Posted on 11/26/2002 9:10:36 PM PST by John "from Minnesota"
Jeffry Scott /Staff Glenn Spencer, head of the American Border Patrol organization, aligns his latest surveillance equipment, which includes a satellite video uplink. Spencer says he is counseling Tombstone publisher Chris Simcox and his followers to obey the law.
AP file photo Border concerns are not limited to Arizona. The Border Patrol stays busy along the entire frontier with Mexico watching for illegal activity, as patrol supervisor Dan Garibay did in 2001 in Laredo, Texas.
By Ignacio Ibarra ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Arizona leaders at the state and federal level are calling for investigations into armed civilian patrols along the state's border with Mexico.
At issue is the safety of people along the border and the legality of the so-called militia groups, formed out of frustration at the inability of U.S. border agents to slow illegal immigration from Mexico.
U.S. Rep.-elect Raúl Grijalva, a Tucson Democrat who takes office in January, said he will push for federal hearings into the activities of the civilian patrols. Grijalva's pledge echoes proposals this weekend during border forums in Mexico, made by leaders including Gov.-elect Janet Napolitano, Gov. Jane Hull and Sonora Gov. Armando Lopez Nogales.
Attending a border forum Saturday in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, state Rep. Robert Cannell, a Yuma Democrat, said the Arizona Legislature is likely to take up the issue when it meets in January.
"I think this rhetoric you're hearing from some of the leaders of these groups is very dangerous to the overall security of the region," Grijalva said. "The potential for violence is escalating and I think the whole situation has to be investigated."
Chris Simcox, publisher of a weekly newspaper in Tombstone, who used his pages this month to call for creation of a Tombstone militia, said citizen action is necessary - and legal, judging by several months of research he conducted into the constitutions of the United States and the state of Arizona.
Still, to avoid legal problems, his group will limit its work - confronting, detaining and delivering trespassers to authorities - to private property and by invitation only.
Simcox said that personally, he wouldn't hesitate to extend patrols onto public lands.
"I am not afraid to carry this on to state lands that belong to every citizen of the state they reside in. It's our land," he said. "I'm not afraid to step on that land and do the same thing, and I challenge my government to come and arrest me. We are not crazies, we're concerned citizens. . . . We are responsible people."
He said his office has received more than 1,000 e-mails of support since he issued the call to arms, many from current and former members of law enforcement and the military.
"I'm taking them seriously because they leave phone numbers and e-mails and addresses. I've got people giving money now," Simcox said. "I'm recruiting America."
The Second Amendment right of the citizenry to bear arms is generally accepted, said University of Arizona law Professor Roy Spece, but no respectable authority on the Constitution "accepts the proposition that you also have a right to form a vigilante group . . . and nobody has contended there is a right to have your own militia."
Vigilante activity interferes with the legitimate enforcement of the law, he said.
"I think it just makes their job harder . . . and I think it exacerbates the tensions."
At the Cato Institute, where gun rights are among the bulwarks of a think tank with a Libertarian philosophy, the notion that the Constitution allows private citizens to raise a militia is dismissed as "utterly fanciful nonsense."
"I don't know where this right is supposed to come from that they can take the law into their own hands . . . certainly not the Constitution," said Robert A. Levy, senior fellow for constitutional law with the Washington, D.C., institute.
Even the right to self-defense is not provided for in the Constitution, Levy said, but in the common and statutory law of individual states.
These laws make it clear that people have a right to defend themselves, he said, but that right goes only so far.
"They can't affirmatively take it upon themselves and go out proactively become a law enforcement officer," Levy said. "I can't imagine what kind of society that would lead to. . . . This is not the Wild West."
Napolitano, who moves from attorney general to governor in January, opposes the newest militia effort, said Kris Mayes, her spokeswoman.
"She thinks it needs to stop, and cooler heads need to prevail. She believes it is a dangerous situation, and that there isn't any place in Arizona for vigilantism," Mayes said.
Glenn Spencer, whose American Border Patrol organization set up headquarters southeast of Sierra Vista in August, said he's urging Simcox and his militia to "obey the law."
