Posted on 02/21/2005 2:42:11 PM PST by SwinneySwitch
They've cut down her fences, stolen her pickup and even broken into her home — once rampaging into the bedroom and nearly strangling her, sparing her life only after she grabbed a gun.
Not so lucky were several loyal dogs that were killed by the determined invaders.
Local authorities offered little help, and federal officers could do only so much with limited resources.
Left to fend for herself, South Texas rancher Kerry Morales decided to take direct action to stop undocumented immigrants who move daily through her 80 acres outside Hebbronville, about 54 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border.
"Maybe 20 years ago the illegals were innocent, hard-working people," she said. "Not any more. Now they're extremely dangerous. They mean violence."
In April, Morales plans to join approximately 1,000 other volunteers from across the United States expected to descend on a 20-mile stretch of the Arizona-Mexico border and become temporary, de facto border guards.
The effort already is drawing critics — including the Border Patrol — but organizers are adamant the monthlong gathering will be a peaceful show of force, not a vigilante operation.
Dubbed the Minuteman Project after the 1770s-era Massachusetts militiamen on call at a moment's notice, it is the brainchild of Jim Gilchrist, a retired California accountant and former Marine who fought in Vietnam.
Gilchrist tapped an Arizona activist, who for two years has been leading small groups of civilians to patrol the border, to help him organize the April mission. That state was picked because for several years it has led the country in undocumented migrant traffic.
South Texas could be next — possibly this summer, depending on how the first experiment goes.
"It's going to be a gigantic neighborhood watch," said Gilchrist, 56.
He said contact with migrants will be forbidden and any "wacko" who breaks ranks will be kicked out and reported to local authorities.
Since Arizona allows it, participants with handgun permits can carry their weapons. Still, they're encouraged to leave them at home because they won't need them, Gilchrist said. And larger firearms, including rifles — and soldier-like attire such as camouflage fatigues — won't be allowed.
"There's a place for Rambos in real wars," he said. "This is not a real war."
Emphasis on the nonviolent, law-abiding aspect of the Minuteman Project is key because organizers don't want to be seen as vigilantes. Other civilian border patrol efforts have gained a reputation as outlaw associations.
Numerous immigrant advocates and politicians have labeled the Minuteman Project's co-organizer, the Arizona-based Civil Homeland Defense, as a vigilante organization.
A similar description has been given to Ranch Rescue, a now-disbanded group formed in Texas that upon request dispatched military-clad, armed volunteers to assist border-area ranchers.
On one such mission in South Texas two years ago, a confrontation between Ranch Rescue members and undocumented migrants ended in court — the migrants claimed to have been beaten.
A jury did not concur but did find one group member guilty of illegally carrying a gun.
The Minuteman Project effort couldn't be more different in strategy and approach, Gilchrist said.
Groups of four to eight volunteers will be assigned to safe areas near the border to spot migrants using high-tech equipment such as night-vision binoculars.
Once crossers are identified, spotters will use cell phones and walkie-talkies to contact a "command center," which will relay sightings to the U.S. Border Patrol.
Participants will not confront migrants, letting them pass if encountered directly, Gilchrist said.
The strong military flavor in his talk is no coincidence. Not only is he a former Marine, his top ground organizers are all military veterans. About 60 in all, they will be led by a former Army sergeant major who led logistics planning during Gulf War I, Gilchrist said.
The project's apparently serious and structured approach has persuaded 29 Texans so far to sign up.
Just as he volunteered for two tours in Vietnam three decades ago, Bob Sabia of San Antonio felt a renewed call upon hearing of the Minuteman Project on a national conservative radio talk show.
Now retired, the 62-year-old former Marine pilot still takes to the air in his Cessna 150, which he plans to fly to Arizona to help foil illegal border crossings.
"Congress is not doing its job of protecting the nation's borders," Sabia said. "And there's enough of us vets around who aren't going to take this sitting down."
But it's not just about being patriotic. Many volunteers deem the ever-growing immigrant influx as eroding U.S. culture, arguing that most migrants don't learn English and show no interest in assimilating into the American mainstream.
For Charlie Preston of Austin, it's about providing the best future for his 5-year-old daughter.
