These reports were written by an independent Minutewoman.
June Cook has gone out alone to watch the border while 
pretending to be a lone woman camper.  Here at 
Border Guardians, our hat’s off to her!  What a brave patriot!
--DefenderUSA

Yuma Border Watch Sept 05
Part 1
**************************
By way of review, back in April 05 I had committed to more
border watch activities October 1 through November 1 05. But the
situation in Yuma had deteriorated so badly, being overrun with
illegal immigrants and drug and human trafficking, that not only did
I move my dates up to Sept 15 thru October 15 but I had to change my
commitment from Algodones through El Centro, to just Yuma alone.
********************************

Being delayed one day due to family complications, I left home
Saturday 1 pm and arrived in Yuma 3:30 pm or so. My designated
border watch buddy Richard Thompson, a Yuma Patriot, was just out of
the hospital with abdominal surgery and so I was on my own.

I went straight to work with the Yuma Patriots, getting lost
numerous times to their muster site until one of them Denny got
tired of me passing up and down Highway 95 south and parked himself
on the shoulder and waved me down as I passed him for the umpteenth
time. We reported for duty and stood guard over a farmer's land from
7 pm to 6 am the next morning, near the town of Somerton just a few
miles from the main border. Illegal immigrants had been traipsing
through his freshly seeded farmlands causing hundreds of
dollars of damage every night. Some fifty passed that way that
evening, four just one car over from where I was stationed.
*****************************

The big excitement that night though was, the Cocopah Indian Police
coming by and ordering one of the Patriot car groups off the road as
he said it was Indian land. The farmer said it was his land being
guarded (I think specifically that it's leased land but not quite
sure), and so he needed the road for us to park on (the land was
seeded right to its borders).

The Patriots responded that the road was public road. The
Patriots called the county sheriff to come and arrest the Indian
police officer for harassing us, and he got stuck in a ditch on the
way over.

By this time everybody was yammering on the CB radio what they
thought of bossy Indians and unhelpful sheriffs and over-assertive
Yuma Patriots ("Does somebody have their Gold Card because I'm about
to be arrested here I am NOT MOVING")

I hope to God nobody was out there with a scanner and a recorder. I
called Richard T., recuperating at home and told him what was
happening. He laughed. "The cowboys and Indians are at it again,
hey?" he said.

I can tell you what it says on my Yuma and BLM (Bureau of Land 
Management) street maps. It states that public access roads go 
through Indian land. You may travel along these roads but may not stand, 
sit, park, idle or loiter  anywhere in tribal lands without Indian permission.
****************************

That day I stayed in a hotel. Richard T. came by and escorted me to a
good camping site that is either on BLM land or privately owned,
nobody really knows. I arrived the next morning, Monday, at 8:00 am
after getting lost for two hours or so looking for this particular
spot. Now, it’s not enough that we are located generally at a spot in
the U.S.A that borders Mexico, Arizona, and California all within
walking (and swimming) distance. We also have to contend with borders
between privately deeded, leased, BLM, BLR (Bureau of Land 
Reclamation), Indian, county and city land. Few if any of which are 
plainly marked. Plus, when you set up a campsite on BLM/BLR land
it is like your own home and must be treated as such; meaning you 
can't discharge a firearm, you can't trespass and commit other 
numerous offenses only because someone put up a tent/camper there.
***********************************

About 9 in the morning I started setting up camp. While doing so I
remember why my original dates had been October 1; it was already 105
degrees and rising, plus humidity, flies and mosquitoes. About 3:30
pm the first immigrants came WALKING up the river, 2 males carrying
their inner tube. It took them an hour to get past me, with a BP
agent on each side of the river and a helicopter overhead. When that
died down, there were more BP agents racing around catching more
immigrants that I didn’t see. I finished setting up camp and took my
first watch at 6:00 pm that night. 10 pm or so 6 men and 1 woman ran
across my observation post.

