Victims of the Harris Ranch Fire discussion post

This is a two-part series tracking the journey of several immigrants caught in the Harris Ranch fire while illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border a year ago. Of the eight people who died in the blaze, seven were undocumented migrants. Sixteen illegal immigrants were treated at the U.C. San Diego Regional Burn Center.

Times Staff Photographer Don Bartletti set out to cover the fire when it broke out on Oct. 21, 2007 and accompanied victims to the Burn Center. He traveled to Mexico for funerals for the deceased, and followed two survivors through a year of treatment and recovery. Times Staff Writer Marjorie Miller interviewed survivors, as well as medical, fire, law enforcement and other state officials, in San Diego and Oregon.

Questions on the table:

- Nicolas Beltran says he understands that Americans are angry about illegal immigration, but he says he does jobs Americans don’t want to do for a wage they won’t accept. Is he right? Are undocumented immigrants a boon to the economy or a drain on it?

- After  the burn victims arrived at UCSD, the hospital was overwhelmed with calls from people outraged that the undocumented immigrants were being treated. Do you agree that hospitals should provide emergency care to anyone, whether here legally or not, according to federal law?

-- Marjorie Miller

November 22, 2007. Mazatlan, Guerrero, Mexico. The hilltop cemetery overlooking Mazatlan, a town of 5000 people. Once they were identified, the 5 victims of the October 21, 2007 Harris Ranch Fire in San Diego County were buried here. Photo by Don Bartletti, LA Times

Comments

[Carracticus]

If our government had put the double layer border fence up, with the two lane highway in between for speeding US border Patrol trucks this would never have happened. Rep.Duncan Hunters (R-CA) original fence would have stopped much of the human and drug traffic, such as the one in San Diego that has a 99.06 success rate. But Democrats cut funding and gutted the original fence to a single line, with inoperative cameras and vehicle barriers. They will take the blame when terrorists smuggle in a suitcase nuclear devise into a big metropolitan area.

After November it's going to be 'CARTE BLANCHE' from either President and to hell with the ordinary taxpayers will.

It is very frustrating that their was not any mention of the simmering subject of illegal immigration? It's strange that we all know this volatile issues, has a massive impact on ordinary taxpayers everyday of their lives. Its a shame and disturbing when a powerful Senator Ted Kennedy lied to the American people in 1986. Stating that their would never be another AMNESTY. Yet he joined a group of open-border zealots last March to do just that! It's so far reaching, all encompassing the Democrats for instance have done everything in their power to derail any enforcement policy. The Republicans have obviously decided that this is bad 'Ju Ju', because even Senator McCain has kept his thoughts on the subject, to a whisper. But 8o percent of the American people want to know, what to expect after November? With the economy in turmoil they should consider the financial drain in welfare handouts at state, county and federal level. If we keeping on importing poverty from across the globe, a rising crime wave. It is foreseen that property taxes must go up to pay for the impacted traffic on our highways, along with the pollution.

Obama has already repeated that their will be a path to citizenship, for lawbreakers..AMNESTY! With the bailout of mega investment business and banks on the front burner. Nobody dare mention, that illegal immigration is implicated in this financial catastrophe? www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.1258/pub_detail.asp Then their is corruption in the Democratic party, to stop an enforcement law being passed. www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,428082,00.html

Please contact your Senator through the Capitol Switchboard (202-224-3121) and ask him/her to pressure Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to allow a vote this week on H.R. 6633, the House-passed E-Verify reauthorization bill. The E-Verify program will die in November if Congress does not reauthorize it before Members leave for the election recess on Friday.

IT’S YOUR FAMILIES FUTURE. DEPORTATION OR OVERPOPULATION. IF WE DON’T STOP IT NOW, THEY WILL KEEP COMING..

JOIN 756.000 other American patriots at www.numbersusa.com , to stop the travesty of our immigration laws. Learn about Immigration governmental corruption at www.judicialwatch.org
PLEASE PASS ON THIS URGENT MESSAGE

[tom2]

I've sympathized with victims of this fire but believe the emergency care should be limited to stabilizing the patient and transportation to a hospital in the home nation. I believe that also should be a limitation for treatment of any illegal alien who comes to an American emergency room. The degree of illness doesn't change the illegal status and it doesn't change law enforcement's duty.

