U.S., Mexican legislators discuss border vigilantes - States may stop groups targeting illegals

Associated Press ^ | November 24, 2002 | Associated Press Staff

[MeekOneGOP]

U.S., Mexican legislators discuss border vigilantes

States may take action against groups that target migrants

11/24/2002

Associated Press

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico - U.S. and Mexican lawmakers expressed concern Saturday about a growing number of American vigilante groups that capture and sometimes hurt or kill Mexican migrants who cross into the United States illegally.

The fringe groups have sprung up in several border towns in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, where residents frustrated by U.S. border agents' inability to stop illegal migration have taken matters into their own hands, said Arizona state Rep. Robert Cannell.

Mr. Cannell said Arizona legislators will likely take up the issue of vigilante groups during the state's next legislative session. The Democrat said he was "strongly opposed" to the groups.

Mr. Cannell was one of eight U.S. state legislators - three from New Mexico, two from California, two from Arizona, and one from Texas - who joined 38 lawmakers from the six Mexican border states at the third annual legislative border forum in Nuevo Laredo.

In separate Binational Commission meetings on Monday and Tuesday in Mexico City, high-ranking U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, will hold talks with their Mexican counterparts on what to do about the estimated 3 million Mexicans working illegally in the United States.

New Mexico state Sen. Mary Jane Garcia said vigilante groups appeal to undereducated young men who feel that state and federal governments haven't done enough to protect towns along the border. The Democrat said the issue also needed urgent attention in the New Mexico legislature.

Also on Saturday, Chihuahua state lawmaker Cesar Castro Lopez called on investigators from the FBI and Britain's Scotland Yard to help solve the brutal slayings of women in Ciudad Juarez.

More than 75 women have been raped and killed since 1993 in Ciudad Juarez, the border's largest city. Dozens of suspects have been arrested, but bodies have continued to turn up in the desert.

Mr. Castro Lopez said that Mexican state and federal commissions assigned to investigate the crimes have failed to produce any concrete leads.

"It has become a financial issue of vital importance for those who do business on the border," he said, adding that violence in Juarez has begun to affect U.S. commercial interests, thus ensuring that the killings fall under U.S. jurisdiction.

The killings have "ruined the reputation of Ciudad Juarez in the eyes of the world," Mr. Castro Lopez said.

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Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dallas/tsw/stories/112402dntexvigilantes.b2a17.html

[Bogolyubski]

If it does unleash "the mother of all court battles" as you describe (and it very well might), how do you think the black-robed dictators deciding the case will rule? I'll give you three guesses (the first two don't count). Another thing the article forgot to mention are the repeated incursions over the border by the Mexican army and the incident this summer at Organ Pipe National Park in which a park ranger was killed by illegals.

[I_Love_My_Husband]

Bump!

[TigersEye]

Your post really says it all. A quick google search reveals that the FBI is already involved in the Juarez murders. So that aspect of the article is a red herring from top to bottom.

I would like to see documentation of any assaults or murders on illegals by any so-called 'vigilante' groups. I have my doubts it exists.

You can all just hand me a roll of tinfoil because I think this entire 'border situation' is being orchestrated. I lived in Silver City, NM from '98- '00 and what is transpiring now (and far more) was being talked about then. Talked about and expected by uneducated folks like LEO's, business men, EMT's, ranchers...let me just save space and say; across the spectrum from barflies to community leaders. Guess which end of the spectrum the more outlandish projections of the future came from.

I had a hard time swallowing it all then but things are progressing step by step as I was told it would.

[Bogolyubski]

Your forgetting what "educated" means to the sandbox totalitarians like Rep. Garcia. To them, being "undereducated" means one needs to spend several years in a 're-education' camp.

[NYTexan]

"the more outlandish projections of the future"

This sounds like an interesting segway to another thread, but could you elaborate a bit? Could be food for thought.

[TigersEye]

"...American vigilante groups..."
"The fringe groups..."
"...have taken matters into their own hands..."
"...the issue of vigilante groups..."
"... vigilante groups appeal to undereducated young men who feel..."

Can you say; "Demonization"? I knew you could.

The willful fractionalisation of this country continues and marginalisation of 'young undereducated white males' who belong to groups like 'militias' and 'vigilante groups' who believe in Constitutional rights such as the (gasp) 2nd Ammendment and (wretch) property rights and all those other selfish individual 'rights' that our rich, racist, white Founding Fathers put in the Bill of Rights.

[TigersEye]

It is a segway to what most would call 'tinfoil hattery'. Do you really want to hear what decent normal folks there believe is on the drawing board? And have believed for several years?

[NYTexan]

Yes, I am curius.
post privately if need be.

