DFU SONG: Borderline (the Minutemen will shut down the borderline.....stuff it, Vicente)

Minutemen step up, they sound the alarm
They will do what must be done and so many of them have been armed
Our hospitals are closing...Congress has been dozing...this invasion must be stopped
George Bush will not step on toes...while the problem grows...and so this ball has been dropped

Some know what they must do...they'll fight for me and you
And not stop until they're through

Borderline...that's where they're heading for their big fight
They will show Vicente they will shut down the borderline
Borderline...'cause his invasion has got to stop
They will show Vicente they will shut down the borderline

We have had enough of millions here from below
All our benefits they take, then money goes to Mexico
Our hospitals are closing...Congress has been dozing...this invasion must be stopped
Bush will not step on toes...while the problem grows...and so this ball has been dropped

Some know what they must do...they'll fight for me and you
And not stop until they're through

Taxpayers have...been really screwed...we'll take it no more
Modern Minutemen...they will shut down the borderline
We've had enough...we'll take no more...not anymore
Modern Minutemen will go and shut down the borderline

(from MEXICO edition of THE HERALD) Residents brace as Minutemen deploy

The vigilante group will start reporting the movements of undocumented migrants to the U.S. Border Patrol.

April 01, 2005

As the U.S. and Mexican governments continued their condemnation of the Minuteman Project that will begin operating on the Arizona-Sonora border today, concerns over possible violence are growing among the area's residents.

The U.S. Embassy in Mexico issued a statement Thursday saying the U.S. government "does not back" the vigilante group and that the only group responsible for watching the border is the Border Patrol.

However, the statement continued, the United States could not prohibit the Minuteman volunteers from organizing on the border, and the U.S. Border Patrol "appreciates efforts by local residents to report suspicious activities."

Also on Friday, Miguel Escobar Valdez, Mexican Consul in Douglas, Arizona, said the Mexican military was bracing for possible violence on the border.

"The Mexican army is on alert," Escobar said. "Also, law enforcement will be vigilant because the situation is very volatile. This is because, I have to say it, there are violent and radical elements on both sides of the border."

The Minuteman Project is made up of a group of U.S. volunteers angry over the continued entry of undocumented migrants into the United States. They have announced they will watch hightraffic migration areas in the Sonoran desert starting in April, when many migrants try to cross due to the comparably mild weather. The group says it will simply report the movements of migrants to the border patrol, but some fear they will try to illegally detain them and that violence could result.

"These ranchers' campaign has only brought us ruin," said Cristina Loreto, owner of a small restaurant in Agua Prieto, Sonora. "Fear has driven away many people from this area because they are afraid of the racists. I am a witness to how these poor immigrants have suffered."

However, members of the Minuteman Project say they aren't racist, but simply want to enforce U.S. law.

"I have the right to defend the security of my family and my people and if people attack me and call me racist because of this, then they don't understand what is going on here on the border," said Henry Esparza, himself the grandson of Mexican immigrants from Chihuahua and a Minuteman volunteer.

"I have never shot anyone and would never shoot one of my people," Esparza said. "I am the grandson of Chihuahuan immigrants and I consider myself Mexican. But I cannot accept that criminals and terrorists are coming into my country. I think that Al Qaeda could take advantage of the border to infiltrate the country."

While there have been reports of Islamic terrorists using the U.S.-Mexico border to enter the United States, none have been confirmed.

(from nationalledger.com) March 31, 2005
Minuteman Project Sparks Mexican Military Action, Threats of Lawsuits

A group of volunteers that call themselves the Minuteman Project is set to begin patrolling the US side of the American/Mexican border on April 1 in Arizona. That has brought near panic from the Mexican government. KVOA TV-4 in Tucson has been reporting on the project extensively.

In one report the TV station's Web site notes that "The Mexican military is on stand-by. One unit has about a thousand soldiers. They're located just across the border. They're saying they're hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst."

