So what is YOUR hometown going to do about OUR border?
In the interests of Fairness&Balance, Cochise County is home to Civil Homeland Defense and American Border Patrol. Both groups have been doing exactly what MMP plans to do for a few years.
The MMP was originally designed to add manpower to CHD's ground patrols. At present it has 441 volunteers and 16 aircraft. (That number does not include many of the Cochise County residents who plan to participate.)
The plan is to simply go out and set up observation posts and some roving patrols along the illegal alien trails. When they find illegals, they call the Border Patrol and try to keep the illegals under observation until the BP arrives. If they get away, they get away.
Therein lies the rub. It isn't just a question of observation, but also of documentation. It's not so much about capturing illegals in the flesh as it is about captuing them on videotape. That is what has Mr. Nicley's panties in a wad. The MMP members will be carrying video cameras.
The government is always quick to trumpet its apprehension figures - just shy of 236,000 in Cochise County alone last year - but if you ask an Official Spokeshole how many got away, they mumble and change the subject. The most optimistic agents claim they catch about one in three. The answer I get from the working agents is usually one in five. The true number is something the government really doesn't want to become public knowledge.
The frosting on the cake is that the vast majority of the 236,000 caught were voluntarily deported back into Mexico under the ever popular "Catch & Release" policy and promptly jumped the fence again and got away safely that time. Or the next. Their trip was not canceled, just delayed. Same thing that happens to you and me at airports.
What do you imagine public reaction would be if the true scope of this problem were to suddenly take center stage? That possibility has some members of our government enjoying a prolonged Maalox moment.
The next 12 weeks should be highly amusing.