[sabina]

Carracticus is right: this "article" makes no attempt to discuss the ramifications of illegal immigration, it's just a tear-jerker novelette designed to circumvent logic and garner sympathy for the "victims" as though the fault were with the U. S. for making even feeble attempts to enforce the border and "forcing" these poor, downtrodden people to keep sneaking into our country by the millions just because they take it into their heads that they "want" to work here for a year or two and then go "home" to build a house for their sweethearts and settle down.

That's a tragedy, what happened to these illegal would-be migrants, but they should never have come. (How much did it cost us to absorb the hugely expensive care for the surviving burn victims? Hundreds of thousands of dollars at a minimum.)

The fault lies with their government for encouraging them to -- there's no effort on the Mexican side to keep them in. You can see Mexicans hanging around by their side of the fence, just waiting for dark to make a run for it. For decades they've treated the "border" as a joke, as this article unintentionally makes clear: the one man who worked "el norte" (it's called the United States) for a dozen years, sneaking in and out every holiday but never wanting to file for citizenship "because his heart wasn't in it."

But his kids kept up the fine tradition of breaking our laws just because they were used to it from their family and culture, and have unreasonable expectations that working as a busboy for a year or two, or as a day laboror hanging out at Home Depot, will earn them enough money to go "home' and build a dream house and live their real life. But if they get sick or burned, it's OUR burden as American citizens. They're a big reason for why we can't afford universal healthcare for citizens. These illegals pay no income taxes, and the few who do make up the biggest group who took out home loans they couldn't afford because, as their Latino electeds explain, they couldn't read English and didn't bother to get translations.

Now that man's sons are still sneaking into our country because they feel like it, and their own country doesn't want to clean up its own corruption enough to attract businesses there, and because their oligarchs don't give a darn about the uneducated peasants, happy that we're stuck educating their kids. So now LAUSD is 3/4 the kids of illegal immigrant Latinos, half of whom drop out by high school, and our own kids can't attend the schools we pay for because the culture and safety and educational standards have fallen so low.

They're 3/4 of live births in LA County, users of healthcare and welfare, and have even replaced the African-Americans of South LA as the dominant group, contributing to gang violence. Telling the stories of a few peasants who come here with wildly unrealistic expectations, does not tell the real story.

These sad, tragic fates are the result of unrealistic and illegal dreams fostered by greedy oligarchs in Mexico and liberal Latino politicians here, hand in hand with "free trade/ open border" Bushies who want cheap labor but wash their hands of the social costs, shoving them onto struggling citizens. Like the ones who now have to bail out the greedy corporations all these politicians, from left and right, turned a blind eye to until it was too late.

[Delilah]

I would rather be asked to write a check toward humanitarian causes in Mexico each year than to have to foot the burden of all the poor that Mexico sends to L.A. County annually. Corporations and employers make out like bandits because they are able to pay less than the fair, prevailing wage. Working class Americans suffer because there are no decent jobs left. Middle class Americans suffer because they get stuck paying for schools they can't use, deteriorating roads, the incarceration of violent illegals in California State prisons and social services for people who shouldn't even be here. AT LEAST BE HONEST ABOUT IT, U.S. government. If you have decided to make Mexico a dependent proxy state like Israel, Taiwan, South Korea, at least tell us. This hidden tax of having to support the millions who live in L.A. County contributing little to nothing to the tax base will kill this state. No wonder all the white collar industries are leaving. Soon there will be nothing left but gangbangers and day laborers. Who will pay the bills then?

[SoCal Citizen]

Do not distract from the ongoing discussionn about the OJ trial results.

[LA83]

Ja! Sometimes it makes me chuckle when I read such ignorance, hatred and racism. Especially when they try to disguise it through arguments reduced to actual "laws". At some point I stop trying to think how people live with themselves and, even though Im not the most religious person, wonder if they ever think how God (or whatever their belief system is) will judge them.

Keep trying to make your arguments rational, people... you only help explain to me why this world is full of violence and hate.

