If illegal border crossers get GPS cellphones, will they find water in the desert?

[ACE844]

Hard earned Tax payer money hard at work in California

SOURCE

By Elliot Spagat, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, cp.org, Updated: December 29, 2009 6:34 AM
If illegal border crossers get GPS cellphones, will they find water in the desert?

SAN DIEGO - A group of California artists are developing a GPS-enabled cellphone to help dehydrated illegal migrants find water - and regale them with poetry - as they trek through harsh deserts into the United States.

The Transborder Immigrant Tool created by faculty at the University of California, San Diego, is part technology endeavour, part art project. It introduces a high-tech twist to an old debate about how far activists can go to prevent migrants from dying on the border with Mexico without breaking the law.

Immigration hardliners argue the activists are aiding illegal entry to the United States, a felony. Even migrants and their sympathizers question whether the device will make the treacherous journeys easier.

The designers - three visual artists on UCSD's faculty and an English professor at the University of Michigan - are undeterred as they criticize a U.S. policy they say embraces illegal immigrants for cheap labour while letting them die crossing the border.

"It's about giving water to somebody who's dying in the desert of dehydration," said Micha Cardenas, 32, a UCSD lecturer.

The effort is being done on the government's dime - an irony not lost on the designers whose salaries are paid by the state of California.

"There are many, many areas in which every American would say I don't like the way my tax dollars are being spent. Our answer to that is an in-your-face, so what?" says UCSD lecturer Brett Stalbaum, 33, a self-described news junkie who likens his role to chief technology officer.

Migrants walk for days in extreme heat, often eating tuna and crackers handed out at migrant shelters in Mexico. On Arizona ranches, they sip desperately from bins used by cows when their water runs out.

Hundreds have perished each year since heightened U.S. border enforcement pushed migrants out of large cities like San Diego and El Paso, Texas, in the 1990s. In response, migrant sympathizers put jugs or even barrels of water in the desert.

The designers want to load inexpensive phones with GPS software that takes signals from satellite, independent of phone networks. Pressing a menu button displays water stations, with the distance to each. A user selects one and follows an arrow on the screen.

Some worry the software could lead migrants to damaged or abandoned water stations. Others wonder if it would lull them into a false sense of security or alert the Border Patrol and anti-illegal immigration activists to their whereabouts.

John Hunter, who has planted water barrels in California's scorching Imperial Valley since the late 1990s, says vandals destroy about 40 of his 150 stations every year.

"My concern is for people who arrive and find (the water) doesn't exist," he says.

Luis Jimenez, 47, was abandoned by smugglers and rescued by the Border Patrol twice this year - once after hitting his head on a rock and again after being bit by a snake. The Salvadoran migrant, who hopes to reach family in Los Angeles, would try the GPS device but can't afford one.

"If it tells you where to find water, it's good," he said at a Tijuana, Mexico, migrant shelter.

The phone designers say they are addressing the concerns, with an eye toward having the phone ready by midsummer.

"We don't want to create a safety tool that actually puts people in more danger," Stalbaum says.

The water locations beamed to the phones will be updated constantly to ensure accuracy. If the distance is too far, they won't appear on the screen.

The designers, who have raised $15,000 from a UCSD grant and an art festival award, hope to hand out phones for free in Mexico. The phones sell used for about $30 apiece. It costs nothing to add the GPS software.

Distribution would be tightly controlled by migrant shelters and advocacy groups to keep them away from anti-illegal immigration activists. The migrants would need passwords to use them.

U.S. authorities are unfazed. The Border Patrol has begun a $6.7-billion plan to drape the border with whiz-bang cameras, sensors and other technology.

"It's nothing new," said Border Patrol spokesman Mark Endicott. "We've seen handheld GPS devices used by smugglers. ... We're just going to have to learn to adapt to any challenges."

Critics of illegal immigration say the device is misguided, at best.

"If it's not a crime, it's very close to committing a crime," said Peter Nunez, a former U.S. attorney in San Diego. "Whether this constitutes aiding and abetting would depend on the details, but it certainly puts you in the discussion."

The software is being designed to direct migrants to water stations but Cardenas said they may add other "safety markers," like roads, towns and Border Patrol lookouts.

The group has published verses to be played on the phone's "Global Poetic System."

One poem reads, "May your tracks cut the shortest distance between points A and B."

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On the Net: Transborder Immigrant Tool, http://bang.calit2.net/xborder/

[The Reaper]

Couldn't they just stay home, and drink the water there?

Who are the people (or companies) rounding these people up and forcing them to come to the United States? I heard they pay money to be smuggled into the U.S.

Why doesn't the Mexican government work to increase the number of jobs paying decent wages? Maybe their minimum wage laws should match/be pegged to ours?

If I look in the window of a gun store, and want what is on the other side of the glass, is it okay to just break the glass and take it? Could we redefine personal property laws to reflect the "I am entitled to what I want" attitude?

Finally, is personal responsibility dead?

