Posted on 01/21/2006 10:12:03 PM PST by Tarantulas
Minutemen release video of Mexican Army incursion of U.S. Border
(SCOTTSDALE, AZ) January 20, 2006 The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (MCDC) announced the release today of video footage of an incursion by a unit of the Mexican army across the U.S. border in Arizona.
Chris Simcox and a group of Civil Defense Corps volunteers encountered a squad of approximately eight armed Mexican soldiers about 500 yards inside American territory.
The Mexican soldiers started running back through the brush to Mexico when they realized they had been spotted.
The video shows a uniformed Mexican soldier climbing through a barbed wire fence on American soil to return to the Mexican side of the border as he races to catch up with the other Mexican soldiers who had also climbed back through the fence as they retreated back into their country.
The soldiers raced up a hill to a group of abandoned buildings at a ranch where military transport vehicles with more soldiers were located.
A group of armed Mexican soldiers then returned to the barbed wire fence (on American soil) and confronted Simcox and the volunteers. A discussion in Spanish ensued, with the agitated soldier 'in charge' saying the Americans had no business being there.
Simcox and the volunteers did not budge. The Mexican soldiers left and drove off. Judging from earlier activity observed at the ranch that morning, Simcox is of the belief that a trafficking operation had been disrupted by the volunteers.
The footage, filmed in 2004, was sent to then Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge. His office did not respond. The video has remained in the Minuteman video archive and is being released in response to recent news reports that over 200 cross-border incursions by the Mexican army have been documented since 1996.
Thanks for showing the picture of the border as it really is. We can't shut this border down without a major effort by the military including concertina wire, minefields, watchtowers and dogs.
I, for one, don't want to see that happen. I think you shut off the spigot at the source: employers.
Send a few businessmen and society wives to jail for employing illegals. No exceptions, no excuses.
Then set up a tightly regulated bracero program.
This film was discussed at FR in 2004 and it hasn't changed.
Did you look at it?
Agreed. This video does more to hurt the reputation of The Minutemen with the general public than it does to prove a point that most of us here fully acknowledge is a problem IMO. The Minutemen don't have to convince us, but they do need irrefutable documentation of border incursions. This video doesn't do it for me, so I can only imagine what any skeptic (ie...DHS Director)would conclude. I agree with the intent and attempt, just not with the final product in this case.
Mexicans good, Hatians bad.
bump
Why would you need "irrefutable documentation" of something that even the DHS skeptics admit has happened more than 200 times in the recent past?
This is why:
Chertoff Call Incursion Reports Overblown
Showing a video on nationwide TV that does not clearly show Mexican soldiers crossing the border is not helpful. It feeds into the very assertion that Chertoff claims.
Stop trolling the keywords.
200 admitted incursions is overblown. If this video was crystal clear showing the mexicans names, ranks, and serial numbers, Chertoff would still call outrage over it "overblown". Such a view is symptomatic of the administrations view that our border is becoming less, not more, important. This video doesnt not in any way hurt, it may not help much, but it certainly doesnt hurt, mostly because so few will ever see it.
"We're the media..." lol!
thanks.....I'd be banned by JR...permanently ...if I printed what I think about that.........
This is what most of our southern border looks like: there is no government-built fence at all. There is often just whatever is left over from some forgotten cattle fence, built privately to keep U.S. cattle from wandering freely into Mexico. For hundreds of miles there is not even a broken cattle fence, there is nothing at all.
For comparison, below the broken cattle fence photo is a sample of an inexpensive but highly effective double border fence system, with a plowed strip to reveal footprints. This type of system is very cheap and can be built with great speed.
Here is what some of San Diego County has: a wall made of rusty Viet Nam-era runway mats. The corrugations are even horizontal, (to make climbing easier?) The illegals in this photo were spotted by unexpected civilian volunteers, and jumped back over the border.
Here is what the border looks like where the runway mat wall exists. Mexico begins on the other side of the ineffective rusty wall, which actually helps the smugglers, by hiding their movements until the occasional USBP vehicle has driven out of sight.
This is how "the game" is played. Smugglers hide on the other side of the wall with their dope and/or their illegals, out of sight of the USBP. They wait for the highly visible white BP vehicle to drive over the distant hills. Lookouts with cell phones and walkie-talkies report on the current locations of the BP units. They know with certainty that "the coast is clear" for an hour or two, and the smugglers and illegals hop the fence and run into the scrub only 50 yards away. From there, they are out of sight, and they walk 1-2 miles to holding houses. Then they wait for nightfall, and are picked up and driven in vans to LA or San Diego.
Lastly, below is the Duncan Hunter 15' fence, which is already being built along a few "showplace" miles of San Diego, mainly near the ports of entry, where panderng politicians can conveniently show it off to gullible reporters. The House has approved building 700 miles of it, which would be a great start. As you can see, the rusty runway wall is seen at the left side, Mexico begins on the other side. In areas with the 15 foot fence, dope smugglers and illegals will have to cross the open sand ("the government road" as it is called) before starting to try to get over the 15 foot fence. It's extremely tough, and resists cutting. Attacking the fence would have to be done right out in the open, in full view of cameras. This type of fence, on the U.S. side of the government road, will give the USBP a barrier to patrol, instead of forcing them to chase illegals around 100,000 square miles of wide-open frontier land, which is a fool's errand.
Sorry, but it has been widely played on the cable news networks over the past week. I won't argue with your assertions about the administration's repeated failure to properly address and take action on this issue. I share the same frustrations. Unfortunately, it is going to take some tragic event that can be traced back to illegal border crossing before most politicians move on it as the problem it is- including the President. The video depicted on this thread won't convince the average politician or detached viewer that a border incursion took place in this case, and has the potential of backfiring by making the Minutemen out as reactionary IMO.
If there is one thing history has taught us, it is that You can build great fences and great walls--but unless you have the will to use penalties and force, they will not stop invaders.
We don't have the will to use summary force nor the money to enforce penalties by building jails for illegals.
Those fences are going to be monuments to futility.
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