Many other groups ran across fields or were in the water or woods
around my site I could hear but not see them, a group of 17 once.
They always walk in a row like ducks and speak very little if at
all. Presumably the coyote or guide is in the lead, but the smart
ones usually aren't--they're in the middle or the rear. I had no
cell phone at that time, so one of the residents called in all the
sightings. Around 1:30 am three came up the trail behind my campsite
and crashed into my tent, stepped into my latrine, tripped over my
lawn chairs, muttered something and then moved on. I was so tired
and so jaded I just rolled over and went to sleep and didn't even
report it until the next morning.
**********************************

The BP will NOT retrieve crossers from the water. They stay on each
side and follow—follow--follow, in the case of those two men on
Monday it was SIX HOURS. Since they have lost at least two agents in
Texas, and one agent right here in Yuma (the memorial to James
Epling is right in Andrade and gets bigger every time I see it), to
drownings related to immigrants, they will not go in the water to
get immigrants. They just follow for hours if need be until they
get tired or get out of the water on their own for whatever reason.
************************************

In the good old days, back in April for example, immigrants for the
most part `played fair'. If they were caught over here, they stopped
and sat when told, cooperated meekly and were processed, sent back
to the border, and oftentimes returned to the U.S. before Border
Patrol did.

But that's changing now. If one of us stops them, they sit and wait
meekly as they are terrified of cazamigrantes (thanks for that,
Mexican media I think you may have done us a favor there). But they
run and hide and are disrespectful and uncooperative to the BP
agents, who by the way are polite and professional in all I have
seen them do. There however has never been harm in this area, I have
been told, between any of these factions. Yet.
*******************************

One issue to be addressed in this area is that of the leased (and
sometimes private) farmland. The Colorado River is a great ancient
river that generally runs deep and swift. However, great canals have
been built here, and much of the water from the river has been
diverted to these canals. It may run back out eventually to the
river further down towards San Luis in Mexico (some 20 miles) but in
the meantime the river is very low and very sluggish and green and
dirty.

You can walk across in most places, and in one place a few miles
downstream you can DRIVE across it is so low. In its natural state
the river acts as a barrier to illegal immigration, but now thanks
to U.S. government leasing out BLM (that's yours and my publicly
entrusted) land and building these water diverting canals, it is so
open to immigrant crossing it is a horrendous security risk. Thanks
U.S. government and Yuma! Not!
******************************

Unlike what I had envisioned, the immigrants do not swim with their
innertubes like we do recreationally. They place a change of clothes
in sealed plastic bags, and those go inside or on the tubes. They
mostly walk up the river holding onto these tubes. There may be an
infant inside the tube with the clothes. If they encounter an area
of deep water all swim and one person holds onto the tube to keep
a hold on it. When they get out of the water they walk in the brush
along their well-known (to the guides) trails but they keep their
inner tubes with them in case they have to dive into the water again,
whether because their way is blocked by impassible brush or they get
chased by BP.
****************************

I saw firsthand for myself, since I am alone and have to do all the
planning and logistics, how important it is to think ahead before
you do a border watch. We know we are merely diverting, not stopping
these people. They get caught they try again, and most of the 30
people who crossed in front of me that first day and night were
never even apprehended that I was aware of. While selecting a site
for a station, and in my case a physical barrier with my tent,
campsite and car, thought has to be given to where you are diverting
them TO. You don't want to divert them into the water where Border
Patrol can't get them out. Nor to the brush near the river as that
puts Border Patrol in harm's way to apprehend them—they will go in
and get them but at risk to themselves, and there is also the added
issue of uninvolved campers, hikers, swimmers, fishers and others
that will be stumbled over or into by a wave of immigrants and
pursuing LEO's.  You don't want to divert them into the farmer's
fields and cause negative impact to our food supply system.

