Posted on 04/05/2005 8:34:29 AM PDT by Kokojmudd
By Michael Marizco ARIZONA DAILY STAR
NACO, SONORA – A Mexican military Humvee moves across the cow pasture; soldiers nod at federal agents in bright orange shirts roving by on ATVs. An hour later, a Sonora State Preventive Police truck moves through a sandy wash, the officers looking for migrants waiting to sneak across the border.
Across the barbed-wire border in Arizona early Monday, excitement grips Minuteman Project volunteers when they observe a group of six people moving north.
Dan Russell, 62, watches the group walking toward him. "They're getting closer," he says. "They could just be reporters." They are.
In the first few days of the Minuteman Project, volunteers have been slowing illegal immigration into the Naco area.They've accomplished that with the help of an unlikely ally: Mexico.
Eager to avoid confrontations between volunteers and its people, Mexico is sweeping the area south of the Minuteman Project clear of migrants.
Gov. Eduardo Bours Castelo has placed 44 members of the new state police force across the border at La Morita, a cattle ranch that leads directly to the border south of Bisbee, said Diego Padilla the governor's Arizona representative.
The state police are working with Grupo Beta, Mexico's migrant protection force, which is plucking migrants out of the desert and depositing them in nearby Agua Prieta, where they are encouraged to wait before trying to cross.
"We are very crude with them; we tell them they may be shot, that there's rancheros out to stop them and hurt them," said Enrique Enriques Palafox, a Grupo Beta commander in Agua Prieta. The point is to terrify the migrants from the area so they won't cross illegally and encounter Minuteman volunteers, he said.
Sunday, the coordinated efforts of the military, Grupo Beta, and the new police force pulled 22 groups of migrants out of the ranch, Palafox said. By Monday, only a handful of people had to be told to go somewhere else.
Even as the Minuteman Project brought national attention to Cochise County's border woes, volunteers had few encounters with illegal entrants. But their presence has brought Mexican law enforcement to this part of the border, and that has had the effect of slowing illegal immigration.
Organizer James Gilchrist said Sunday that volunteers had reported 118 illegal entrants to the U.S. Border Patrol. There is no way to confirm that, because the agency's Tucson Sector says it doesn't keep track of Minuteman callers separately from normal calls from citizens about illegal border crossers.
Since Friday, when the protest started, there have been 78 citizen call-ins leading to the apprehension of 162 people, said Border Patrol spokesman Andy Adame.
What Minuteman volunteers have succeeded in doing is setting off false alarms by tripping ground sensors on the border, he said.
"We're having to work around them instead of concentrating on the actual border where we need to work," Adame said.
The number of illegal entrant apprehensions at the Naco station has dropped.
U.S. and Mexican officials say it's because of Mexico's efforts.
Minuteman organizers say otherwise. "We're having an impact," Gilchrist said Sunday.
● Contact reporter Michael Marizco at 573-4213 or at mmarizco@azstarnet.com.
Then it is a good thing that the MM is there to do the BP's job, isn't it?
I'm not taking the bait, troll. What happened, did that other thread you were trolling in dry up and you had to come over here?
MMK? wouldn't know.
but definatly not MMP material. you have to be a Patriot and love this country and respect it's laws to be willing to do what the MMP is doing. pretty well rules you out imo
Sensors? WHERE IS THE WALL!
Sensors can be fooled.
Yes, they may cross the border in another place, hopefully in the hands of the border patrol in that area. You see, the MMP is working.
Depends. From whose perspective do you ask?
I bet there are a lot of old US citizens living there.
Living is a lot cheaper and there are no illegals.:)
So in your mind anyone who is not an American citizen is illegal?
"Could that be the reason there are less illegal immigrants crossing the border here in AZ? "
Actually, it's going to be whatever story works best for the front men of this group. Like I said before, Maxine Waters has the CIA/crack story going on, your side will need to create a reason too.
Are you changing your tune on that one as well?
they don't send checks any more. They only direct deposit to checking/savings accounts advice of deposits are the only things in the mail.
Problems with mailmen being held up at least in my area.
I used to go outside on the first of the month to make sure my dear mail carrier was ok.
Do you claim that the Mexican government inflated those numbers to dramatize an imaginary problem?
I would love to see that quote.
It's right next to the source for your information. Go fetch.
If so, how do you justify allowing illegals into the country, when we could get legal migrants to do the work our government says we are not willing to do?
Didn't you hear? NAFTA was actually meant to be NAFBC: North American Free Border Crossings.
Politicians "don't need no steenking wall" if illegals can vote them back into office.
BTW first hand experience in Indy.....massive increase of hispanic population (mainly Southside of Indy) in the past 10 years. Wife's school is swamped with many children without English skills.
Initial wave hit when cheap(?), extra construction labor was needed after a series of severe storms that damaged countless homes...including my own.
Always wondered about the mechanism that started the flood....Insurance or construction companies wanting the cheapest, non-union labor? NFC...perhaps another FReeper has seen this in their city.
It's a conservative estimate to assume a "group" would be 10 or more, thus in one day, south of one city, over 200 migrants would have entered the United States if they had not been stopped.
U.S. and Mexican officials say it's because of Mexico's efforts.
lol that's so laughably assinine it borders on ludicrous
Mexico wouldn't be doing SQUAT if the Minutemen Volunteers weren't on the border.
Jackasses, all of them. Mexican and American government officials, nothing but jackasses.
Are you really that daft????
Wait, you probably are.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.