[james ochoa]

I'm an unemployed construction worker, illgals are takiing my work, now I have to pay for their medical bills wheres the wall

[TGood]

Why do people try to use their religious view or drag out the old card of "racism" every time an American says "I'm tired of the world's poor being our debt". If a person can't explain why legal shouldn't mean the same thing to all people, then playing the race card is just useless.

I live in Houston where illegal aliens are becoming more and more of a drain on the schools and hospitals. We have one newspaper , The Houston Chronicle, which is a pro illegal alien advocate. When the FBI issued a report Thursday stating that Houston refused to co-operate with the round up of violent Latino gangs being fueled by illegal immigration, the article was taken down in just a couple of hours. Not only are we a sanctuary city, anyone against illegal immigration--and that group is the majority--tries to speak, they're ignored.

The FBI reported that of the 15,000 plus gang members, Houston had assisted in the arrest of only 150 members. Our police chief has made it perfectly clear that it is better to ignore the illegal alien gangs rather than upset the immigrant community and have them distrust the police department. If anyone can't see how ridiculous that doctrine is, then they must be from Mexico.

We've had some hideous crimes committed by gangs and illegal aliens because they know the Mexican consulate in Houston has the ear of the mayor and the police chief.

Apparently this betrayal of Americans won't end until something catastrophic comes across the border and then I'm not sure anything would be done. There's more to this than cheap labor. Drug cartels are infiltrating our cities and I don't think it's a far reach to believe they've bought off those in law enforcement and government.

[M A Andrews]

Thanks for your comments TGood,
It is much worse here in
the Illegal Alien and Gang Capitol of the USA Los Angeles.
No matter what some left wing
Outlaw/Sanctuary City newspapers print
wanting the USA to prevent Mexico from creating an
Illegal Mexican Nation within the borders of the USA
is NOT hate,racism,xenophobia,or mean spirited !!!!!
Illegal Aliens are not coming here to be U.S. Citizens
ask Juan Hernandez Mexico's Minister of Mexicans Abroad !

numbersusa
capsweb
saveourstate

[Derek]

I'd like to see the LA Times do some stories on the fiscal impact illegal aliens and their children are having on our schools, hospitals, prisons, and social services. The state has no money and we're been told by the LA Times that we are Mexico's soup kitchen. We cannot accept all the poor, uneducated, unskilled people that cross our border illegally. Mexico has to take care of their own.

[Jenna]

I think we should offer the injured ones and their families and the families of the dead ones our citizenship, free health care for life and a nice house (we have so many empty houses here) and of course good monthly allowance for all their troubles. After all if it wasn't for our fire they would still be alive or healthy.

[what next]

I would have liked to see more detail on the just-unveiled "Housing Element" for Los Angeles, to force Mixed Income "Inclusionary Housing" on every new multi- unit development in every part of town.

If you watch the CRA meeting, the spokeswoman from the Planning Dept./Mayor's Office who laid out the details said that while LA is rated one of the most unaffordable cities, the real problem is that we have the most poverty, fully 1/4 of the households make less than $25,000 and live in crowded conditions with on average, 5 people per bedroom.

These "working poor" as they call them are the ones who will have 40% of the new housing set aside for them, while less than 1/3 will be available to people earning over $50,000 to $90,000 per household -- in other words, we're buildlng and adding density for the maids and gardeners, and day laborors and busboys, the illegals from Mexico and Central America, not teachers and cops. Even if they wanted to live in an apt. under such conditions, instead of a house with a yard and decent schools for their kids.

What wealthy people will pay high market rates for such mixed housing? What negative impacts will this have on existing neighborhoods, the ability to sell your home, or for developers to sell units? (They can "buy out" by giving some money to the housing fund instead.) Only bad timing in relying on the federal and state governments for much of the $5 billion cost will put a crimp in these plans. It is some socialist fantasy that illegal immigrants making so little money are "entitled" to live in Brentwood, Encino and Woodland Hills in the nicest areas and buildings, jand struggling citizens living within their means must subsidize this. In addition to paying for schools they can't use, county hospitals and clinics ditto, and everything else. LA is already paying the price more than "boutique" cities like Hermosa, Manhattan Beach, Rancho Palos Verdes and Beverly Hills, even Santa Monica, which employ these illegals but don't entice them with cheap housing and benefits. So they're in our schools, they're our burdens, while those towns just get workforce we make possible. The only affordable housing those towns build is designed for senior citizens and others who are down on their luck, not illegals. I'm struggling as a massage therapist because people are cuting down on luxuries, so I have to share rent and work facilities although I'd prefer not to. But I live within my means.

