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Couple of new good threads on the Minutemen building the fence!

THE MINUTEMEN WANT A FENCE
Neal Nuze ^ | 4/21/06 | Neal Boortz

Posted on 04/21/2006 8:27:36 AM EDT by NotchJohnson

The immigration "debate" continues....and with every passing day, the American people get more and more fed up with the invasion of illegal aliens from Mexico. One proposal being kicked around is to build the equivalent of The Great Wall of Mexico. That's right...a huge wall stretching some 1,951 miles...from San Diego to Brownsville. That should just about do it. Make it a double-fence. Let really hungry dogs patrol the space between. It's an invasion ... it needs to be stopped.

At any rate, the desire for some sort of border wall is falling on deaf ears in Washington. It's not politically correct.....people think it's mean. But building a wall to prevent an invasion is natural right of any citizen or government. Mexicans are talking about the "reconquista." That's the dream of many Mexicans to retake the American Southwest ... as their own. If you aren't sufficiently agitated by this invasion, perhaps you would like to log on to http://www.aztlan.net. There you will find a story about a University of New Mexico Chicano Studies professor who is predicting a new, sovereign Hispanic nation in the Southwest. He calls it the "Republica del Norte" That would translate into the Republic of the North. This professor in an American university says that this is inevitable. Do you like the sound of that?

Anyway, enter the Minutemen. This is the group of citizen militia that have been patrolling the border with Mexico on their own time. They're tired of the endless stampede from Mexico. So now they've issued an ultimatum to President Bush. Build a fence or we'll do it for you.

In fact, it may happen. Already, landowners along the border are stepping forward to donate the land to put up the wall and contractors have stepped forward to donate equipment to build it. This could work...and maybe we can finally put a lid on illegal immigration.

Maybe

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1618819/posts

Minutemen to Bush: Build Fence or We Will
Associated Press ^ | ARTHUR H. ROTSTEIN

Posted on 04/20/2006 9:12:54 AM EDT by 300magnum

TUCSON, Ariz. - Minuteman border watch leader Chris Simcox has a message for President Bush: Build new security fencing along the border with Mexico or private citizens will.

Simcox said Wednesday that he's sending an ultimatum to the president, through the media, of course — "You can't get through to the president any other way" — to deploy military reserves and the National Guard to the Arizona border by May 25.

Or, Simcox said, by the Memorial Day weekend Minuteman Civil Defense Corps volunteers and supporters will break ground to start erecting fencing privately.

"We have had landowners approach," Simcox said in an interview. "We've been working on this idea for a while. We're going to show the federal government how easy it is to build these security fences, how inexpensively they can be built when built by private people and free enterprise."

Simcox said a half-dozen landowners along the Arizona-Mexico border have said they will allow fencing to be placed on their borderlands, and others in California, Texas and New Mexico have agreed to do so as well.

"Certainly, as with everything else, we're only able to cover a small portion of the border," Simcox said. "The state and federal government have bought up most of the land around the border. I suspect that's why we'll never get control of the border."

But he said the plan is to put up secure fencing that truly will be an effective deterrent, and to show how easily it can be accomplished.

Simcox gave this description of the envisioned barrier-and-fencing complex:

Start with a 6-foot deep trench so a vehicle can't crash through; behind it, roll of concertina (coiled, razor-edged barbed wire), in front of a 15-foot high heavy-gauge steel mesh fence angled outward at the top.

Behind the fence will be a 60- to 70-foot wide unpaved but graded dirt road, along with inexpensive, mounted video cameras that can be monitored from home computers. On the other side of the road will be a second, 15-foot fence, with more concertina wire on its outside.

"It's a very simple, effective design based on feedback we've had from Border Patrol and the military," Simcox said. "It's a fence that can be built on the cheap, effective and secure."

Simcox said supporters will try to build the fencing with volunteer labor. Surveyors and contractors have offered to help with the design and survey work, he said, and some have said they will provide heavy equipment.

Simcox said those involved in the planning hope to keep costs to between $125 and $150 a foot.

Access to land literally on the border is an issue because so much is state-leased trust property or federally owned, he said.

"You may have to deal with a situation where private property owners erect their own fences and may be faced with the president sending the National Guard to prevent them from protecting their private property," Simcox said.

He said the Minuteman plan is "to keep turning up the heat" until President Bush has to respond somehow.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1618219/posts

Good article linked by MamaDearest on the Threat Matrix page. Note that the OTM's are still being released on their own recognizance.......totally insane!

Posted on Fri, Apr. 21, 2006

Scope of job can overwhelm Border Patrol By JAY ROOT

STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER

HIDALGO — We got a sense of the enormous task facing the U.S. Border Patrol as we watched agents play cat and mouse with the immigrant smugglers in and around this Texas border town.

The agency’s Rio Grande sector, without counting an extensive coastal jurisdiction that stretches from the mouth of the Rio Grande to Corpus Christi, covers everything from Boca Chica at the Gulf of Mexico to Falcon Lake. Look at the map — it’s a long way.

The sector has 1,400 agents, but that’s an awful lot of ground to cover — 320 river miles, in fact, according to sector spokesman Roy Cervantes. We were told it was a very slow day, but at least 12 people were caught trying to cross a three-mile stretch of river during our four-hour ride-along with several agents. There’s no telling how many immigrants might have slipped past us. Sometimes electronic sensors went off or calls from citizens were reported over the radio, without a subsequent catch. Who knows what or who triggered them.

Among those arrested late Thursday were three unidentified Hondurans — a “family unit,” as authorities call them — a 24-year-old woman, her 17-year-old brother and her 1-year-old daughter. They hadn’t eaten in three days and had been reduced to drinking water from the polluted Rio Grande.

I can’t imagine the desperation that would lead a young mother to put her baby on an inner tube and cross that swift and foul river, not to mention the awful trek north from Central America. She said “terrible things” happened on the journey, which began March 5 and ended in Hidalgo on Thursday.

The agents’ work is hot and sweaty, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much dust in all my life. I’ve got the grit in my socks and shoes to prove it. All up and down the river there are hot spots like this, but the Rio Grande sector offers an exotic twist.

It is a major crossing point for OTMs, or “Other Than Mexicans.” On the trash-strewn riverbank “landings” where immigrants cross, we found ample evidence of it. In one spot, we gathered torn letters, receipts, photos, ID cards and other items from Brazil and Honduras.

The numbers speak for themselves: In fiscal 2005, 60 percent of the 134,174 apprehensions in this sector were from countries other than Mexico — 72 nations in all. In the current fiscal year, 51 percent have been OTMs in the Rio Grande sector — a reduction that officials attribute to the “expedited removal” process that helps streamline deportation in many cases.

When jail space is available — often it is not — many of these immigrants are taken to the Port Isabel detention center maintained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The agency did not give the Star-Telegram permission to tour the facility, but we’ll keep trying for access farther up the border.

“It’s impressive to see how many people from different nations are apprehended here. It’s almost like a mini-United Nations at the detention facility,” said one U.S. government official, who did not have approval to speak on the record. “Everyone thinks Mexico or El Salvador or Guatemala, but when you see how many people from Asia, South America or even the Middle East are apprehended on the southern border, it makes you think about it.”

If detention space is not available, the immigrants are released on their own recognizance — a process many refer to as “catch and release.” They’re supposed to show up for a court hearing, but many slip away, never to be seen again.

We have no way of knowing whether the Hondurans we saw will show up for their hearing, but Cervantes said they would be released on their own recognizance a few hours after the agents apprehended them. There is simply nowhere to house immigrants with families, he said.

“There is no detention space for family units, especially for mothers with young children,” he said.

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/state/14400858.htm