Aliens

Special to this newspaper WASHINGTON (MNS) ? A group of seven Imperial County officials urged a bipartisan group of lawmakers Tuesday to support legislation to reimburse state and local hospitals for emergency medical care of undocumented aliens. "Because the federal government has not fulfilled its duties and has not controlled immigration, we're rapidly coming to the point where it's severely impacting our ability to provide the health care needs of our citizens and residents," said Imperial County Supervisor Gary Wyatt.

Some are insisting that Barack Obama was not born in the United States, which means he is not a native-born citizen and therefore not eligible to be president. With that story being true, Barack Obama, our illegitimate president, is an illegal alien, they argue. That?s all so ridiculous. Obama was not born in another country and is not an illegal alien, at least in the common use of the term. Barack Obama, quite obviously, is a space alien born on another planet and transported here to help space invaders take over the world.

Walt Tylenda, where and when were you born? Better yet, how old are you that you could forget how we welcomed the Bracero movement of 1942? The idea that undocumented aliens cost money; how much of that money goes unclaimed? We should not depend on cheap labor, but the reality is that we do. How else are we going to make money to feed our materialistic minds? JUAN MARTINEZ Imperial

> > 50 years ago ? Captures of illegal aliens in the El Centro sector dwindled to 386 as Border Patrol men entered the cleanup phase in their drive to send aliens back to Mexico. The total was about one-third of daily averages the past fiscal year and was a record low for the operation under way since June 17 in California and Arizona. > > 40 years ago ? Somebody's a mighty powerful watermelon eater! Nick Carter reported to sheriff's authorities this morning that seven tons of melons had been stolen last night from his melon field a mile east of the old Calipatria Highway.

John Slator, a sailor companion to the dead man, related the shooting incident on the witness stand Monday morning. Atkerson listened impassively, paying close attention to what was being said. > > 40 years ago ? A cigarette marketed for its advertised ability to relieve asthma is reportedly being used by some Valley teenagers to ?get a kick.? Brawley police within the past week have arrested three local teenage boys who admitted eating the cigarettes. The effect, said police, is bizarre behavior, similar to that following consumption of LSD. Police said the 15-year-olds arrested a week ago at the Brawley Theater had eaten a portion of one of the cigarettes.

The arrests of undocumented immigrants in the El Centro sector policed by the U.S. Border Patrol has dipped by as much as 9 percent this fiscal year while alien apprehensions nationwide dropped 20 percent, an official said Tuesday. During its watch of 71 linear miles from the Mexican border, the El Centro sector Border Patrol made 55,883 arrests since late September, Border Patrol Agent Enrique Lozano said. Last year, 61,465 undocumented aliens had been arrested, he said. Of the numbers Lozano cited, there were 108 arrestees with aggravated felonies on their records last year while only 88 were taken into custody this year for such major offenses as murder, robbery and sex-related crimes.

WASHINGTON (MNS) ? Arrests of illegal immigrants at the southwest border have increased by almost 68 percent since the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service began a crackdown there in 1994, according to a government report. As the Border Patrol increased its efforts in areas such as El Paso and San Diego, arrest rates shifted as expected to less populated areas such as El Centro, Tucson, and Laredo and Del Rio, Texas, the report said. Of the nine southwest Border Patrol sectors, Tucson had the highest number of arrests in 2000 with 616,346 compared with 139,473 in 1994, followed by El Centro with 238,126 in 2000 compared with 27,654 in 1994.

WASHINGTON, D.C. ? A $38.5 billion appropriations bill approved by the House of Representatives Wednesday includes $9 million for Immigration and Naturalization Service construction projects in El Centro, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, announced Thursday. Overall, the bill includes $5.6 billion for the INS but still must pass the Senate and be signed into law by the president. The bill includes money for the hiring of 570 new Border Patrol agents nationwide. Of the construction money, $6 million is slated for the under-construction Border Patrol station on Aten Road and $3 million for the INS processing center on Imperial Ave. Border Patrol spokesman Arturo Sandoval said the money for the station would be used to further its construction, including the building itself and holding cells.

> > 50 Years Ago   - HOLTVILLE - Dragsters fans were holding their breath, hoping the weather would break, so the day's drags could get underway. Luck was with the dragsters, when 1 p.m. rolled around. Fans were greeted by a beautiful shiny sun. Such cars competed in the event as Jess Van Deventer's BMR, 283-inch fuel injected Chevrolet roadster. Jess sped himself to victory in the NHRA in points system which won him a new Pontiac last year. This year Jess was middle eliminator.

A U.S. district judge has dropped all federal charges against local pilot Philip Kubeck, 52, and other co-defendants in connection with allegedly concealing and transporting undocumented immigrants from the Imperial County airport earlier this year. Kubeck, of Calexico, was arrested March 30 after U.S. Border Patrol agents conducting surveillance at the county airport witnessed a group of six individuals “hastily” walk toward an airplane and noted Kubeck opening the pedestrian gate for them and leading them to his plane, according to federal court documents.

Probe, I have a very far-fetched, but intriguing question. I just got finished reading the book, “Fire in the Sky” and watching the movie as well. I'm shocked to see that I have come up empty-handed about this story in your archives. To summarize what the story is about, it was a 19-year-old man who was reportedly abducted by aliens in a town in Arizona and was eventually dropped off - out of all places - in Heber; a Heber gas station to be exact. Do you have any recollection of such an event happening in the Valley?

EDITOR'S NOTE: This column first ran April 30, 2005. A new INKED! will return next week. It's been just over four weeks since our new visitor came to stay, an alien with an oversized head, big dark eyes, no decipherable language, a voracious appetite and the ability to suck the will and energy from everything around it. Perhaps the most disturbing characteristic of this Area 51 reject is its shape shifting. I thought its seemingly endless supply of green emissions and skull-piercing screams were bad enough, but the shape shifting, well, it does me in every time.

Uncompensated costs for undocumented immigrant emergency care are sky high, and U.S. Rep. Bob Filner, D-Chula Vista, wants the federal government to pay up. Filner introduced a bill Wednesday to make a permanent provision in the Medicare Modernization Act that provides payments to eligible health care providers for undocumented immigrants procedures, according to a press release from his office. The bill authorizes $250 million a year to reimburse for the care, according to the press release.

The band of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents met early before dawn to discuss last-minute details in their search for five people with criminal convictions and deportation orders, all living throughout the Imperial Valley. The ICE agents knew enough about their marks to discern when they left their homes, what cars they drove and who’ll likely be at home after conducting at least a week of surveillance. But sometimes bad timing, or bad luck, can intrude on a sweep and result in arresting, or “hooking” up, less than the intended number of people slated for ouster from the United States, like in this one operation that was conducted on a Friday morning early last month.

In addition to the usual quota of Mexican nationals illegally in this country, patrolmen reported apprehension of citizens of Switzerland, British Honduras, Romania, Iraq, Greece, India and Canada. There was also a Jamaican bracero who had jumped his contract to a Florida farmer, Harrison said. > > 40 years ago — Standard Oil will drill six 4-inch-wide holes, 100 feet deep, on Imperial Avenue in Imperial. The oil company then will set off small explosive charges to get a seismic reading 20,000 feet down.