Nor do you want them herded into private citizen's back yards, with
their pet chickens and their children playing on their outdoor
swingsets.  Here, where I am, that leaves you only the canal and levee
roads, the safest place for everyone including the immigrants
themselves, but the last place they are going to voluntarily go.
*******************************

I selected my first campsite based solely on the fact that it was a
well-used trail as evidenced by the worn paths, and discarded
clothes and trash. There were two exits from the bushes to the road,
and inside were trails and a clearing used for changing clothes and
eliminating human waste. That first night, as mentioned, three came
through early in the morning, as the moon set. That was the last
that trail was used and after two days I started scouting for
another site. A mile or so down the road, I found a huge site well-
known as a changing station, strewn with clothes and bottles, with
four trails, two tunnels in the brush, and two `caves' made of
vegetation. In all honesty, this area didn't seem to be in use
at present.  I stayed at the first site about six days. I checked the new
potential site twice a day, once in morning, once just before dusk,
and saw no sign (such as new trash, waste or broken vegetation) of life.
The first morning I spent at Site Two, I set up my tent right on the
side of the road, probably not legal as there are rules about how
far from the canal (unused and dry at the time) and how far off the
road you can be.

I spent hours clearing the ground of rocks and brush and leveling
the dirt and getting my tent set up. I left the rest of my gear in
the truck. It was dead and dull from 3:30 pm all the way till the
next afternoon, nearly 24 hours. I was told later, that all the
activity was on the California side.
****************************

Site Two was pretty much a visual observation post only. It is
directly across from a water treatment station that makes hellacious
noise all night long (and occasionally belches nauseating fumes in the
dead of night). That's the east side of you, the other side has the
noise of the rapids all night. So it is hard to hear anything.

You cannot hear the immigrants walking in the river nor making their
way through the bank brush. What you have going for you though is
the wildlife, and particularly insects. An occasional bird such as
dove or quail, or crickets or grasshoppers will make noise and as
long as you can hear them you know all is quiet and safe. If the
noise suddenly stops there is the likelihood a person or large
animal (and there are no large animals here in the wild) is walking
through there. Then you sit up and listen for brush cracking or for
voices.  Unlike Naco and Campo, the immigrants don't use flashlights
and rarely have them.
*********************************

That second morning I spent moving my whole camp setup from the side
of the road, down into the bushes RIGHT INTO the clearing. A BP
agent drove by and came to a screeching halt to observe the back
half of my collapsed tent sliding down the trail into the brush,
seemingly under its own power. He laughed and said it looked like it
was running away from home on its own.

Once again, for the third time in a week I spent hours leveling
dirt, moving rocks, clearing dead brush and this time I had to
chop down two small trees with a household claw hammer. (Note to
self--include hatchet as integral part of camping gear.) Still the
tent didn't actually fit into the space I had chosen for it but I
squashed it in there anyway.
*****************************


The good part of camping on the roadway was that I was easy to see by
Border Patrol and by myself if I was driving around the canals and
levee roads. Immigrants could easily see me too and 99 percent of
the time they avoid humans as much as they can. They don't want
trouble, they just want to get to where they are going to do
whatever it is they are here to do.

I also had a clear view of miles of roads not just from outside or
from inside my car, but I could even sit in a chair inside my tent
and see everything. This comes in handy after two hundred mosquito
bites.
*************************************

The down side of that roadside location was heat from the morning
sun---I was driven out at 6:30 am that first full morning--noise,
excessive light from the water treatment plant, and the fact that
when I did sleep in my tent my head was practically in the road. And
while I protected myself by strategically parking my car so as to
block the tent, that was only safety from one side.

From the other direction BP and human smugglers sometimes engaged in
car chases and it wouldn't take but once slip of a hand on a steering
wheel and my life problems would be over. Messily over.
*******************************
The upsides of the off-road location, which is actually Site 3 but
being so close, I'll still call it Site 2; was cool shade—I could
sleep to at least 10 in the morning, sometimes later with some cloud
cover—and less noise from the water treatment plant. I had more
privacy too. You could not see the tent except by standing almost in
front of it, from all sides including the river, just a few yards
away.
********************************

Someone Saved my Life Tonight

One evening was stranger than fiction. It was a cooler than average
day thanks to cloud cover. I thought I would do a full night shift
for the first time. Richard T. came by for his daily check on me,
and we parted company for the night until the next day. I had
planned on going to bed at 6 pm and waking to a shift from 10 pm to
6 am. The phone rang and I was distracted and didn't get off the
phone until 7:30 pm and had just hung up when I saw two quiet male
Hispanics walking north past me.

