'Immigration is broken': Rancher describes danger at US-Mexico border
One rancher who works near the U.S.-Mexico border has noticed differences in how it is handled by the federal government.
"This is an emergency button, I think, on the other side. So an illegal can walk up to this, push the button, and the border patrol would come and pick them up if they're in distress," Amanda Adame said.
Adame has spent most of her life in Luna County, just a few miles from Mexico. She was raised herding cattle on farm land, where she ran into smugglers, migrants and even drug trafficking.
"It was an everyday occurrence," Adame said. "Not only were they trafficking drugs, they were trafficking people and they were trafficking arms."
She also said that there have been improvements to the border wall in recent years. Adame explains how the community needed to take action to ensure safety.
"I haven't seen any type of immigration reform,바카라 게임 웹사이트 Adame said. "I've seen the wall, which is great, which is a great first start, that we've actually got a border.
Video below: Ride along with Border Patrol at southern border
"It was a barbed wire fence, it wasn't even maintained by the government," Adame said. "It was maintained by all the ranchers or the ranchers who lived on the border."
A section of the border wall at the boot hill of New Mexico is part of why Adame has been frustrated with the border for much of her life. It바카라 게임 웹사이트s called Monument 40, one of many memorials signifying the trade reached between the U.S. and Mexico in 1848.
Construction of the border wall stopped here in 2021, shortly after former President Joe Biden took office. It hasn바카라 게임 웹사이트t resumed there since, adding to Adame바카라 게임 웹사이트s frustration with how the U.S. handles the southern border and immigrants.
"The border바카라 게임 웹사이트s broken, everything바카라 게임 웹사이트s broken, the wall is broken, and the immigration is broken," Adame said. "If there was a way that we could fix it all, that would be a blessing in disguise."
One instance of smuggling, when she got scared for her life, was when she saw a group of men on their property from afar.
"I could see something at one of our water troughs and so I stopped and got binoculars out and there was seven men and each one a black army rifle strapped to their back," Adame said. "And I knew that if I had gone down there without paying attention, something probably would have happened to us. It was that scary."
Adame also expressed empathy for those crossing the border in search of a better opportunity. Especially since that cost is not cheap.
"It makes me feel bad for the people who come, who are looking for an honest way to come across that are misled from coming to come across because the coyotes bring them over here," Adame said. "They charge them astronomical amounts of money, bring them over here, dump them, point to the north and say, 'Tucson is that way.'"
Coyotes is slang for a person who smuggles migrants across the border.
Adame is happier now with the state of the border she has been before. Maybe a couple times a month she will see a migrant walking through her ranch.
