New York, N.Y. (Sept. 15, 2001) -- Golden Retriever SAR dog, Riley, is transported out of the debris of the World Trade Center.
U.S. Navy Photo by Journalist 1st Class Preston Keres.
Consider how
Arizona’s new immigration law affects a young
O’odham woman.
On her reservation in Arizona, which is divided by the U.S.-Mexico border. About nine O'odham communities are on the Mexico side. Because of existing immigration laws, tribal members are forced to produce passports and border I.D. cards to reach the other side of the reservation.
“On countless occasions, the U.S. Border Patrol has detained and deported members of the Tohono O'odham Nation who were simply traveling through their own traditional lands,” according to the O’odham Nation website. “Border officials are also reported to have confiscated cultural and religious items, such as feathers of common birds, pine leaves or sweet grass.”
As appalling as that is, worse is the image she paints of Mexican immigrants crossing the border, who were found sometimes collapsed from exhaustion on the lands of her O’odham family on the U.S. side.
Knowing this, her family members didn’t pull out shotguns or call Border Patrol.
They would leave out food and water for whoever would be crossing through their lands.
One important thing missing from all the news coverage around Arizona’s new immigration law is the voice of the first people of this country (as always), who never detained and deported the “illegal” immigrants who first landed on their shores
(though many probably wanted to).
Now the descendants of those immigrants are the ones deciding who’s allowed to stay.
