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.
you nailed it Spiff.
IMO CBG is trying to bait readers of this post into posting an inappropriate or vulgar reply......the type of reply which could get one banned from FR and paint anti-illegal immigration types as "wackos." Fortunately, it looks like nobody took the bait.
I guess I am somewhat cynical today but a red flag goes up when I see somebody brandishing military credentials to bolster their demagoguery.
Incidentally, I agree with CBG that the illegal immigration problem is a symptom of a greater problem, namely the welfare state.
As opposed to the other 11 months of the year, when they turn their heads the other way.
Bump!
He probably employs illegals....those are the staunchest defenders of our uninvited guests.
He probably employs illegals....those are the staunchest defenders of our uninvited guests.
"Apparently the sensors aren't tripped by the thousands of illegals who pass every single day."
No, I guess they are designed to only detect American citizens.
Kinda demonstrates that the Mexican government COULD halt illegal migration if it really wanted to.
Thank you, and I know it. I've seen the tactic before and I'm often the first to warn others that the FROBLs are engaging in it again.
My point being firmly made, I'm done talking to the idiot and I hope that others now recognize him for the flame-baiting troll that he is. Cultural Jihad was banned for doing this same stuff the other day, hopefully Clintonbegone will meet with the same zot fate.
Getting back at least what they pay, just like anyone else that has SS taxes withheld. What is the problem with that?
Carolyn
Perhaps you can assist me in showing how to prove a negative?
That's letting criminals reap the rewards of their crimes.
It's not proving a negative to post your own statistics showing the BP is full of it.
But it is quite telling that you are attempting that ploy when your positions are challenged.
True. We know this and the Minutemen know this. However, their point will have been made as it has been made already. The border can be shut down, the Mexican government can do something about, and the people are fed up with the problem and don't want to take it anymore. This event and its implications will be hard to ignore - its ripple effects will be far reaching. There's no harbor down here and no tea, but you're seeing the equivalent of the Boston Tea Party happening right now.
You don't have to prove a negative. Just show the stats that indicate very few illegal border crossings.
More egg on the face of liberal weenies everywhere.
No vigilanteeism, just lawful Americans aiding law enforcement to do their job.
And finally, the Mexicans seem to have gotten the message that people on this side of the border are fed up and ready to do something about it. So finally, they take action.
I wonder how much longer it will be before Mexico starts behaving like a responsible nation-state and improves conditions for it's people, rather than using the US as a dumping ground for their unemployables.
Yeah...now that's good...
3 million illegals cross the border every year and a few hundred Minutemen are setting off alarms in a couple of days
I'm from Michigan. If I want to see illegals I drive past apple orchards, cherry orchards, and Dearborn. The atms here are in English and Spanish. Think that's a coincidence?
Now ask me about the year I lived in northern Indiana and there were no catholic masses in English, but plenty in Spanish, and the paper had a weekly segment on "How to get US citizenship".
This is a nationwide issue, worse in some places, but it is everywhere.
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