In another report Mexico is threatening legal action against the American citizens that are volunteering to monitor the border:

Mexico's Foreign Relations Department said Tuesday that Mexican consulates in Arizona will file criminal complaints against any illegal detentions of its citizens by volunteers of the so-called Minuteman Project.

In a press statement, the department said it would also weigh further steps _ apparently civil lawsuits _ against people involved in what it described as "vigilanteism" against undocumented Mexican migrants. [Read Illegal Aliens]

The Minuteman Project has been criticized from every edge of the American political spectrum. They have been called racists, bigots, allegedly threatened by criminal gangs from Mexico and Latin America and are now being harassed by the Mexican government with threats of legal action and a military presence.

It sounds like they must be doing something right.

Viewpoints

Minuteman Project
by Kenny Graves

March 31, 2005
Thursday

Why am I not surprised that someone named Melendez would come out with an article such as the one I just read from 3/24/05. You are spot on that there will be protests from some of America's finest institutions, ie: the ACLU. Why don't you shove most of the blame on the Mexican government, or lack thereof, for not taking care of its citizens. Mexico admits to its plan to repopulate the southwestern US, they are brazen about it and why not since illegal immigration nets Mexico big bucks, second only to its oil production.

In a recent survey, (not that you would be interested in any facts), California reported illegal immigrant families absorbed on average, $7,000 more than they paid in in taxes. As a citizen of the US I respect LEGAL immigration as it has been implemented here for decades, but I don't believe the taxpayers of this country are obligated to subsidize Mexico's problems.

More Americans should be made aware that many in this country are out to sell us down the river. There are just as many of us who are frustrated with our Government (the Schiavo case is the perfect example) and their unwillingness to reign in the Judicial system which is destroying our rights as a free people each and every day.

Please don't misunderstand me, I am all for LEGAL immigration and will stand up for anyone's rights as long as they don't trample on what our founding fathers set forth in our Declaration of Independence and US Constitution. If our government were doing its job to protect the citizens there would be no need for THE MINUTEMAN PROJECT. Our borders must be controlled and those breaking the law should be dealt with accordingly. Thanks for your time.

Kenny Graves
Needville, TX - USA

Volunteers head for the border

Controversial 'Minutemen' want to stem flow of illegal immigrants.

By Sara A. Carter
Staff writer

Where the Sonoran desert rolls into the Arizona line, thousands of "Minuteman' volunteers will wage a political battle to stop illegal immigrants from crossing the border.
Unlike their historical counterparts of 1775, who pre-empted a surprise attack by British soldiers, the Minutemen of 2005 are hoping to detour undocumented persons from crossing onto American soil.

The showdown begins Friday in Tombstone, Ariz.

More than 1, 000 volunteers are expected to station themselves along 23 miles of U.S. border during a monthlong vigil. They plan to patrol the area known as the Tucson Sector in an attempt to discourage crossers and would-be terrorists from entering the United States. Robin Hvidston of Upland, who will patrol during the first 10 days of the project, said her motives for joining the group are purely security, not racism. "This is a message to the administration that the American people overwhelmingly want our borders secure," Hvidston said.

Beyond 24-hour foot patrols, 30 pilots have signed up for air patrol. Six airplanes have been donated but only two planes will be allowed to patrol at any one time, Minuteman organizers said.

The organization was founded by Marine Corps Vietnam War veteran Jim Gilchrist of Orange County, who said volunteers will be prohibited from bringing long-range weapons or rifles. But law-enforcement volunteers and those appropriately licensed under Arizona law can carry concealed weapons.

Mainly, the volunteers will be armed with radios to contact Border Patrol agents when migrants are spotted. The National Alliance for Human Rights, which calls itself both a Mexicano and a Latino organization, will station protesters on both sides of the border, said Armando Navarro, group coordinator and UC Riverside professor.

