Posted on 04/16/2005 6:09:01 PM PDT by Spiff
Congressman Charlie Norwood, 9th District, Georgia
April 8, 2005
The Miracle on the Southwest Border: Illegal Immigration Smashed
A Direct Field Report on the Arizona-Mexico No-Man’s Land
April 4, 2005: The Arizona border with Sonora outside Naco
By Congressman Charlie Norwood
An on-going miracle is occurring this month in America’s Southwest, a miracle with a direct impact on our district. After decades of being told that it is impossible to stop illegal immigration on the Arizona border, it has been all but halted since April 1 through the very means we were told wouldn’t work – dedicated manpower and willpower.
This past Sunday, the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, of which I am a member, sent two senior staffers to investigate first-hand a chain of events beginning in late March which could force Congress and the Administration to dramatically rethink our approach to combating illegal immigration.
I insisted that John Stone from our Washington staff be a part of that first two-man team, so that we would have the most direct information on the situation possible. Stone is currently a Captain and public affairs officer with the Virginia Defense Force, the reserve to the Virginia National Guard, and a homeland security policy advisor. He partnered with retired Marine Colonel Fred Peterson, an expert on international homeland defense. They went into the border zone independently from any other federal agencies, with Caucus instructions to investigate every side of what is occurring in the zone, talk with any and all sources both on and off-the-record, and report those findings back to Congress. Their final and full report will be filed May 2, but their initial findings need to be known immediately.
The catalyst for the new focus on the border is a controversial movement by private citizens who are simply fed up with the ineffectiveness of federal efforts to combat the problem. They call their effort the “Minuteman Project”, and have kicked off what they describe as a “Neighborhood Watch” effort to help our Border Patrol control illegal immigration through additional free, volunteer manpower.
Our Border Patrol has officially responded with less than open arms to the offer of free help, in spite of complaining for decades of not having enough officers to adequately cover the vast desert region. It is estimated that more than half of the current 16 million illegal aliens in this country walked right through this same sector, yet the Border Patrol still says “no thanks.”
Vigilantes or Patriotic Volunteers?
While that hasn’t slowed the Minutemen down in bringing their 30-day project to reality, it has created an uncomfortable situation of armed civilian volunteers operating without first being sworn in by a lawfully authorized local, state, or federal agency.
That is a legitimate concern. One of the foundations of our Republic is that our military and law enforcement answers through an established chain-of-command to publicly elected officials. It is one of the key differences between the 200-year success of our nation and economy and the banana republics to our south that are the precise cause of so many folks wanting to flee to the United States.
Yet it is likewise an underlying principle of our Republic that elected officials faithfully act to defend and enforce the laws of the land, including our immigration laws. And our elected officials have repeatedly failed to take the necessary steps to do so.
Are the Minutemen vigilantes? That is a question for which Congress needed direct, unedited feedback from the field to attempt to answer.
President Bush has said he is against “vigilantes”, while not directly calling the Minuteman volunteers by that name. But Mexican President Vincente Fox has directly referred to the Minutemen as “vigilantes.” An interesting statement from a President with troops under his command who consistently violate our border. He obviously doesn’t mind taking our law into his hands, he just has a problem with us doing the same with our own law.
So what is a vigilante? From a variety of sources, a vigilante is “One who takes law enforcement into one's own hands; vigilantes often operate in secret.” The Caucus investigation has so far uncovered the following field evidence:
- No Enforcement Efforts: Project organizers are maintaining rigid rules that volunteers take no enforcement action whatsoever. They simply report the location of suspected illegal immigrants to the Border Patrol. Our team confirmed all volunteers are drilled on avoiding confrontation, even if provoked, and under instruction to allow all persons to pass unobstructed, and without verbal harassment. They are allowed to provide emergency aid to illegal immigrants if necessary, and our team investigated one incident of an illegal immigrant who fell behind his group, and was actually provided emergency food and water by Minutemen while Border Patrol agents were in transit. An illegal immigrant who claimed on Wednesday (6 APR) to have been detained by the Minutemen is likewise reported to have received food, water, and money from sympathetic volunteers before changing his story, reportedly after outside coaching.
- Transparency: The Minutemen organization has opened its operations 100% to media, government, and public inspection. Local, national, and international press, along with all government agencies, have access to all Minutemen facilities in the area, as well as being offered the opportunity to observe all field operations. Our team accompanied newspaper reporters on an overnight observation of a high drug-trafficking area this week. Stone and Peterson confirm the reporters had full access to the entire operation, and the ability to talk to all members of the team. Some individual Minutemen team members chose not to talk or have their picture included in the story, which is within their rights, consistent with standard public affairs operations guidelines of state and federal agencies. By contrast, the U.S. Border Patrol did not allow our team to accompany their agents through ride-along requests that are traditionally provided as a courtesy to congressional fact-finding missions. From these initial findings, if the Minutemen are “vigilantes”, then so are all Neighborhood Watches that are not formally recognized by a law enforcement agency.
