Truck carrying illegal immigrants falls off Texas cliff

[The Northerner]

Source: San Jose Mercury News

McALLEN, Texas—Authorities say a truck carrying illegal immigrants from Guatemala and Mexico has plummeted more than 40 feet off a cliff in southwest Texas. All 18 aboard were injured.

The pickup truck went off the road near Alice on Tuesday afternoon and fell into a gravel pit. Alice is about 40 miles west of Corpus Christi.

Eleven people remain hospitalized Wednesday. The others injured have been treated and released to Border Patrol custody.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Leticia Zamarripa says the driver has been charged with illegal immigrant smuggling involving death or serious injury. She did not know whether the driver, Patricio Rebollar, was among those still hospitalized.

The Texas Department of Public Safety is investigating the accident.

Read more: http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_13866579

---

Until the administration starts to crack down much, much, more aggressively on businesses that employ illegals the more incidents like the above will occur.

[HopeHoops]

1. Starts? They've already started.

There were a bunch of reports a few weeks ago, but this one gets to the heart of the matter - Obama is going after employers as opposed to the Bush dog and pony media event raids.

http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/obamas-approach-illegal-immigration-has-businesses-worried

[babylonsister]

2. They are starting to crack down...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4153739

U.S. Plans Immigration Audits at 1,000 Employers

[Booster]

3. I didn't think there was anything in that part of Texas that was

40 ft high. Must be manmade.

[timo]

4. sheesh

thats what gravel pit would imply, I know that stretch of road and cliff is really not the word for it, there is a wide shoulder and a fence to drive thru as well

[Booster]

17. I'm from those parts. sheesh - it was a joke.

[Bucky]

26. I don't know when it quits being "too soon"

Maybe when the injured are released from the hospital.

 

[Catshrink]

5. Hm... so let me understand this

in Texas, a red state, 18 illegal immigrants were injured and taken to the hospital. What do all the illegal immigrant-bashers say about this? Who paid for their treatment? Why didn't the hospital refuse to treat them if they didn't have insurance and were illegal? I thought the RW was all about not paying for medical care for illegal immigrants so what happens in this kind of emergency? Where is all that indignation now? And what is the choice? Leave the people bleeding on the side of the road or throw them into an ICE facility without care?

I remember once my dad bitching and moaning about the boat people in Vietnam. He said something like "why don't they just let them drown? They chose to put to sea in rickety boats." I said to him, "Dad, you were in the navy. What would you have done if you'd looked overboard and seen a family crowed into a tiny little leaking boat that was sinking fast?" He paused, looked at me and said, "We'd have pulled up onto the ship." There you go.

Platitudes sound so damn good until there's a real humanitarian situation staring you in the face and then somehow, thankfully, humanity does take over. The Tancredos and Arpaios of the world need to see more faces of those in need. Maybe they need to remember their Bible they like to wave around and ask the WWJD question instead of just saying "send 'em back."

I don't know if I'm making sense. If I've learned anything it's that there are no absolutes -- and those who live in that world will forever be angry that things aren't the way they want them.

[MadMaddie]

6. You are making perfect sense!

When people spout those things I simply ask them if it were your family would you want someone, anyone (whether you like them or approve of them) to help your family? That usually ends the conversation.

[Catshrink]

7. And ask them that if they came upon a wreck

and stopped to help if they'd want to see proof of citizenship first. It's like there's a real disconnect between the intellectual argument and the human deed.

In fact, that's exactly what it is with uber-conservatives -- they don't want to pay taxes but want the roads, schools, PO, fire/police departments, libraries, etc. that taxes pay for. Hello? Taxes are the price of a civilized society. Duh!

[MadMaddie]

8. Yep and they will be the first to complain when the quality of

service goes down.

[imdjh]

16. Actually in Florida, Democrats also voted to lower taxes.

"they don't want to pay taxes but want the roads, schools, PO, fire/police departments, libraries, etc. "


Those are precisely the things that Floridians want their taxes to go for. What we don't want our taxes to go for in all the crap in addition to the legitimate expenses of those pursuits. Taking schools for example, it is the state's responsibility to run schools, it is not the state's responsibility to provide cradle to prison daycare.

[AlphaCentauri]

23. The current tax system is a disillusion

it's not progressive, it is made to let politicians to play with the system in anyway they want specially to get elected promising to cut taxes and corporations to pay nothing

[mr clean]

10. +1

[rasputin1952]

11. "We'd have pulled up onto the ship."...says it all...

We tend to rant about the faceless, until we see the faces, the pain, the fear...then, "thankfully, humanity does take over."...:hug:

[BlueCollar]

12. Great response...n/t

[XemaSab]

13. Amen

Especially since it's so easy for the shoe to be on the other foot.

[imdjh]

15. Perhaps you find it useful to pose the idiot as the model. It discredits you.

It's the rare person who would sincerely suggest that those 18 illegals be left with their injuries or delivered to the border in whatever condition they were in by the time they arrived. Not even Tancredo or Arpaio are saying that illegals should be denied emergency medicine. It's a false argument on your part, because emergency medicine is given, perhaps not charitably, to anyone in this country including those much farther down the ladder than illegal aliens. But the difference is that the illegal aliens aren't supposed to be here, they are not citizens, and then do not have the entitlements of citizens, so they should be treated and then returned to their own country. In this case, both countries of origin have National Health Service care I believe.