Spencer said his organization could have taken a more aggressive approach, like the one demonstrated by the Texas-based Ranch Rescue group, which last month intercepted two marijuana loads while patrolling on a privately owned ranch in Santa Cruz County.
But American Border Patrol chose a different focus.
The group's volunteers are encouraged to observe, document and report illegal border activity for posting on his Internet site - not for interception, he said.
"We believe in the rule of law. It's what holds civilization together. Taking the law into your own hands is clearly not adhering to the law," Spencer said. "It's tempting to go down that road, but I'm not going to do it. . . . I don't think I'd be happy with the kind of people that would show up."
The new call to arms on the border follows a long history of vigilantism there, said Doris Meissner, the former Immigration and Naturalization Service commissioner who led the Border Patrol through much of the last decade and now serves as a senior fellow with the Migration Policy Institute in Washington.
Those advocating such activity say it is justified because of government failures, Meissner said.
"There have been calls like this before. . . . It is vigilantism, and there is no place for vigilantism," she said. "It hinders operations."
But there is no justification in the law for stifling the rhetoric, she added. The First Amendment protects such political speech.
"What is really going on here is political, and during my experience as commissioner, we treated it as exactly that - a political statement," Meissner said.
"This group is tapping into a deeply embedded fear and generally a lack of knowledge of what's going on at the border. That makes it even more important to make sure there is a clear understanding of why this kind of citizen action is misplaced in law."
* The Associated Press contributed to this report. * Contact reporter Ignacio Ibarra at (520) 432-2766 or at nacho1@mindspring.com.
All content copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 AzStarNet , Arizona Daily Star and its wire services and suppliers and may not be republished without permission. All rights reserved. Any copying, redistribution, or retransmission of any of the contents of this service without the expressed written consent of Arizona Daily Star or AzStarNet is prohibited.
A LOT of Republican women voted for El Napo.
Sheriff Joe needs to put his own mug on that "Most Wanted" list after his own endorsement of El Napo.
Where he's no longer wanted or welcome is in the Republican Party!!!
Read ...they are interfering with the plan to elimate the border..
If you are referring to constitutional militias I agree if you are asserting that this group is a constitutional militia you have no idea what you are talking about. Here is a hint, the constitution does not allow for independently formed "militias".
I'm not a fan of these so-called militias. However, I must ask you where in the constitution you believe that it contains language that "does not allow for independently formed militias"? I can't seem to find it.
Couple that with the fact that there have been many independently formed militias throughout U.S. History - I know of some in Missouri and Illinois in the mid-1800's - and I have to think that you're wrong on this one.
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
OK. The Congress has the authority to organize, arm, discipline militias "employed in the service of the United States." And the Sates have the authority to appoint the office an train the militias "employed in the service of the United States." However, I don't see a prohibition on militias organized by a State, a County, or a Town or City. Nor do I see a prohibition on independent or private militias. All of these types of militias have existed in the past - State, County, Town, and independent militias.
Again, I'm not a fan of the militia-types. I'm not a member of a militia nor do I desire to be one. But I still think you're wrong.
That could possibly be true ... if the law were actually being enforced - but that's why these guys are out there in the first place - because it's not. Talk about Catch-22 logic.
I think you mean the Homeland Security Act.
Next in line is the demise of your Second Amendment Right to Bear Arms.
For all his flaws, Ashcroft is the first AG in recent memory to assert that the 2nd Amendment guarantees the right of individuals to bear arms - and gun control politics have been lethal to Democrats lately. I find your concern here not supported by recent events.
What better time to remove this "barrier" to public safety threat than during time of national emergency when the government is empowered with monumental authority to take extreme measure in the interest of protecting the citizens.
Guess what? The Homeland Security Act probably represents a net improvement in liberty and privacy, since it banned TIPS and a national id card.
That's actually a typical liberal response - if we fail to buy into their viewpoint, it must be that we're just dumb, uneducated morons, because their point of view can't possibly be wrong, even if the facts indicate otherwise.
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