Elements at Play
The Minutemen: Leaders of the Minutemen Project say they currently have around 450 volunteers in the field. They have been in the field since Monday, April 4, and will be relieved over the coming weeks by another thousand or so volunteers. They estimate somewhere between 1000-1500 volunteers will participate before the project is over at the end of the month, with around 500 in the field at any given time.
The Border Patrol: The Border Patrol has pulled in 534 seasoned agents from elsewhere in the country to reinforce the 2600 agents already in the sector. The Border Patrol says these reinforcements have nothing to do with the Minuteman Project, and are a planned step in the ongoing Arizona Border Patrol Initiative.
Coronado Memorial National Park: The National Park Service has trucked in an undetermined number of tactical officers from other states. Coronado Memorial National Park covers nearly 5000 acres on the border with Mexico.
The Media: Our team identified the Los Angeles Times, the San Antonio Express, La Raza Radio News 97.9FM, NBC/MSNBC Crew West, the Associated Press, FOX News, and multiple European media outlets remaining on the scene long-term. Members of these and other media are constantly following the Minutemen, and have at times disrupted observation efforts.
Opposing Groups: The ACLU; La Raza; Hispanic separatist Dr. Armando Navarro; street gang MS-13; Mexican drug and human trafficking gangs, and Earth Liberation.
Fort Huachuca: The U.S. Army maintains its own security and patrols over the base area, frequently used by illegal immigrants. ROTC Cadets from Arizona State University on training duty at the base apprehended and detained 16 illegal immigrants earlier this week; 513 illegals were apprehended on base in March.
Border Action to Date
Prior to the Minuteman Project observation posts becoming active on April 4, open-borders advocates protested and sent observers into the field, reportedly for the duration of the project. These groups included the ACLU, Earth Liberation, and others. Stone observed what is believed to be elements of these groups attempt to disrupt observation posts.
The Salvadoran street gang MS-13 along with Mexican human smuggling and drug rings has reportedly threatened armed attacks against the Minuteman volunteers. This MS-13 gang is the very one which is spreading so rapidly across our country, with a worldwide membership of 700,000, and a history of vicious machete attacks in the Washington, DC suburbs. It seems they object to having their illegal access to our country blocked.
The government-controlled Cuban press is telling the world that “armed racists” are standing by to shoot innocent migrant workers.
Mexican President Vincente Fox has ordered his military to mass on the U.S. border in higher numbers than usual, “just in case,” of a confrontation. There won’t be, as the Minutemen are under strict instructions to walk away from confrontation, but this policy position of Mexico is worth noting. This is the same Mexican military that provides water, aid, and traveler’s advice to immigrants seeking to cross our border illegally, to help them do so. According to multiple reports, beginning April 1 the Mexican military has been blocking immigrants from attempting to cross the section of border patrolled by the Minutemen, and advising illegals to cross to the east and west of the Minutemen’s area of operations. They are telling these immigrants that “crazed ranchers” are waiting to shoot them on sight on our side of the border if they cross in the wrong place.
The Minuteman volunteers, with a heavy percentage of armed former U.S. military members, have held firm to their project goals in spite of these threats and distortions.
Results – A Dramatic Decline in Illegal Immigration
Our team heard two conflicting stories on the results of these developments on the Southwest border. But both stories have the same ending: illegal activity in this, the heaviest illegal immigration border sector in America, has been brought to a screeching halt.
The U.S. Border Patrol attributes any and all decreases in illegal immigration this spring to their own efforts to increase enforcement, primarily their bringing in those 534 seasoned officers from other parts of the country the week before the Minuteman Project kicked off. They also credit the increased Mexican military presence on the other side of the border. Their official stance is that the Minutemen Project has had little or no effect, and was timed by its volunteer organizers to try to claim success for the efforts of the Border Patrol. A fascinating position when you think about it – a reverse conspiracy theory, in which federal bureaucrats suspect citizens of designing sophisticated plots against them. Interestingly, the Border Patrol had no knowledge of increased federal efforts elsewhere, such as the National Park Service team deployed to the state, or of whether U.S. Army enforcement efforts were increased.
Local law enforcement, and individual Border Patrol officers speaking off-the-record, say that illegal immigration has virtually stopped in the sector patrolled by the Minutemen as a direct result of Minutemen activity and publicity.
Regardless of the cause, a historic immigration reform myth has been exposed as a total travesty in just the first week of the Minuteman Project. That myth is that it is impossible to stop illegal immigrants from crossing the border with any reasonable amount of additional manpower, that controlling illegal immigration could only be accomplished through new technology still years away from implementation, and that a necessary ingredient is immigration “reform” that would allow most of those entering our nation illegally to just walk across the border with impunity.
