Posted on 10/11/2005 4:24:34 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
He came to the border to see for himself how bad things really are.
A U.S. congressman who has introduced legislation enabling the governors of border states to set up civilian border patrols this morning met with Val Verde County Sheriff A. D’Wayne Jernigan to get a firsthand look at some of the border’s security problems.
U.S. Rep. John A. Culberson in July introduced a bill that would enable governors of states on an international border to call up a “citizen militia” to keep people from illegally crossing those borders.
Culberson, a Houston Republican, next is expected to travel to Laredo, where he will meet with members of the Texas Border Sheriffs Coalition.
Jernigan, who sits on the border sheriffs coalition’s executive committee, said the border sheriffs oppose some of the language in Culberson’s bill and contacted him with their concerns.
“We challenged him to come to the border,” Jernigan said in an interview Monday night.
“He has agreed in principle to take some of our concerns into consideration.”
Culberson’s bill calls for federal funds to go to border governors to call up, train and equip “citizen volunteers, organized into well-regulated local militias.”
Jernigan said the border sheriffs want that federal money to be funneled into border sheriffs’ offices for additional manpower, equipment and training.
In July, Culberson, who currently serves in the Congressional seat once held by George H.W. Bush, introduced the Border Protection Corps Act of 2005, House Resolution 3622.
The resolution, which in mid-October was referred to the House Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities, would authorize state governors “to organize and call into service a militia of able-bodied and eligible citizens to help prevent individuals from unlawfully crossing an international border and entering the United States anywhere other than a port of entry. . .”
The bill was co-sponsored by 54 other congressmen, including 10 of the 32 members of the Texas delegation.
One of the bill’s co-sponsors is U.S. Rep. Henry Bonilla, who represents Del Rio and Val Verde County.
The bill contends that “federal authorities do not have sufficient manpower or resources to patrol and defend the international borders of the United States to prevent individuals from entering the United States illegally.”
The bill also states that “federal and state law enforcement authorities have identified an alarming increase in the number of foreign nationals from countries with known connections to terrorist organizations who are hiding among this crowd of dangerous illegal immigrants and camouflaging themselves among an immense and rapidly growing number of foreign nationals who are entering the United States illegally in search of work.”
The bill calls on the “civilian militias” to be under the direct command of the governor of the state in which they are called up and insists that the civilians who serve on them have no criminal history or history of mental illness.
The members of the militias envisioned in Culberson’s bill would work in cooperation with state and local law enforcement, “and with the United States Border Patrol.”
The militia would be “authorized to use any means and any force authorized by state law to prevent individuals from entering the United States at any location other than a port of entry, and to take into custody individuals who have so entered the United States.”
Culberson’s bill also specifies that all persons taken into custody in this way “shall be promptly delivered to a federal law enforcement authority.”
Culberson today first met with Jernigan and VVSO Chief Deputy Terry Simons behind closed doors in a conference room at the Ramada Inn, where the two lawmen presented the congressman with a briefing on a locally-developed assessment of security threats.
Jernigan explained that much of the material in the briefing is considered “law enforcement sensitive” and cannot be released in its entirety.
Culberson then visited the federal courthouse in downtown Del Rio, where he briefly observed a docket call in the court of U.S. District Judge Alia Moses Ludlum.
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Sound familiar?
More pandering from the elected elite. Years late. I am pro legal immigration, and a Texan.
This is another example of closing the barn door years after the livestock is gone and dead.
Border Ping!
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off this South Texas/Mexico ping list.
The door has stayed open too long, and mass deportations are in order at this point. This will not happen unless we elect leaders who will actually order enforcement of the laws, no matter what Mexico says.
Not to worry about it being to late to close the barn door.
There are still over 100 million people in Mexico and a recent poll showed that 40% of them want to come to America and that a majority of these were willing to do it illegally. And that is before you start counting Central and South America.
Plenty of damage has been done by the illegals who have already come but the worst is in front of us.
We'll be down to militias soon enough as our debt laden economy takes on more water and the USA is NOLA writ large.
Agreed, and the modern Nero in the White House fiddles as Rome (America) burns.
I never fully blame the actors placed in the WH (though this guy is egregious in his lack of curiosity) for the scripts they are given to read. I blame conservative Inc. for trying to sound and act "tolerant" so the left would think nicely of them instead actually being helpful to the citizens of the USA.
Well said, junta.
This is being supported by 10 of the members of a 32 member congressional delegation? What about the other 22? Are the all from Austin or just worried about losing the maid and the gardener?
They're probably too cheap to pay an American worker. Traitors.
yep, you said it right..
When Jonah Goldberg of NR wrote that the white men of Montana frightened him (he never documented any threats) when he made a cross country journey I knew we were screwed. We can crush the Islamonazis, with little effort we can change the behavior of the Race monging hate spreaders such as LaRaza/JesseJackson with a stern hand, and we can outwait the overeducated white liberal fanatics as they moralize themselves into divinity of their own creation because they'll die soon, but what is truly dangerous is allowing some fruit cake graduates of the Frankfurt School to become "conservative" leaders.
ping
Protect our borders and coastlines from all foreign invaders!
Support our Minutemen Patriots!
Be Ever Vigilant ~ Bump!
"This is another example of closing the barn door years after the livestock is gone and dead."
Those piles of human feces would indicate to me that the herd stampeding across those ranches on the border are not ghost herds.
If the citizen volunteers join up with any government entity then they will be subject to all of the government's rules and regulations. Tread lightly.
Indeed. Be careful what you wish for...you may get something that's much worse.
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