TR

[Ret10Echo]

This is a continuation of the Humane Borders-style border-water cache program (here)

Couldn't they just stay home, and drink the water there?

Oh no, never drink the water in Mexico.

is personal responsibility dead?

Inside the Beltway...yes it is....

[greenberetTFS]

Originally Posted by ACE844

Hard earned Tax payer money hard at work in California

SOURCE

I thought this was a joke,but it isn't!........ WTF is going on in this country? California should break off and fall into the sea and I'm sure it wouldn't be missed...........

Big Teddy

[Soak60]

I wonder if their GPS phones will make it easier for Border Patrol to find them?

Signal goes in, signal comes out.

Of course, they might also be looking to put cameras on these phones. I've heard things about Border Patrol from a couple guys in my platoon who live in NM and AZ that (almost) makes me feel bad for people trying to get across.

[MtnGoat]

A group of California artists are developing a GPS-enabled cellphone to help dehydrated illegal migrants find water - and regale them with poetry - as they trek through harsh deserts into the United States.

The Transborder Immigrant Tool created by faculty at the University of California, San Diego, is part technology endeavour, part art project. It introduces a high-tech twist to an old debate about how far activists can go to prevent migrants from dying on the border with Mexico without breaking the law.

Immigration hardliners argue the activists are aiding illegal entry to the United States, a felony. Even migrants and their sympathizers question whether the device will make the treacherous journeys easier.

The designers - three visual artists on UCSD's faculty and an English professor at the University of Michigan - are undeterred as they criticize a U.S. policy they say embraces illegal immigrants for cheap labour while letting them die crossing the border.

"It's about giving water to somebody who's dying in the desert of dehydration," said Micha Cardenas, 32, a UCSD lecturer.

The effort is being done on the government's dime - an irony not lost on the designers whose salaries are paid by the state of California.

"There are many, many areas in which every American would say I don't like the way my tax dollars are being spent. Our answer to that is an in-your-face, so what?" says UCSD lecturer Brett Stalbaum, 33, a self-described news junkie who likens his role to chief technology officer.

It's there something called aiding and abetting laws in California??

RL this one is for you....

Maybe something along these lines.....

1907 Title 8, U.S.C.

1324(a) Offenses Title 8, U.S.C.
1324(a) defines several distinct offenses related to aliens. Subsection 1324(a)(1)(i)-(v) prohibits alien smuggling, domestic transportation of unauthorized aliens, concealing or harboring unauthorized aliens, encouraging or inducing unauthorized aliens to enter the United States, and engaging in a conspiracy or aiding and abetting any of the preceding acts. Subsection 1324(a)(2) prohibits bringing or attempting to bring unauthorized aliens to the United States in any manner whatsoever, even at a designated port of entry. Subsection 1324(a)(3).

or maybe these US law..


1907 Title 8, U.S.C. § 1324(a) Offenses

Title 8, U.S.C. § 1324(a) defines several distinct offenses related to aliens. Subsection 1324(a)(1)(i)-(v) prohibits alien smuggling, domestic transportation of unauthorized aliens, concealing or harboring unauthorized aliens, encouraging or inducing unauthorized aliens to enter the United States, and engaging in a conspiracy or aiding and abetting any of the preceding acts. Subsection 1324(a)(2) prohibits bringing or attempting to bring unauthorized aliens to the United States in any manner whatsoever, even at a designated port of entry. Subsection 1324(a)(3).


Encouraging/Inducing -- Subsection 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv) makes it an offense for any person who -- encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such coming to, entry, or residence is or will be in violation of law.

Conspiracy/Aiding or Abetting -- Subsection 1324(a)(1)(A)(v) expressly makes it an offense to engage in a conspiracy to commit or aid or abet the commission of the foregoing offenses.

Bringing Aliens to the United States -- Subsection 1324(a)(2) makes it an offense for any person who -- knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has not received prior authorization to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, to bring to or attempts to bring to the United States in any manner whatsoever, such alien, regardless of any official action which may later be taken with respect to such alien.
Never will happen in Cali becuz of their thinking.. My uncle is one of those Great Latino Americans bent on think the same way. Loved to sit a Christmas Time and listen to my Father go at it with his Sisters and Bother and Cousins. Maybe me laugh and have to tell them you just don't get it. Even at my Father funeral, they still brought it up. His way of thinking that is.

This State KILLS Me!!

It's OKAY North Carolina is still trying to make it Legal for Illegals to get a NC State Divers License.

[Pete]

".........There are many, many areas in which every American would say I don't like the way my tax dollars are being spent. Our answer to that is an in-your-face, so what?" says UCSD lecturer Brett Stalbaum................."

So many folks hate the government but don't mind taking the money taxpayers earned by working for it.

[ACE844]

It seems that although we are a nation of laws we just randomly and schizophrenically choose when to enforce them.

[Gypsy]

"It's about giving water to somebody who's dying in the desert of dehydration," said Micha Cardenas, 32, a UCSD lecturer.

Well, jackass, if they weren't trying to enter our country illegally this wouldn't be an issue now...would it?