[janetgreen]

We would be very interested to hear about it. Most of us are outraged to see the government turn its back on Americans in favor of illegal aliens.

[BlackElk]

Gee, that will make all the difference. Raping and murdering Mexican women and dumping their bodies in Ciudad Juarez is perfectly OK if they don't have entry visas, right. Redneck louts and xenophobic bigots will have open season and there won't be any bag limit either! Of course, if they were legal immigrants, it would be old-fashioned kidnap, rape and murder. I get it.

[BlackElk]

Gee, I am a lifelong Republican when I wasn't voting for Pat Buchanan and I am "strongly opposed to those groups too. I thought the Klan had died out.

[Dan Cooper]

This is perfect example of how the AP propaganda works. They juxtapose the two different pieces of information about the citizens groups patrolling their land and the rapes and murders in Juarez and it make people believe that they are related. They never state that they are related in the article and there is no reason to believe that they are. You've been played.

[Sal]

Absolutely the attack is on property rights and the attack has many fronts.

[BlackElk]

If you were living in such economic conditions, would you not cast a yearning glance in the direction of El Norte? You cannot blame people reduced to living in pallet shacks and then having even those taken away not to want to live here.

[BlackElk]

AHHHHH, the Reconquista!!!!! I heard all about it through my tin foil hat.

[FITZ]

Raping and murdering Mexican women and dumping their bodies in Ciudad Juarez is perfectly OK if they don't have entry visas

No Americans are involved in that. An American could not be in the neighborhoods that's going on. That's strictly Mexican crime. It's that government which isn't doing anything about it.

[FITZ]

If you were living in such economic conditions, would you not cast a yearning glance in the direction of El Norte?

Obviously but when the people who live in $100 wooden pallet houses come over to the US, they are rarely able to support themselves any better here. They usually tend to lack health insurance and tuition money for their kids. They also tend to lack education and English language skills so ----we taxpayers end up supporting them.

One thing those who point to European immigration forget is that one-third of the immigrants from Europe returned home in a short time because they weren't up to life here and with our gigantic welfare system, those immigrants unable to make it now stay.

[MissAmericanPie]

This is what I was going to ask. There is not one report of an American murdering illegals. Lying, filthy, scum. They say there have been arrests in these rape cases. Lets have the details, let us hear the names of these suspects, like Lopez, and Garcia. Lying, filthy, scum.

"More than 75 women have been raped and killed since 1993 in Ciudad Juarez, the border's largest city. Dozens of suspects have been arrested, but bodies have continued to turn up in the desert.

Mr. Castro Lopez said that Mexican state and federal commissions assigned to investigate the crimes have failed to produce any concrete leads.

"It has become a financial issue of vital importance for those who do business on the border," he said, adding that violence in Juarez has begun to affect U.S. commercial interests, thus ensuring that the killings fall under U.S. jurisdiction.

The killings have "ruined the reputation of Ciudad Juarez in the eyes of the world," Mr. Castro Lopez said."

No concrete leads have been produced, but don't let that stop you from implying Americans are guilty of the crime, you lying filty, scum. Who has ever even heard of "Ciudad Juarez", much less give a tinker's hammer what it's reputation is.

[Bogolyubski]

What the hell are you talking about? The so-called "vigilante" groups are merely protecting private property (their own) from being trashed by the invasion of ilegals. They detain illegals who are then arrested by the border patrol. There hasn't been a single case of an illegal alien being injured or killed by these folks. (Quite in contrast to all of the killings carried out by illegals against othetr illegals, US Park Service Rangers, and US citizens.) These private citizen partols do carry weapons for self-defense, as the "coyotes" and drug-runners who are invariably amongst the illegals are usually heavily armed (with fully automatic weapons). If you've been following the thread, you would have noticed the rape/murders in Ciduad Juarez are evidently at over 300 and include Americans in addition to Mexicans instead of the 75 Mexican women reported in the AP propanganda screed. There is no connection of any kind with the so-called "vigilante" or "militia" groups. The merging of two separate stories was a blantant attempt on the part of the obviously leftist reporter and editor at AP to imply that the "vigilantes" are somehow involved in the Ciduad Juarez crimes.

[FITZ]

Who has ever even heard of "Ciudad Juarez", much less give a tinker's hammer what it's reputation is.

I've heard of it, I used to go over there. Not long ago it was a decent enough little border town (rowdy by US standards) but crime in Mexico has exploded in the last 20 years and even people from Juarez don't like to go there anymore. I was there about a year ago and saw zero Americans and only one group of Canadians and that was in the tourist area. Their crime is scaring people off in a big way.