They took little if any notice of me and I called them in only as
walkers, hoping they weren't just farm workers going home late. BP
answered quickly and sped past me.


Shortly after that 8 more Hispanics wearing white T-shirts and baggy
jeans ran across the road—sort of coming from the wrong direction
actually-- and into the brush right into the area of my tent. I
called that in. PB sped right by and parked down the road. I could
hear the people crashing into my security barriers and muttering to
themselves.

Had my plans held, I would have been laying asleep when those people
came upon my tent. One of the walkers came out of the brush and
approached me in my vehicle and although I didn't understand his
Spanish I thought he was asking for a ride. I politely said no, and
he said `No problema" to which I replied the same, and he began
walking SOUTH, back toward Mexico.

I called that in. BP came up beside my car, and I motioned toward the
brush "That way!" The agent exited his car and charged into the
brush and shortly emerged with 7 people, one of them a young
Hispanic woman, very cute little thing. While he was loading them
all into his truck, I heard the people saying "Senora" and looking
my direction.

Afterwards, the BP agent came over and said that they were making a
point that they wanted nothing from me, did nothing to me, and had
not wanted anything to do with me or my tent or car. They were quite
emphatic about that. He also said that he told them, I had a gun and
almost shot them.

He offered to wait while I got anything out of my tent, to which I
said I had everything of value with me. I remarked to him his
bravery for charging into the woods after eight unknowns and he just
laughed it off and said  "That's what we do." I thought it was nice
he let them keep their gallon bottles of water, and he said he
normally does that since they might be in that vehicle a while
before processing. "There are drinking fountains and water there so
we take away their water at that time, but they can drink it inside
the vehicles until then."

We both agreed I shouldn't go back there that night. I spent from
7:30 that night to 7:30 the next morning in the driver's seat of the
truck not getting out once, not even to use the bathroom (like where
would I have gone, side of the road?) get water, or get my spotlight
out of the bed of the truck. I just locked the doors and sat there
all night occasionally flipping on my headlights to deter anyone
else thinking of heading my way. It appeared to me, this particular
bunch didn't chose to go into the brush at that point and time, they
had been seen and were fleeing to there as an afterthought.

Although I could be wrong and their guide was very familiar with
this well-used area and deliberately led them there.
And as I said, these immigrants usually want nothing from civilians,
but one has to wonder…6 men stumbling upon a woman sleeping in a
tent in the dark; would they have passed up an opportunity to do
harm? Thanks to my friend who called that evening, to check on my
well-being in fact, we will thankfully never know.

The man who walked away was their guide. The BP saw him on camera
walking toward the water near the Mexican Algodones border about a
mile away from me, and they lost visual on him and didn't catch him.
They did catch the first two men I saw and they were illegal
immigrants. I went into my tent that morning, and nothing had been
disturbed.
************************************

Flora and Fauna and Stuff

For company at this site I had little yellow-breasted birds who
chirped all day and flitted through the trees catching insects. I
had two wasp nests buzzing over my head that I left alone there—
they were here first anyway—and a road runner.

All the birds took about two days to get used to me, and then they
sat and jabbered or—especially the case with the road runner—sat and
listened. These creatures seem to love the sound of the human voice.
I have heard quail at this site but as yet haven't seen them. Out on
the river are big white stork-like birds (these are also in
the canals sometimes) big brown stork-like birds and mud hens. The
mud hens like to sit and listen to you as well and the stork-like
birds will listen for a while before they fly off.

I arrived in Yuma on the 17th,and dove-hunting season just finished
on the 15th. Although I saw no dove bodies, I see everywhere
including this very site, small piles of dove feathers and I haven't
seen any doves since I arrived here. There are flocks of black birds
that fly out in the morning and back in the evening but I don't know
where they are during the day. At night I can hear coyotes wailing
but I think that's in Mexico. I have seen little brown or
green fish in the river, and big silver-gray fish with whiskers
around their mouths.