To try to blackmail people into more ruinous schemes by crying "racism" just isn't working anymore. It's racism to claim that only Mexican and Latino illegals get this special treatment, when even educated South Asian Indians, Thais, North Koreans, Poles, Rwandans and Chinese and others who want to work hard and become citizens can't come into the country except in the rarest circumstances.

[Vince Fox]

Other users have pointed out the obvious bias of LA Times' "illegal sob stories" series that LA Times run once a few months.

LA Times deserve awards on their ability to tear-jerk readers pulling out their heart strain, and ignore the impact of Illegals on school, economy, crimes, gangs just because LA Times is in the business of getting people emotional, and not a whole lot of logic.

In part two of this article, Marjorie Miller will make you cry worse than watching Mexican soap on crack.

[Laus]

I cannot believe the level of sheer racism and ignorance. I cannot believe how people blame the poor shape of our economy on people who take the jobs nobody would do and live in the poorest areas of our cities. I guess it is way easier than trying to understand our rotten financial system.

[Sandi B]

Illegally here. Burned here. Temporary patching up and deported to hospital in Mexico. We know they can never pay for our most expensive medical care in the world, so why should we the tax payer pay for illegals' medical care?

[Fred]

Once again the L.A. Times is proudly waving its propogandistic support for criminal aliens. Yes, criminal aliens. Every person who illegally enters the USA is a criminal. Indeed, a criminal alien can be sentence to as long as 20 years in a federal prison for illegal entry, yet the Times propogandistically calls Ramirez and his criminal cohorts "migrants." Ramirez states that his goal for criminal entry into the USA was to make money and leave. He did not enter the USA with the goal of wanting to become part of America, rather he cynically wanted to take the money and run. The real victims in all of this is not Rameriz, but the American taxpayer who got stuck with Rameriz's medical bills. Now that is a real crime!

[Jose]

Finally a happy story about illegal imigration. But once again the taxpayers will bear the burden of paying for their recovery.
The L.A.Times should change their name to The LATINO TIMES and print it in spanish.

Here's praying for more fires!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[tucanofulano]

It doesn't matter if an illegal alien has been in the USA 30 minutes or 30 years. These criminals and terrorists must be hunted down, detained, jailed then deported or executed. They have no business being in OUR country. Anyone, including "law enforcement" failing to actively pursue these criminals are in fact criminals themselves and should be dealt with very harshly.

[Ann]

(1) Nicolas Beltran says he understands that Americans are angry about illegal immigration, but he says he does jobs Americans don’t want to do for a wage they won’t accept. Is he right? Are undocumented immigrants a boon to the economy or a drain on it?

Sorry but PLEASE stop that false statement about 'jobs Ameicans won't do.' 30 years ago carpenters made enough to have health insurance, support a family on 1 income, buy a house and send their children to college. In came the illegals who work for less than 1/3rd the pay.

As Mayor LaGuardia (Republican mayor of NYC in the '30s) once said if a an employer can not pay enough for the employee to be able to live then that is a business that he did not want in his city and which served no purpose except to make the owner well-off and create a class of poor poeple who can not pay for necessities.

If the purchasers of goods and services that rely upon cut-rate wages really want such things, then they can can bloody well anteup more money for them so the workers can pay for necessities.

-(2) After the burn victims arrived at UCSD, the hospital was overwhelmed with calls from people outraged that the undocumented immigrants were being treated. Do you agree that hospitals should provide emergency care to anyone, whether here legally or not, according to federal law?

Stabilize and kick them out the door without followup care. Thats what ERs do to US citizens who do not have insurance.

