Minutemen Are Heroes (Citizens Can Make A Real Difference Alert)

Hundreds of citizens, angry about the effects of illegal immigration on our country, would travel down to the Mexican border and do something about it.

The Minuteman Project would attract kooks, said the naysayers. It would encourage racism, they moaned. It would be divisive, others whined. It would provoke violence, some claimed. It would be vigilantism, cried some, including the president of the United States.

Now that we've seen the Minuteman Project in action, we all know it did none of those things.

What it did was shut down 27 miles of border that had previously been used as a veritable freeway for illegal aliens and smugglers.

The Minutemen, about 1,000 strong, helped catch some invaders. But their presence served as a major deterrent to many others, who decided to wait until things calm down in Arizona.

I hope the Minuteman Project spreads like wildfire from state to state so we can shut down the entire Mexican border with volunteers.

I hope the Minutemen show up the federal government, which claims closing the porous border is just too big a job for all the hundreds of billions we send to Washington.

I hope this movement serves to inspire tens of millions of Americans to similar citizen action.

I hope this project is the final nail in the coffin of President Bush's amnesty plans.

I hope this action brings so much attention to the border that the federal government is literally forced, kicking and screaming, to do its job and close down the border.

I hope when the American people see that all it takes is will power, that they will demand Washington build an Israeli-style security fence along all 2,000 miles of the border.

This was exactly the kind of citizen action I envisioned when I wrote "Taking America Back" two years ago.

The Minutemen are showing us not only how to seal our borders and protect our national security, they are demonstrating how we can take back our country from the political establishment.

In just a few days, the Minutemen have put the national spotlight on the border – even at a time when the world's attention has been diverted by the deaths of Terri Schiavo and of Pope John Paul II.

These are extraordinary men and women who have taken time away from their work and their families and their hobbies to do something for their country. They deserve our praise, not our scorn. Bush should be ashamed of himself. He will live to regret his castigation of these fine people.

For those of us who don't go, we need to be supportive of the Minutemen in any way we can. We need to pray for these fine Americans. And we need to support them with financial assistance.

You can do that by visiting the Minuteman Project website. Give generously. They are fighting the good fight for all of us.

Those of us who have to stay home need to make as much noise as possible about the border. We have to be outspoken in our support of the Minutemen. We need to demand that Washington live up to its obligation to secure our borders and make national security the No. 1 priority. Speak out. Be silent no more.

I'm excited by what I see in Tombstone today. I'm re-energized by it. I hope you are, too.

Heres an Associated Press Article....Who is this writer defending?????

Immigrant protests border volunteers’ actions
Authorities deny civilian group held border crosser against his will

Bryan Barton / AFP - Getty Images
A Mexican migrant holds the T-shirt of Bryan Barton, a Minuteman Project volunteer, near Naco, Ariz., on the U.S.-Mexico border, in this April 6 photograph. The Minuteman Project is a volunteer group watching the southeastern Arizona border to deter illegal immigration.
The Associated Press
Updated: 10:47 p.m. ET April 7, 2005TUCSON, Ariz. - Authorities determined Thursday that three volunteers involved in a civilian project to watch the border and report illegal crossers had an illegal immigrant pose for a flippant photograph but did not hold him against his will.

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The Mexican man had told sheriff’s deputies he was detained and forced to pose for a picture holding a T-shirt with a mocking slogan. A review of a 15-minute videotape provided by Bryan Barton, one of the three volunteers, showed the T-shirt the man was holding read: “Bryan Barton caught an illegal alien and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.” Barton was wearing an identical shirt.

“The county attorney’s office reviewed all available evidence, that indicates that there was no forcible detention, therefore the case is not substantiated, and no charges are pending,” said Carol Capas, a spokeswoman for the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department.

The sheriff’s department, Mexican Consul Miguel Escobar and the U.S. Border Patrol also agreed the 26-year-old man was not detained, said Capas and Border Patrol spokeswoman Andrea Zortman.

The man, who was not identified, apparently did not initially tell a Border Patrol agent he had been detained, but did so when interviewed later by sheriff’s deputies, Capas said. The man alleged when he tried to get away, the volunteers ran in front of him and would not let him go by.

The volunteers involved in Wednesday’s incident identified themselves as members of the Minuteman Project — a monthlong effort that has people from around the country spread out along a stretch of the Arizona-Mexico border to report undocumented migrants and smugglers.

Law enforcement fears
Law enforcement officials have said they fear the project will lead to vigilante violence. Mexico’s foreign relations department also pledged in the days leading up to the civilian operation to pursue all legal and diplomatic means to stop the volunteers and ensure they do not violate the rights of Mexican citizens.

The volunteers may alert authorities when they see someone cross the border, but are not allowed to detain anyone. The immigrant who complained he was held illegally was later picked up by the Border Patrol, and remains in custody.

Wednesday’s incident was the first reporting any possible detention, though volunteers earlier assisted an immigrant in distress.

“The Minuteman project has created a powder-keg situation with the potential to go beyond harassment and false imprisonment to real violence,” said Eleanor Eisenberg, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, which has legal observers keeping an eye on Minuteman volunteers.

© 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

RUSH: One of the problems is we're not weeding out the people you're talking about. We're not weeding out the people that want to come here and genuinely improve their lives. What's happening is that way too many are coming here because they're being drawn by the magnet of our social welfare safety net or for whatever other reasons and they're not acculturating and they're not learning the language and they're not following the American path to success.

Yeah but Rush they are good enough to put terraced seating and an overhead projector in Tom Tancredo's basement.

And this comes from someone who would have voted for Arizona's Prop 200.

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