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Shooting of illegal immigrants

A local perspective on the shooting of three illegal immigrants the other day in Arizona. Drudge had it headlined as they were shot crossing the border. Not even close. Tucson is 60 miles north of the border, and they were about 20 miles northwest of here.

They were proceeding thru a remote area of the Papago Reservation (I know they changed their tribal name, but can never remember how to spell the new name), and from the newspaper photos it looks as if they were on more a jeep trail than a road (that may just be where the truck went after the shooting, as the driver did continue onward. The reason they were sticking to remote roads is that they were pretty obvious about things -- you can hardly drive up I-10 with a bunch of people sitting in your truck bed and not expect that Border Patrol (which usually has a squadcar or two watching, just south of Phoenix) won't take an interest.

What is a bit of a mystery to me is how the attackers would have known where and when the truck would be travelling. I suppose it's possible that word got around that this was a popular route, and so they just set up an ambush and waited, planning to rob them. On the other hand, there might have been inside word (I'm told, for example, that in the drug smuggling business the dealers down there will sometimes sell the drugs, then tip off Border Patrol so as to net a reward for the arrest on top of it. I assume they don't do that to regular customers, as it would be quite bad for return business).

The truck itself had been stolen in Phoenix sometime ago, giving yet another reason to stick to remote roads.