If it takes shelling out his own money to be part of a national cry for politicians to recognize the negative socioeconomic effects of an open border, that's what Preston is ready to do.
"A nation has to have a unified culture," said Preston, 31, who owns a Web marketing business. "If that culture begins to break down, the entire country breaks down."
Immigrant advocates have heard such arguments before. And while they've also become used to seeing small groups of civilian border patrols, a massive incursion of anti-immigrant activists could prove disastrous, they warn.
Despite Gilchrist's repeated claims of peaceful mobilization, Isabel García doesn't buy a word of it.
The veiled language hides a hate-mongering, xenophobic intention to add to the boiling border political climate, said García, co-director of the Human Rights Coalition in Tucson, Ariz.
Minuteman Project participants should be promptly arrested and charged if they confront migrants, said García, noting her group plans to stage counterdemonstrations and may call on their own volunteers to directly monitor project activities.
Such advocates aren't the only ones against the idea. The U.S. Border Patrol also prefers that civilians stay home.
Though many patrol agents long have claimed to be outnumbered and have pleaded for additional manpower and newer equipment, agency leaders say the dangerous task of watching the border should be left to trained officers.
Project volunteers may end up giving border officers more unsolicited work and stress than necessary, said José Garza, a Brownsville native and spokesman for the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector.
Agents may have to respond to violent clashes between participants and drug traffickers. They may even have to break off from regular duties to assist people in distress — volunteers from out of state could easily get lost in the tricky, unforgiving desert, Garza said.
Gilchrist, noting that so far he has received about 40 negative e-mails in contrast to more than 4,000 messages of support, dismissed all criticism as unfounded and exaggerated.
He's counting on most volunteers being like Dan Lehnhoff, a fellow Vietnam veteran who lost a leg in 1970 while serving with the Navy.
Lehnhoff won't be able to move around too much with only one leg, but he said he'll take any assignment organizers give him.
"I can't be involved in anything shady. Military people can't be doing anything illegal, or we risk losing our pension," said Lehnhoff, 55, of Whitney, northwest of Waco, who plans to drive his RV to the Arizona border for three weeks in April.
"The main thing is to be law-abiding," he said. "You can't have a bunch of vigilantes down there taking the law into their own hands."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- hrozemberg@express-news.net
I take that back - I went to find that section of 418, and it addresses ground sensors but does not include unmanned aerial survelliance. I misread it.
However, that does not change the fact that when you post calls for violence against illegal border crossers, you play right into the hands of the La Raza types. Don't do it. The only way to win this battle is to get the GOP serious about border security. And you will not accomplish that by giving sound bytes to the other side.
Broke into her home ??? Bang!
It would be illegal under the laws of most states, because you would be apprehending someone as a citizens arrest when you would not have met the threshhold for such. I studied Arizona and Texas laws on that, and neither would allow you to detain a border crosser unless they were committing a felony (and illegal entry is not by and of itself a felony, but is normally an administrative crime).
Unfortunately, getting serious about border security is going to be a very expensive proposition; ground and airborne sensors will accomplish very little without adequate numbers of boots on the ground to effect arrests. And those boots cost $150K/year per pair.
Fine, do it. Cut back on all the nonsense programs to pay for it.
And also don't expect that to stop everyone - but also take the steps of mandating that only citzens or legal residents can receive government benefits, and step up enforcement of workplace violations of immmigration laws. If you do all three, you don't have to be perfect on any one to put a serious dent in the illegal migration.
You're not getting it. They are attempting a right-wing non-violent protest against the feds and their porous border policies. If everyone is armed, the La Raza types will claim they are hunting Mexicans. They are willing to put themselves at higher risk to underline the point they are trying to make, and to take talking points away from their opponents.
. . . and when both political parties that control Washington are openly hostile to a vocal majority of the country on an issue of national security, what then? I understand the desire to retain civility, but when the government refuses to protect its citizens they have a right to protect themselves.
Those nonsense programs have constituencies.
And also don't expect that to stop everyone - but also take the steps of mandating that only citzens or legal residents can receive government benefits, and step up enforcement of workplace violations of immmigration laws.
