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Border Patrol Complains That Volunteers Are Tripping Sensors Used to Detect Illegal Crossers(DRUDGE)
AP ^ | 4/4/05 | Arthur H. Rotstein

Posted on 04/04/2005 12:44:34 PM PDT by Crackingham

Volunteers who have converged on the Mexican border to watch for illegal immigrants are disrupting U.S. Border Patrol operations by unwittingly tripping sensors that alert agents to possible intruders, an agency spokesman complained Monday. Scores of participants in the Minuteman Project began assembling late last week and planned to begin regular patrols on Monday, in an exercise some law enforcement authorities and civil rights groups fear will result in vigilante violence. Many of the volunteers were recruited over the Internet, and some planned to be armed. Over the past few days, they have set off sensors, forcing agents to respond to false alarms, said Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Jose Maheda.

"Every sensor has to be addressed," Maheda said. "It's taken away from our normal operations."

The volunteers planned to start fanning out Monday across 23 miles of the San Pedro Valley to watch the border and report any illegal activity to federal agents. The idea, according to project organizers, is partly to draw attention to problems on the Arizona-Mexico border, considered the most porous stretch of the 2,000-mile southern border. Of the 1.1 million illegal immigrants caught by the Border Patrol last year, 51 percent crossed into the country at the Arizona border.

Jim Coniglio of Tucson, who plans to patrol with other volunteers this week, said residents in some areas of the border have complained of being "overrun routinely" by migrants. "They're feeling insecure," he said.

The Border Patrol opposes the operation. "The possibility for something going drastically wrong is very high," Maheda said.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government; Mexico; News/Current Events; US: Arizona
KEYWORDS: aliens; apanceonfier; apeanut4you; apeasement; apenemy1; apenemyuno; aphitpeice; apos; apropaganda; apsentoftruth; bordersecurity; minutemanproject
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To: Sybeck1
I wonder how many coyotes and rattlesnakes trip those?

None actually.

101 posted on 04/05/2005 11:51:45 AM PDT by BigSkyFreeper ("Stupidity is also a gift of God, but one mustn't misuse it" - Pope John Paul II)
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To: traderrob6
Is the border patrol vehemently against it, or rather, is it the press

By default the media is against it. The higher you go up in the governmental chain, everyone doesn't give a flying flock.

102 posted on 04/05/2005 11:54:22 AM PDT by BigSkyFreeper ("Stupidity is also a gift of God, but one mustn't misuse it" - Pope John Paul II)
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To: Crackingham

So it begins. Of course, if it were really true that "Every sensor has to be addressed" then there would have been no illegal crossers in those locations previously.

This guy Maheda has uttered an elegantly short self-evident lie.


103 posted on 04/05/2005 11:54:38 AM PDT by eno_ (Freedom Lite - it's almost worth defending.)
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To: doc30

I think the media didn't give a **** about the tripped sensors until they had to cover this story.


104 posted on 04/05/2005 11:56:29 AM PDT by BigSkyFreeper ("Stupidity is also a gift of God, but one mustn't misuse it" - Pope John Paul II)
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To: Ecthelion
The second a wall goes up, they tunnel under, or climb over, and we're back to where we started.

A wall could be built for about the same cost as an equivalent length of highway.

Would you pay for that much highway to be built if it would stop a flow of illegals that costs tens of billions in welfare, unpaid medical bills, and crime? Of course.

Such a wall would not have to be perfect. It would only have to sharply reduce what is today a completely uncontrolled flow.

105 posted on 04/05/2005 12:01:06 PM PDT by eno_ (Freedom Lite - it's almost worth defending.)
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To: ex 98C MI Dude
So we are counting the same people over and over and over and over...

Might be a lot of that, but the huge number of border crossers still makes the estimates of illegals in the country a pretty sad joke.

I see you have a background in sigint. So run these numbers in your head: Do you think the international prepaid calling card business can support itself entirely on legal and officially estimated illegals? Or do you think our government does not want us to see the enormity of the problem?

Anyone who can fog a mirror can get a credit card and, hence, a postpaid account with a wireless MNO. Why do we have a HUGE growth in prepaid wireless? Not young kids - they are on their parents' family postpaid accounts.

Based on some VERY basic traffic analysis, I bet our government has a pretty good handle on the actual number of illegals, and it's a LOT more than 20M.

106 posted on 04/05/2005 12:10:43 PM PDT by eno_ (Freedom Lite - it's almost worth defending.)
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To: eno_

It wouldn't reduce it. There were walls near where I lived. They'd just climb over them, or dig under them. No big deal. They had tunnels big enough to drive a car inside.


107 posted on 04/05/2005 12:30:59 PM PDT by Ecthelion
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