[jefffffff]

i would much rather pay more for vegetables, etc., and control our immigration than continue our own hypocrisy that encourages people to be here illegally.

i think the increased cost of those goods will be offset by the lower health insurance premiums we would have to pay...

[stpbching]

People, come on. Don't be so ignorant.
As to the question of,
"Why do we hardworking Americans have to deal with all of these illegals?"

Throught our history (US history), the US government (the one that hardworking Americans have supported) has made it its business to control what happens in Latin America (especially Mexico and Central America). Our government has even declared Latin America as its "backyard". Ever since the Monroe Doctrine, the US has always had a say in what happens south of us. We have put power into the hands of people that serve our interests (not the interests of the "peasants" that come here illegally by the way).

We have provided money, intelligence, guns, et cetera, et cetera, just so that we harworking American citizens can have cheap bananas, cheap coffee, cheap everything. Do you know what happened in Guatemala. Our good all (Proud to be) American companies were behind the assassinations of thousands of Maya indians that were fighting for their land. The land that the US companies needed for the production of their products. The US government, by providing power to the corrupt, so that we Americans could enjoy the wonderful taste of "Chiquita", has created the "problem" that we now have inside our home: illegal immigrants.

Why don't they just go back home so that their government can take care of them?

Because, we, fellow Americans, did not take good care of our backyard. Clear and simple. So stop bching!

[Noneya]

I got sick hearting how these people who knowingly broke the law were praying. They were illegally tresspassing on the united states and that is what they get for being soemwhere they were not supposed to be. They all made a concise desciosion to break the law and that is what they get. If you were trying to drum up sympathy from me with this story you are dead wrong. See it for what it is law breakers getting their karma.

[Latina]

I agree with many of the statements. The illegal should never have crossed, he should have been stablized and then returned to his home country. However, there should be some measure of human compassion instead of stating, "I wish for more fires." etc. I completely agree that this is a HUGE mess. My own grandparents came to this country during WWII as bracero's. They were allowed to come work here in the fields while many of the men were off at war. Obviously, my family stayed and my father and several uncles served in the Vietnam War. My generation of cousins/siblings are all extremely patriotic. Working in education for the last decade, and I am "disappointed" in the state of our schools in LA. Some of my best students, though, were the ones that came here illegally, and the "Americanized" ones were the ones that joined gangs and had an anti-American attitude. "The white man hates us." is their rallying cry, and when you read these responses, it further widens the chasm.
Shouldn't we welcome the "foreigner" and love our neighbor as ourself? Yet, also work to have the laws of our land obeyed? I think both can be done, but without this vicious and vile hate that is so evident in most of these responses.

[adoptivefather]

Every person added to US population creates additional resource demands.

The American way of life has been supported by 3 gallons of oil per day per person. The 20 million illegal aliens in the US today caused oil imports to rise by nearly 1.5 million barrels per day, more than twice the amount produced by Alaska.

US oil production has been declining since 1970 and now is approximately 50% less. Over the same period US population has increased by 100 million people.

Oil is just one critical resource. Fresh water, landfills, park lands, etc are all being overwhelmed by overpopulation caused by illegal immigration.

If you think obama is going to deal with this life threatening problem you are sadly mistaken. obama will open the immigration floodgates.

Remember, you need 3 gallons per day for each of your family members. Alternatives sound great but fall short on economics (you can't afford them) and scalability.

[Firefighter]

Thank you Marjorie Miller for your extraordinary article.

I served on the Harris Fire as one of the commanders. We were very concerned for all the victims of the fires including the immigrants. I went to visit our 4 firefighters in the hospital and while I was there I met with a couple of the immigrants who were injured as well as their families. There pain and grief was great.

The morning after the fire started I received a call from the fire chief of the Tijuana Fire Department offering to send 45 firefighters to help us in the fight. I gladly accepted the offer and soon his firefighters and those from Tecate Fire Dept. soon join us in the fire fight. These trained firefighters worked hard under a tuff situation to save the homes of Americans. While assigned to the fire it was these same firefighters who would discover the remains of 4 of the victims who had perished trying to cross into the U.S.

I appreciated reading your article very much. Thank you.