has got to be the most awful thing. I wish the two countries would get together and stop this. In this whole 50-mile area, there is no law. It's a frontier.?

 

I visited the Anvil a week ago Sunday. The night before, the Minutemen had wrapped up a month-long watch at the ranch, and the nationwide demonstrations to demand rights for illegal immigrants would begin the next morning.

 

I've visited many Arizona ranches, and it always surprises me how quickly I can travel from Tucson to a combat zone. It takes 50 minutes to reach Anvil's headquarters in heavily-crossed Altar Valley, located to the southwest of the city. Even with that proximity, most people in Tucson?to say nothing of Maine or Washington, D.C.?live in blissful ignorance of the worsening situation here.

 

When Pat discusses the problem with friends, they say, ?Don't you think you're exaggerating?? No one would ask that if they saw the 40 bicycles stacked against one of the Anvil's out-buildings. They're the favored means of transportation for drug smugglers, who pack their cargo onto saddlebags and pedal across our border, then abandon the bikes.

 

As for vandalism, Pat describes what they experience today as ?wanton,??water troughs filled with garbage, pipes cut, valves hammered to pieces. She jokes that they're thinking of putting a tetherball by the troughs to occupy the illegals so they aren't so destructive.

 

?You have to understand, we're under siege here,? she says. ?Every day my son and husband check water and fences and redo the damage they've done. Not to get on with our work, but to undo the damage. Every. Day.?

 

Micaela McGibbon, Pat's daughter, took me on a ranch tour, and in one mile we crossed 30 smuggling trails. In a wash, we inspected sophisticated brush huts in which illegals rest during trips north.

 

But this nightmare comes right to the Kings' doorstep. Imagine living under permanent stakeout. The Kings do. They removed mesquite trees from around their house because illegals would hide underneath them and wait for the house to empty.

 

For nine years, the family has been unable to leave home unless someone stays to guard against burglars. They celebrate Christmas in shifts. On Christmas Eve, Pat's son and daughter-in-law go to Tucson to visit family, and when they return John and Pat go on Christmas morning.

 

Micaela can no longer do chores unless accompanied by her father or a brother, and taking her 4-year-old daughter out on horseback is forbidden. ?We can't go anywhere without an escort,? Micaela says.

 

The Kings have complained to politicians and law enforcement for years. ?They talk this rule of law stuff, but it doesn't mean a thing,? Pat says. ?When you realize nothing's going to happen, you have to do self-protection.?

 

During their April watch, Minutemen spotted 1,501 illegals on the Anvil, and of these the Border Patrol arrested 500. But it turned into a circus. ACLU volunteers showed up every day to monitor and harass the Minutemen, at times sounding car horns and flashing lights to alert the illegals that the Border Patrol was coming.

 

This is the border crisis in microcosm?confused Americans rush to defend lawbreakers while ignoring, even demonizing, law-abiding citizens who suffer daily affronts to basic liberties on land their family has tended for 115 years.

 

The Anvil's location, 38 miles north of the border, means that by the time illegals arrive there, they've been walking for days and are sometimes in desperate shape.

 

Between May and August last year, cowboy Jason Cathcart found four sets of human remains. He came to dread spotting what looked like little white balls in the distance. Those ?balls? turned out to be human skulls.

 

In March, a man arrived at the Anvil's front gate so distraught that he ran into the yard and tried to impale himself on a pitchfork. Later he took up a bale hook and used the pointed end to slash his throat.

 

?This is what life is like in the Altar Valley,? says Pat.

 

Certainly the McCain-Kennedy bill will do nothing to change life here. Pat likens the bill, with its plan for amnesty, a guest-worker program, and negligible enforcement, to swatting flies in your house with the doors and windows wide open.

 

Ask yourself: Would the Altar Valley be a war zone if McCain lived here? If Kennedy's Hyannis Port compound were magically transplanted to southern Arizona, how long do you think it'd be before he rewrote his bill? The first time Kennedy saw 30 illegals dashing across his property, he'd trip over his Guatemalan lawn guy rushing to the Senate floor to demand enforcement.

 

That's one of the American tragedies at play here, the abandonment of ordinary citizens by our country's elites, and most strikingly, the abandonment of the very laws they themselves have written.

 

The resulting invasion has driven legal Arizona residents from their land, including John King's aunt. She lived south of the Anvil for more than 40 years, but sold out rather than keep fighting a battle the federal government has no intention of winning.

 

Pat thinks the street demonstrators?she calls them cowards?need to show their bravery by returning to Mexico and changing that country, not ours.

 

?We did that with the Boston Tea Party,? she says. ?We were taxed without representation and we rose up and changed it. I think the students in the streets and these young ACLU individuals here are being used. When you talk to them you realize it's all emotion. There's no logic. They don't have a clue.?