That myth is now dead forever thanks to a remarkable first week of April on the Arizona-Sonora border. We can stop illegal immigration anytime we please by simply providing adequate and reasonable numbers of Border Patrol personnel, with Army or National Guard backup if necessary, to bring our national illegal immigration nightmare to an immediate end.
We have the manpower. The only question left is whether we have the willpower.
###
La Raza is just a social organization. It's nothing at all like ALIPAC, National Alliance, or VDARE.
What can I say or do? I'm the wrong color and gender while daring to work my keister off to advance a nonthankful company wherever I go. Part of my problem is pointing out when the emporer isn't wearing clothes, but an inability to kiss *ss shouldn't be held against my putting that sort of pettiness aside for the sake of the company's betterment.
I plan do do something lightweight (for a change) while taking the tech tests I've been studying for in my spare time. Admittedly, much of the flack I've experienced has come from higher educated people upset that I, a mere high school grad with a few courses, thought of something they didn't.
It's not my fault that many of these privileged are clods who got over because of their folks' connections. I don't have any family so have no shame for achieving what I have on my own power without a safety net.
People like myself should be encouraged to succeed, not told we should "mind our betters". I only regret I realized this relatively late in life. Our current President seems to illustrate the problem of a groomed non-deserving taking the place of a brilliant "commoner" who'd be doing a better job for everyone.
While I'd like a better life for myself I want a better future for our nation than what we're presented far, far more. Laws in place cite that the employers of illegal aliens must serve time and pay fines. If they do not I see no reason why the rest of us can't speed at will and knock off convenience stores for convenient cash. I'm talking about Leadership By Example - if our leaders indulge in corruption how can the citizenry be expected to uphold societal standards? The current chaos in Russia illustrates this dilemma.
Bottom Line - We have to accept responsibility for our country and that means making our Representatives understand that their foremost allegiance is to US and not their finance funnelers of dubious values (dependent on most citizens obliviousness to the amount they're funding the illegal's needs). Our representatives can not be allowed to continue playing sides against each other through semantic acrobatics without consequence. The movie "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou" had a beautiful scene where a found-out weasel politician was literally rode out on a rail.
We need to do that.
"The Ku Klux Klan is just a social organization."
"La Cosa Nostra is just a social organization."
"The White Aryan Nation is just a social organization."
"The American Nazi Party is just a social organization."
(You're so funny, Santa Anna's Brother! You crack me up with your humor!)
How are their parties?
Very good advice, Travis McGee, and I couldn't agree more. :)
"Illegal aliens may be depressing wages in some industries, but that by itself doesn't equate into destroying Americans' standard of living."
Just how many Americans need to be affected by "depressing wages" caused by illegal aliens before it becomes important to those who think it's not a problem?
"JJ, you're late to the circus. Got get your red nose and report to the third ring."
Ah, just as I thought. You little clown, you. And here I thought Bozo, the clown of all clowns, was dead.
Hey now...you and I have had our differences but I thought we eventually came to understand we both comprehended the concept of honor. Travis doesn't deserve that slight. If you've read his work you'd know he doesn't have any truck with the white supremiscists.
SEALS, like all other Special Forces, find the cream of the crop comes from all varieties of humanity. The best lock-picker may come from Puritanical New England stock while the most spiritual individual's family may have come from a Communist country. Only America provides the opportunity for these uniquely talented individuals to achieve their potential, unhindered by the social constrictions or outright prejudices they'd be limited by in the countries their parents came from.
Quisling A word Norwegians are not very proud of having given to the world: it derives from Vidkun Quisling (1887-1945), a Norwegian politician who collaborated with the Nazis during World War II. He established his name as a synonym for "traitor", someone who collaborates with the invaders of his country, especially by serving in a puppet government. Quisling was found guilty of high treason in 1945, and was executed by firing squad on the 24th October 1945.
U.S. Constitution Article 1 Section 8 Clause 15:
"The Congress shall have Power to provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections
"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,
Really? I think its left over 60"s organization. The National Council of La Raza
"The guy works for Norwood, you think he's going to tell the truth?"
You want an open border, are we to think you would accept the truth?
Actually, if you looked, you would see that my post was to Spiff thanking him for all he does in regards to the MMP.
"Are you addressing this to me"
I am very sorry, I made a grave error. I was addressing the moron, clintonbgone for his obviously pro-open border ideas. In the future I will be sure to be more careful.
Apology accepted and no harm done. Cintonbgone is indeed an advocate for open borders. He and other posters like him show us his shortcomings in intelligence. Ignore him as he and his ilk subscribe to controversy.
You weren't even eligible to vote.
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