protest

Border Invasion: Stemming the Illegal Alien Flood

By Paul Strand
Washington Sr. Correspondent

CBN.com – ARIZONA-MEXICAN BORDER - One liberal newspaper calls them "hunters of hate." Others say that they are patriots doing a service to their country. They are the hundreds of citizens patrolling a swath of the Arizona/Mexico border as part of the controversial Minuteman Project.

The Minuteman Project is a month-long combination of border watch and border protest that is meant to highlight two things: the government is not doing enough to patrol the border, and if enough people do patrol it, illegal immigration will slow way down.

One Minutewoman said, "We're tired of having our borders invaded. And that's exactly ... this is an invasion that's happening."

CBN News visited the 23-mile section of the border that the Minuteman Project is patrolling. One of our tour guides, American Border Patrol member Mark Knaeble, showed us the border area. He remarked sarcastically, "You can see how hard it is to walk back and forth into Mexico."

And this ease with which illegals can sneak in, has led to a booming crime wave that has terrorized local citizens along this stretch of border.

Border resident Larry Vance said, "We've been robbed, our dogs have been poisoned, our house broken into."

American Border Patrol founder Glenn Spencer added, "We've had murders, mayhem."

Some Americans, like ex-Californian and Minuteman co-founder Chris Simcox, moved to Arizona just to bring attention to the crises of a border they consider way too open. Simcox said he has seen property damage, cut fences, homes being shot up.

He uses the bully pulpit provided him by being editor and publisher of the Tombstone Tumbleweed.

Simcox said, "Everyone along the border has been screaming, begging, pleading with the federal government to do something about this."

And now, by helping to head up the Minuteman Project, Simcox is prodding the government even further. Last month, President Bush gave the Minutemen some advance notoriety, labeling them "vigilantes."

Other opponents labeled them racists.

One protester remarked, "I do believe Minutemen are racists. They're coming into Arizona. They're not from Arizona. They're coming into Arizona with guns, and they're threatening violence and harming people."

Another protester said, "They have a lynch mob mentality, especially when it comes to dealing with illegals."

One Minuteman even commented, "Well, I was really disturbed that we were called vigilantes by our President."

Simcox said, "A vigilante is a person who is the judge, jury, and executioner. We're nothing more than a neighborhood watch group and an assist team working within the law, and have never taken the law into our own hands and have no intention of doing that."

Simcox insists the Minutemen are not looking for fights or confrontations with illegals; they just report to the Border Patrol when they spot illegals. And Simcox says the Minuteman Project is working; the flood of illegals through this area is down to just a trickle since the Minutemen showed up.

But opponents say the Minutemen, many of them armed, are trouble waiting to happen, and the Border Patrol wants them gone.

Simcox remarked, "The official ‘supervisory’ line is that 'we appreciate your angst. We understand it, but we encourage you to leave the job to us.' But field agents appreciate our help a lot, especially the ones whose lives we've saved."

CBN News stood on the Mexican side of the Mexican-Arizona border and noted about 38 people probably getting ready to come across under the cover of darkness, in just a couple of hours. And literally all there is between them and America is knocking out one strand of barbed wire and crawling through a fence. All they risk is maybe ripping their pants.

Simcox noted, "You've seen the line. It's nothing but a seven-strand barbed-wire fence that takes about one minute to cut. And it does nothing to impede the flow of people."

Larry Vance lives within eyeshot of the border, and sometimes videotapes the illegals pouring in. He said, "Rape, robbery, beatings … it's a common occurrence right here."

They frequently target a little old lady living near Vance. "She's been robbed, the last I heard, 57 times," lamented Vance.

Spencer, another ex-Californian like Simcox, started the American Border Patrol to highlight the many dangers of a too-open border. One of the biggest: how easy it would be for terrorists to sneak across here with deadly weapons of mass destruction.

Spencer stated, "They can come across there anytime and right into a shopping center near you."

Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl said, "And they can also bring contraband. They can bring weapons. They could bring some kind of weapon of mass destruction."

Spencer said, "There is nothing to stop them from taking an explosive device right across that border, right up to that highway and right into your hometown -- nothing!"

Meanwhile, border residents like Vance will keep showing news media what it is like along the border, hoping to shame a government they think cares too little about what is happening here.

Vance remarked, "It's an ugly situation that's going to get a whole lot uglier, unless the American government does something about this."

Simcox said, "How can we be fighting terrorism and, as President Bush says, keeping Americans safe by fighting thousands of miles away, when Americans day-in and day-out fall victim to the criminals who come across this border?"

Some think Mexican government officials are actually promoting this flood of foreigners. Illegals have been caught recently carrying a comic book published by the Mexican government that advises them on how best to sneak across the border.

Why would officials encourage this illegal flow into the Southwest?

Spencer said, "They call this Aztlan, the part that Mexico lost as a result of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo. They want it back. That's what they're doing!"

Vance commented, "They simply flood us with people the same way the United States did this territory, back in the 1800s."

Mexican-American activist Alfredo Gutierrez thinks this is nonsense, and says this Latino takeover was just a dream of some college-age Hispanic radicals back in the 1960s. He states that few Mexican-Americans would stand for a takeover by Mexico.

Gutierrez stated, "We're here because we left Mexico, and we left Mexico because there was no democracy, there was immense corruption, and there was no future."

President Bush is looking for a solution to the illegal immigration crisis. He is proposing a guest worker program that would legalize millions of the illegals coming to work in America. But critics worry.

Spencer remarked, "It'll become an amnesty. You won't be able to control it. And it will cover, eventually, half of Mexico, 45 million, people eventually could become legalized. And you have just lost the sovereignty of the United States. That's what's at stake here."

Vance said, "These people will cry about the rights of the illegal aliens, but say absolutely nothing about the rights of the American citizens who are being run over by this situation."

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