With the numbers bandied around by the S-cubed lobby and their hangers-on, you'd have to stop close to 90% to get the problem under control. Cutting off government benefits is politically popular--but you're not going to get much success with employment enforcement, because juries routinely refuse to convict.
The problem is simple: Americans want "something done" about illegal immigration, provided that "something doesn't personally inconvenience them in any way, shape, or form.
This is America, where everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.
How do you expect the GOP to get serious when Americans refuse to do so?
A large number of GOP congresscritters are already resisting Bush's immigration proposals. They need more political ammo, and not accounts of Mexican hunting along the border. You know and I know that there wouldn't be any Mexican hunting, but some nitwits take things too far and break laws over citizen's arrests of illegals (which I have researched for both Arizona and Texas). Others make dumb posts on FR or other sites that can and will be quoted by the pro-illegal side as proof we're a bunch of bigots who want to lynch border crossers.
Our side needs to stay on the up-and-up to win this debate. We hold the high ground - the law is already on our side. We need to make sure that the only ones who keep breaking the law are the other side.
Sounds like the rural equivalent of the urban group "guardian angels."
Whatever happened to them, btw?
So do we. We just don't make enough of the right kind of noise. That needs to change.
With the numbers bandied around by the S-cubed lobby and their hangers-on, you'd have to stop close to 90% to get the problem under control. Cutting off government benefits is politically popular--but you're not going to get much success with employment enforcement, because juries routinely refuse to convict.
Well, juries in the South sometimes refused to convict folks who lynched blacks. I guess we should have never bothered to try and change that, then.
The problem is simple: Americans want "something done" about illegal immigration, provided that "something doesn't personally inconvenience them in any way, shape, or form.
Poohbah, if I listened to you, I would just quit being an activist.
This is America, where everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. How do you expect the GOP to get serious when Americans refuse to do so?
You mean the same GOP Congress who just passed H.R. 418?
You would be surprised at the level of resistance to Bush's immigration proposals among GOP congresscritters. But, then again, you're always giving reasons why change won't happen.
Once again, this is a political battle. Images are everything, and political embarassment trumps all. Recognize it as such.
Whew, are you sure you're not Asa Hutchinson using a psuedonym? Your rhetoric is exactly what Asa and his La Raza buddies use to justify doing nothing.
Closing our borders to illegals will not personally inconvenience Americans, just politicians and corrupt businessmen. How can removing massive economic drains and security nightmares inconvenience Americans?
he said. "This is not a real war."
War? Maybe not by literal definition. Invasion? ABSOLUTELY!!!
BTTT
There hasn't been a single successful prosecution on the hiring side. People do not view hiring an illegal alien as a crime. It's jury nullification at work.
You mean the same GOP Congress who just passed H.R. 418?
Yup, the same Congress that has never been willing to hire enough border patrol agents. I don't give a flying hoot about high-tech gizmos; unless Congress is willing to hire a minimum of million additional pairs of boots at $150K per year, they're not serious. Unless the American public's willing to foot that bill, they're not serious, either--and most Americans aren't willing to spend that kind of money.
Why in the Hell haven't we closed this leaky border yet?
How much do you pay for produce at the supermarket, hoss?
Considering how seldom it has been pursued, that's hardly a surprise.
People do not view hiring an illegal alien as a crime. It's jury nullification at work.
Gee, Poohbah, you're right. Public perception is just too great against me. I'll just give up.
I'm glad enough freepers resisted that notion to hold out against public opinion that Clinton was a great president. If we had taken your advice regarding being unable to change public opinion, they'd be carving Slick's image on Mt. Rushmore about now.
Yup, the same Congress that has never been willing to hire enough border patrol agents. I don't give a flying hoot about high-tech gizmos; unless Congress is willing to hire a minimum of million additional pairs of boots at $150K per year, they're not serious. Unless the American public's willing to foot that bill, they're not serious, either--and most Americans aren't willing to spend that kind of money.
The point is, the GOP has made a stance against the pro-illegals. It's a first step. But every journey starts with a first step. I agree that we need more boots. So we show why those boots are needed. Next.
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