Taking Border Patrol Into Their Own Hands

[papau]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-minuteman2feb02.story
THE NATION
Taking Border Patrol Into Their Own Hands
Criticizing Bush's handling of migration, hundreds volunteer to stand watch in Arizona.
By David Kelly
Times Staff Writer

February 2, 2005

DENVER — Fed up with illegal immigration and eager to send a message to federal lawmakers, hundreds of volunteers from across the nation will spend the month of April patrolling the Arizona-Mexico border, helping to apprehend migrants coming into the U.S.

"This is a direct challenge to President Bush," said Chris Simcox, an organizer of what's being called the Minuteman Project. "You have continued to ignore this problem. Our state officials, senators and congressmen will do nothing. So this is a last-ditch effort to roll up our sleeves and do it ourselves."

Arizona is the nation's busiest gateway for illegal immigrants, with about 580,000 arrests last year — more than in California, Texas and New Mexico combined. Most of the activity occurs in the southeast part of the state near Tucson. Last year, Arizona received $10 million in federal aid and hundreds of additional border and customs agents. Many immigrants now choose to go through New Mexico, but traffic in Arizona remains high.

Simcox — the founder of Civil Homeland Defense, which runs its own border patrols — said 416 people from 41 states had volunteered to take up positions between the Arizona towns of Naco and Douglas and around Coronado National Forest. A rally is planned for April 1, when organizers expect 2,000 people to park their cars along the border, forming a gantlet to repel illegals.

"We have a no-contact policy. We are acting only as eyes and ears," said Simcox, who also runs the Tombstone Tumbleweed, a weekly newspaper in Tumbleweed, Ariz. "We work within the law. We spot and find illegal immigrants and report them to the Border Patrol."

The Minuteman Project was launched in October by James Gilchrist, a retired accountant from Aliso Viejo, Calif.<snip>

[Ian David]

1. At least they're not hypocrites.

They're actually putting themselves in harm's way, unlike the freeper chickenhawks.

Of course, Walmart will probably be arming the migrants so they can fight their way into the country...

The problem isn't the immigrants.

The problem is the intolerable conditions in their home countries that we've helped create, and the fact that companies in this country hire them at exploitive wages when they get here.


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from the article:

"We worry about any person or private group that takes the immigration laws into their own hands," said Andy Adame, a spokesman for the Border Patrol's Tucson sector. "This is a violent area. We deal with drug smugglers every day. We don't want to say we don't want the public's help; we just don't want it in this format."

<snip>

Douglas Mayor Ray Borane has called the citizens' border effort racist. "You are going to get every misfit, everyone with a warrant out for their arrest, everyone who needs new scenery or climate out here," he said. "If they come into this community, it could lead to an international incident."

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It would also be a funny if while they were out "guarding the border" someone went around robbing all their houses.

[ThorsHammer]

2. *IF* they just do what they say, I don't have a problem with it

If they act only as eyes and ears, and let the appropriate authorities handle it, I don't have a problem at all. We're definitely understaffed, and there is no way the Border Patrol can guard the entire area. Of course, we'd be much better off if we addressed the root problems and had an immigration policy that worked.