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.
Well that applies to anyone who pays into the SS system, was a 'low wage' worker, and lives a long time. You might know that Ida May Fuller was the first social security recipient. She paid in a total of $24.75, retired in 1939, lived to be 100 years old in 1975, and in the process collected $22,888.92 in benefits.
So they've actually caught fewer during the few days the MMKs have been running around?
Yes. With the help of the Mexican army patrolling their side of the border. Too bad they are also only telling them to wait a month.
Well that's interesting. So the capture rate goes down under the MMK and you say that's a good thing? Very selective.
That's right. On average, 133 per day for the last three days.
And with observers operating along the border within sight of each other, nobody is getting through. Most of us living here are convinced that the BP is only apprehending 1 in 4 or 5 that attempt the crossing.
In the last three days, we believe they've caught closer to 95% of those who attempted the crossing.
I know, you're probably thinking that the bulk of the crossers have shifted east or west. They probably have. So what? The UBPAs have proven that with the right tactics and numbers, you can seal the gaps between Ports of Entry. Now it's up to the people whose salary we pay to do the job we hired them to do.
Comments? (Valid and cogent, please)
This is not happening in April in the MMP areas:
But you already know all of this, Mr. "Brother of Santa Anna."
It ain't the capture rate so much as those being held back from the border by the Mexican patrols. Give 'em a month and they'll be back in business and you can hire all the illegals you care to exploit.
Actually, your assumption is not correct. See my #223.
BWAAAHAHAHAHAHaaaa.... Good luck. We've been trying to get the CAL folks to come up with anything remotely resembling cogent for days now.
I am forever the optometrist...(that's a wide-eyed optimist, I guess).
Uh-oh...time to go earn my living.
I hate short lunch breaks...see y'all later.
Smart guy like you can even figure that one out...
MMKs
Go on...you know you want to say it...
Again, I go back to the Maxine Waters/crack legend. The MMK side must do absolutely everything it can to maintain the fiction that herds of Mexicans are trampling across our borders. To say 'captures' are down during their stint in the desert means they need an excuse to keep the troops' moral up. I think your story about the Mexican army will do just that.
" know, you're probably thinking that the bulk of the crossers have shifted east or west."
Perhaps. Or maybe there just aren't that many crossers. On this I guess we'll just have to disagree.
I'm new here having signed up today but I've lurked for a long, long time. Regarding this subject, have you not read the Time Magazine article citing approximately 3 million people crossing the US/Mexico border in 2004?
>>Well that's interesting. So the capture rate goes down under the MMK and you say that's a good thing? Very selective.<<
It's not selective; it's the fact that the illegals are not venturing because of the MMps!
*HINT*
if you guys read this post by CBG:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1377799/posts?page=127#127
"You can find some great waterfront living. I've got some money invested in Paraiso del Mar(Mexico). I hope some day to have a home there. It really is paradise."
Good luck to CBG on retiring in Mexico. I've read information on doing the same and found that some people who have lost their homes and property because of complex documents regarding land ownership. In other words, after they've bought and moved in, they've been forced out.
BINGO!
They're successful either way.
Red6
Welcome to FR...
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