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Activists Protest Drownings In All American Canal
Aired 11/17/09
Immigrants rights activists dove into the All American Canal Tuesday to protest migrant drownings. Activists strung buoys across the canal to honor the dead and to ask for new safety measures.
Above: The All American Canal, the main water conduit from the Colorado River into the Imperial Dam, Imperial Valley, 6 August 2009.
Immigrants rights activists dove into the All American Canal Tuesday to protest migrant drownings. Activists strung buoys across the canal to honor the dead and to ask for new safety measures.
Immigrants rights activists jumped into the canal east of El Centro in an act of civil disobedience.
They strung a cable with 17 buoys attached to it across the canal. It is the kind of cable they say people can use to pull themselves to safety.
Activist John Carlos Frey says he risked arrest to pressure Imperial water officials.
"Fifteen months later, 17 drownings later, our concern is that the board has not added one single safety feature," he says.
Fifteen months ago, Imperial Irrigation District officials agreed a new cement lined stretch of the canal must be made safer. But officials still can't say when they will install safety features.
The canal runs along the U.S.-Mexico border, from Yuma to just east of El Centro, and carries water to Imperial Valley and San Diego.
Comments
friarfaithful | November 17, 2009 at 5:27 p.m. ― 2 years, 2 months ago
see more about this here: http://allamericancanal.org
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randolphslinky | November 20, 2009 at 9:28 a.m. ― 2 years, 2 months ago
While I don't wish anyone to die while trying to come into the country, I'm perplexed at why it's our responsibility to make it safer for people to come into our country ILLEGALLY. Perhaps I should leave my doors and windows unlocked at home too, I wouldn't want a person wanting to come in without invation to hurt themselves breaking in???
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sdjfish | November 20, 2009 at 12:28 p.m. ― 2 years, 2 months ago
This is ridiculous. Criminals entering our country fall into a ditch and expect us to pay for their stupidity. When do we wake up and smell the coffee.
If they cannot get a job, house, health care, education or free H1N1 vaccine then they will stop coming here and dying in our ditch. Problem solved all we need is courageous politicians that will standup to criminal behavior,,,, we’re doomed!
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ratm1979 | November 21, 2009 at 2:01 p.m. ― 2 years, 2 months ago
I see how difficult it must be to fully understand why people would want to "illegally" enter another country. I find it even more interesting that those very people who cast the first stone are the same very people who fine history to be irrelevant.
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emenot | November 21, 2009 at 4:14 p.m. ― 2 years, 2 months ago
Why is it the responsiblity of USA for Mexican citizen? It seems to me Mexico should be resposible, what a loser country!
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ratm1979 | November 22, 2009 at 10:33 p.m. ― 2 years, 2 months ago
I understand that individual responsibility pertains mainly towards the individual, but when we are talking about hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of people dying in the attempt to cross into the United States of America, then it starts to become a great deal of concern that involves both sides of the border to come together with a humanitarian plan to end these types of catastrophic events.
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emenot | February 28, 2010 at 2:14 a.m. ― 1 year, 11 months ago
Some country would line their side of the border with mines to keep their own people from leaving...
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emenot | February 28, 2010 at 2:16 a.m. ― 1 year, 11 months ago
Why do you people think that the canal was put there anyways? What a bunch of idiots!
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