There are a number of small to medium sized lizards, but I seldom if
ever see them on the ground, they seem to live mainly in the trees.
I've seen a few tiny grey spiders.
********************************
As for plant life, the river is slow-moving so there is a lot of
plant life in it, including mossy green stuff in the mud near the
Arizona banks, some kind of floating ferny type plant, and sadly
lots of bamboo and salt cedar, both of them invasive non-native
plants that are doing  a lot of damage here.

The salt cedars are beautiful ferny-looking trees with raggedy bark
and feathery purple flowers. They are big and shady, but they give
off a lot of litter that falls on your clothes, in your drinks and
between the keys of your computer keyboard. Nothing will grow
where they have taken hold, and plants that were there have died,
making a huge fire hazard.

Plus they pull up hundreds of gallons of water a day so that isn't
helping the river any. There is lots of dead bamboo wherever the
salt cedar is, contributing to fire hazard (there are fires
all the time along this river, in California, Arizona and Mexico with
suspicious origins and mostly benefitting Border Patrol) and there
was a fire right in this site about a year ago, and at Site 1 six
months ago.
************************************

One of the biggest impediments to wonderful camping is the heat—heat—
heat. It is hardly ever less than 105 to 110 degrees, and the nights
are in the mid to high 90's. Which is why I originally scheduled
this trip for October in the first place and I highly recommend this
unless you have a cooling system with generator for your tent or RV.

The high humidity makes it worse. The other big impediment are the
mosquitoes, especially the closer you are to the water until, when
you are as close as I am, you live in big clouds of them 24/7. They
are extremely aggressive and come in several sizes. Your best friend
out here are the dragonflies, they come in every color of the
rainbow—black, brown, blue, green-gray—and they are very docile and
will sit on your knees or your hand if it's outstretched long enough.
They usually sit with their bulbous eyes facing you and when they do
this look closely...they probably are ingesting a mosquito on the spot-
--usually head first.

If you can get a few of these into your tent or vehicle, they will
eat your mosquitoes for you in short order. I let them out after a
day so they don't starve, and get new ones in. No matter what I do I
get no less than twenty mosquito bites a night out here every night
I've been here, even through my clothing and my shoes, except in my
tent where I have pet dragonflies.

Keeping a candle burning seems to help, I'm sure my bites would be
double without it. It's too warm to wear long protective clothing or
bug screen or keep the car windows rolled up.
************************************
Stuff
I borrowed a tactic from one of the locals and I wash my clothes by
swimming in the river while wearing them. While this does get them
(and me) fairly clean, I found that after two weeks my denim shorts can
stand up straight by themselves because the water is so alkaline.

When it does rain, it does so in droplets just enough to totally
dirty your car windows. It takes a half gallon of water to wash all my
Ranger's windows. My next project is to wash the entire vehicle with river
water and I'll let you know how that went in part two of this review.

The little inverter I got from Fry's grocery store for 20 dollars is
running everything just fine. It keeps my cell phone, my Gameboy, my
laptop (though I don't use that much), and my little FRS radios fully
charged and still starts up easily. I drive about five miles every
two days for ice, sundries, and to charge the car battery.

I spend my days sleeping, playing Zelda on Gameboy, keeping a
personal log of events here at BorderWatch, and reading Tolkien. I keep busy
enough that amazingly I still haven't even finished the Silmarillion
after two weeks, and I was hoping to finish that, The Hobbit, and The
Lord of the Rings before coming home. I brought chess/checkers, and
Deluxe Scrabble ---Spanish and English—but being alone I have no one
to play with. I have listened to the radio a few times, including the
Mark Edwards show when it isn't drowned out by a nearby Mexican station.
****************************************
Thanks to my friends and family for their support, advice, and for
believing in me to carry out this project. Coming up soon: part two.