 

When it comes to what's really happening on our southern border, neither does the rest of the country. But that would change if every American spent a day at the Anvil.

 

?Leo W. Banks is a writer in Tucson.

[25-06]

This kinda stuff makes me sick This is not nothing new to me, I use to hunt the southern units alot and have seen the illegal traffic increase big time....But what gets me worried is that we are in war and are borders are not secure.... If truck loads of pot can come acrossed the border all the time then so can a dirty bomb....Also the illegals are not always from Mexico or south America, there has been alot more of the OTM'S (other than mexican's) from the middle east.......Something needs to be done but mite be to late.

[peloncillo]

Something really needs to be done. The illegals are turning beautiful prime hunting lands into a giant garbage dump.People in the cities don't realize the amount of destruction illegals leave in their wake.Hopefully the laws already in place can be enforced.

 

Keven

[DesertBull]

Something really needs to be done. The illegals are turning beautiful prime hunting lands into a giant garbage dump.People in the cities don't realize the amount of destruction illegals leave in their wake.Hopefully the laws already in place can be enforced.

 

Keven

 

The reason people don't know is because the media doesn't want them to know. We know about terrorist getting their underwear stretched over thier heads in a prison half way around the world, but don't have a clue about what happens 60 miles south of Tucson?

 

 

And the only way you will Kennedy down to the border is to lure him there with a case of Single Malt Scotch.

[KGAINES]

Desertbull, the tequila might lure him, but you have to add a car, a bridge, and a girl, dead or alive he don't care.

[More D]

The Anvil is one of our favorite hunting grounds. I have see lots of................stuff on the ranch. The illegal trails are incredible, some are wide enough for your truck to drive on and seem to pop up over night. Most of the "activity" as far as I can see is about a mile west of 286. and a mile east of the eastern edge of 36C. So right ON the Kings and where the coues are.

 

 

I spend aprox 12 days a year hunting there and we have never had a problem. The only time any of us saw anything was when my hunting partner/cousin bumped into some illegals while driving. He stopped to check out a large tank and found it had about 10 guys sitting on it and they all had LARGE packs with them. As he pulled up to the tank they all scattered and he made a u-turn out of there and on the way out he stopped at Three Points to let BP know. Now we never go alone. I have never seen any illegals but you will see their effects ALL OVER THE PLACE!

I have seen a drug mule camp that had hammocks set up and and 20-25 5 gallon water jugs littered all over and bunches of cup-o-soups. Illegal crossers don't carry 5 gallon jugs on there backs. It has to be the people picking up the drugs are dropping off the water. All of this on the Kings ranch.

 

 

Now I bet you ask, why do we go?

 

1st. BIG butt MULE DEER! We tend to stay in between the "problem areas" on the flats.

 

2nd. When we stop going they win.

 

 

Some times we think that we might be pushing it. Why wait for some thing bad to happen. It is sad to go to my favorite place and worry if we parked the truck in a safe spot or will I run into any drug runner. It is a sad situation.

 

 

 

 

[KGAINES]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060512/ts_nm/...HNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

[Kilimanjaro]

I've seen just a few illegals out there..

[25-06]

I've seen just a few illegals out there..

And deported a few as well.....You lucky dog

[DotShot]

It most defiantely is a huge problem with no quick fix in sight. I spent alot of time down in 36C last year, particularly the Brown Canyon area and was simply amazed at what i saw. The trails are unbeleivable, the trash is everywhere and i did see alot of UDA's. THe one thing i did notice, on the days when there was visible BP activity in the area, i saw not a single UDA, and on the days i saw no BP, the UDA's were out in force. Now we have "W" preparing to deploy the military along the southern border, very nice, lets stretch the military even thinner than it already is, personally I thinks its just eyewash but i guess we will see.

[.270]

the key word is "ranch". ranchers are bad, mmmkay. cows are bad, mmmkay. Lark.

[Kilimanjaro]

Lark like to wallow in the past, mmmkay... Lark has absolutely nothing better to do with his time but start crap, mmmkay...

[.270]

BANG, BANG, BANG. that's the sound of me banging my head against the wall. c'mon little boy, ain't ya never heard o' sarcasm? it's when ya sorta make fun o' somethin'. never mind. if all the bp's are the same intellect (smart) as you, no wonder ya never catch nobody. sheesh, what a maroon. ok guys, in case ya didn't know, sometimes i poke a little fun at hopeless situations. in case anyone else is confuses, i'm on the ranchers side on this deal. Lark.

[Kilimanjaro]

if all the bp's are the same intellect (smart) as you, no wonder ya never catch nobody. sheesh, what a maroon.

 

Hey Lark, check your PM...

[25-06]

Jeeeesee, Luisieeee, What did you two break up AGAIN???? Deal with it trough your PM's.... Yall are makin me sick....