On Tuesday, just three days before volunteers were expected to start patrolling the border, federal officials said an additional 500 Border Patrol agents will be sent to the Tucson Sector by Sept. 30.

Last week, Bush said guarding the borders should be left to border agents and not to "vigilante' groups. Mexico's President Vincente Fox is demanding that the United States keep a watchful eye on the "extremists."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

ACLU ambuscade

By Michelle Malkin

Today, April Fools' Day, the American Civil Liberties Union will show us what a joke its commitment to American civil liberties really is.
Today, if you haven't heard, is the launch date of the Minuteman Project, an all-volunteer effort by law-abiding American citizens to call attention to the nation's wide-open southern border. Hundreds of Americans from New York to Michigan to California will travel to the U.S.-Mexico border for a month to monitor illegal aliens and alert immigration enforcement officials if they witness lawbreaking. Call it the mother of all neighborhood watch programs.

In doing so, the Minutemen will exercise their constitutionally protected freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Those would be fundamental civil liberties found in something called the, uh, First Amendment, of which the ACLU is supposed to be the foremost expert and champion. Or so the group and its celebrity supporters say.
In sanctimonious new fund-raising ad campaigns, the organization features the likes of liberal actress Holly Hunter, who asks: "Do you want to be heard without fear? I am not an American who believes that questioning or criticizing my government is unpatriotic."
Uh-huh. "Dissent is patriotic," the left likes to preach. Except, apparently, if the questioning and criticizing deals with the government's abject failure to enforce immigration laws.
Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist has been harassed by open-borders activists at his home. The Minuteman group is reportedly targeted by savage illegal alien gangsters from Mara Salvatrucha (a k a MS-13). Mexican officials lobby U.S. law officials to suppress Minutemen rights to speak and assemble.
But instead of coming to the defense of the Minutemen who challenge our government, the ACLU has warned the 1,000 volunteers it will send monitors to document their activities. Moreover, the ACLU has already threatened lawsuits against the American dissenters for exercising their rights.
Bullying of pro-immigration enforcement activists is no surprise to those who follow the ACLU's aggressive open-borders agenda -- from its support for driver's licenses for illegal aliens, to its opposing detention of illegal alien terror suspects after September 11, 2001, and profiling foreign visitors from terror-friendly countries, to trying to prevent local and state law officers from helping federal homeland security efforts.
Arizona ACLU spokesman Ray Ybarra argues the mere presence of the Minutemen at the border constitutes "unlawful imprisonment" of illegal (excuse me, "undocumented") aliens (excuse me, "migrants"). Mr. Ybarra told The Washington Times that the ACLU will have lawyers standing by to file civil cases against the volunteers. He warned the Minutemen could "come to our state as 'vigilantes' and end up leaving as 'defendants.' "
The Minutemen have made it clear on their Web site and in repeated statements they "will not violate anyone's civil rights, and will not abuse anyone from any country. ... We will alert border patrol to the location of illegals, and wait for [the Border Patrol] to come and pick them up. We will follow illegal aliens from a distance and continue spotting them until authorities answer our cell phone and/or back-pack radio calls. All spotting, calls for assistance, and the response from the appropriate authorities will be chronicled and provided to any media representative."
Contrary to the ACLU and mainstream media representations of the group as racists and immigrant-bashers, the Minutemen are a diverse volunteer group including Americans of Mexican, Armenian, Russian, Lebanese, Indian and Cuban descent; and black and Native American minorities. Also among the volunteers are 19 legal immigrants from Mexico, Peru, Russia, New Zealand, England, Australia and the Philippines.
By recklessly linking the Minutemen to white separatists and casting them as outlaws, the civil liberties crowd engages in the very guilt-by-association smear tactics it so loudly condemns. And in putting the protection of illegal aliens' rights over law-abiding Americans' civil liberties, the ACLU shows on which side of the border its true allegiances lie.

Michelle Malkin, a nationally syndicated columnist, is author of "Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores" (Regnery).

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