[timo]

18. it gets hard

it really does not to get sooooooo jaded when you live down here on the border and see the massive fraud that goes on, the whole system is a sham, 3 different border patrol headquarters down here and they were landscaped by less than legal labor, its a total joke, and the hospitals here will always take them, especially if they are in real need. when you drive around and watch the border patrol sleep and just a few hundred yards down the road you see the coyote lead 20 or 30 of them thru the brush, when the valedictorian of the high school 4 years running has NO citizenship papers, when the border patrol sits idly by and watches as literally hundreds of laborers harvest crops by hand and 80 percent of the work force has mexico plates on their vehicles.....it just kinda makes you a little jaded and can give a person the fuck the government attitude!!! when you watch all the trucks that cross the border daily, knowing that the tv parts and car parts used to be made here in the U.S., it can get a little irksome, or when you get hit by a car with mexican plates you know your screwed because they wont have any insurance and there is no recourse, because the person driving has no social security number and wont be paying for jack shit, and wont be going to jail, and can if they are deported just come back the next day, like nothing ever happened.....or watch at the grocery as every friday and saturday western union sends literally millions of dollars to mexico and that money is very slow if at all to get re-patriated or and this is one of my favorites you eat at a taqueria and watch people bring in supplies that were purchased with a w.i.c. card, or a lonestar card and sell the goods to the owner for .50 cents on the dollar for cash to go buy beer, cigs, and dope, and they dont try to hide it either, or 90 percent of the cars stolen cross the border within 15 to 20 minutes of the theft and are stolen by people from mexico who crossed into this country with zero documentation, or the clearly diabetic lady with bruises under her eyes and shes buying ice cream, lard, flour tortillas and sodas with a lonestar card (food stamps in Texas) and cant figure out why they keep cutting her toes and feet off due to diabetes, if all the effort in iraq and afghanistan was focused along the border to wipe out fraud and corruption and ignorance, free healthcare would be bought and paid for....I wouldnt hesitate to help those people, do I wish mexico would get their act together and ditch centuries of political corruption and make an effort to join the rest of the world...YES YES YES YES!!!!
sorry for the rant.

[JonQ]

20. I don't think anyone is really against emergency care for illegals

in situations like this.

Get them stable, send them back, send the bill to mexico.

[Stumbler]

22. Great points made.

[Igel]

28. Too many problems to deal with at once.

First, there's not just one group of "immigrant-bashers", any more than you could say that "all DUers agree on illegal immigration." Embrace diversity.

Second, there's no disconnect for some immigrant bashers. They'd rather not have illegal immigrants taken in at an ER. They'd rather they die--if only en route back to their home country, bleeding and broken. I don't think that's a majority. I don't even think that's a significant minority. However, in a country where there are occasional stories about homeless people beaten, a girl raped by a dozen guys while others stand and watch--and such things not always done by the traditional neo-Nazi white supremacist--it's hard to put a political label on the people with this kind of view.

Third, there is a disconnect for some immigrant bashers. They say things that yield the result they want. But when confronted with actually doing those things they'd reject them as options. Consider them people who don't think through their position, or for whom a great quantity of people can be dealt with as statistics while individuals in front of them are to be dealt with as individuals. There are lots of those on the right. There are lots of those who are independents. There are lots of those who are on the left. Embrace diversity.

Fourth, there's no disconnect for most of the rest of the immigrant bashers. They'd rather have the illegal immigrants taken to the ER, but they'd much rather have them not immigrate illegally. If they're not here, they wouldn't have accidents here and they wouldn't need the ER here.

[Moosepoop]

9. I'm just really, really glad that nobody died.

Forty feet over a cliff could have been much, much worse. Thankfully, no deaths.

[Harry Monroe]

14. Over at Freeperville, I'll wager they're laughing and making jokes about this.

This is a tragedy, no matter the circumstances.

[FarLeftFist]

19. Was Lou Dobbs driving?

[JonQ]

21. Long past time to start taking this seriously

Crack down on employers, give immigration services real teeth to go after employers and illegals, and start really patrolling the border.


Also cutting off aid to mexico in proportion to the number of illegals who cross the border from there would be nice.

[Xipe Totec]

24. So, apparently, only trucks carrying illegals can fall off cliffs?

Did your analysis take a wrong turn somewhere?

:shrug:

[The Animator]

25. Yeah, there's a familiar racist joke in there somewhere, but I ain't touching it...

[a la izquierda]

27. Required viewing for everyone on this board...

who feels the simplest solution on undocumented workers is whichever one dwells in their brains- Which Way Home.
The last time I commented on an immigration thread, my comment got deleted, while racist, xenophobic comments fly around willy nilly. So, I'll just suggest that the Lou Dobbsians watch Which Way Home, or even Wetback.