Posted on 10/03/2005 4:16:37 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
FALFURRIAS — The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps say they will continue watching borders in 12 states even if the people they help catch are just let back onto the streets.
The number of undocumented immigrants the group catches is irrelevant, as is the fact that there are not enough detention beds to put them all in, said Rich Pierce, executive vice president of the U.S. Border Patrol Council, a labor union that represents about 60 percent of the agency. What is important is the volunteers are braving the heat and risking their lives to raise an issue with voters and lawmakers, he said.
Undocumented immigrants who come from Mexico are often deported, but those from other countries without criminal histories are usually released with a notice to appear in an immigration court.
According to the Executive Office for Immigration Review, a division of the Department of Justice, which oversees the nation’s immigration courts, 88 percent of the 10,401 people scheduled to appear before the Harlingen branch of U.S. Immigration Court in 2004 failed to do so.
The situation is no different in Falfurrias, where the Minutemen are staging their protests of, as founder and president Chris Simcox says, "the government’s unwillingness to do its job."
At the bus station on Business 281, across from H.E.B. grocery store, Honduran Milton Danery Amador-Molina sat on a bench. He said he was legal until he got to Mexico. Then a smuggler known as a coyote gave him a ride to America on a boat. He beached in Brownsville, walked through the brush for 14 hours, and then the Border Patrol caught him.
He was with 19 other people he met along the way. Seventeen of them were deported, Molina said. The rest of them came to the Falfurrias bus stop carrying notices to appear in court. He plans on traveling for days to get to South Carolina.
Amador is an example of what Simcox called a frustrating policy.
He realizes the limitations of what Minuteman patrollers can do, Simcox said.
They cannot spot every undocumented immigrant, the Border Patrol cannot apprehend every undocumented immigrant, and the system cannot possibly detain the small fraction of undocumented immigrants who are caught.
But the "catch and release" policy is frustrating, he said, and "it absolutely renders your citizenship worthless" and it is "offensive and disappointing to the immigrants who came here the right way."
But, "you don’t need detention beds if you secure the borders," Simcox said.
The cost of incarceration should be applied to the cost of securing the border.
"You secure the border and stop them coming in the first place. It’s such a no-brainer," he said.
Border Patrol agents, too, have expressed frustration with their jobs because of the lack of facilities.
But, agents are pleased that the Minutemen have stepped up to the plate to advocate for them, Pierce said.
"We think that what they are doing is very patriotic," Pierce said. He said the union worries about injuries and personal safety, but "other than that, we thank them."
Pierce’s message is much different than what’s been coming out of Washington. Mario Villarreal, a spokesman for the Border Patrol, has said that citizens should not take law enforcement matters into their own hands.
"This type of activity should be left to the professionals, and that is the Border Patrol," Villarreal said.
Pierce doesn’t feel Simcox’s idea for a line of National Guardsmen and military at the border will deter illegal immigration — "you need interior enforcement," he said — but it’s "marvelous" that the Minutemen have brought the issue of illegal immigration to the forefront of the some people’s minds.
When asked if Minutemen get in the way of Border Patrol agents doing their jobs, Pierce replied, "They didn’t get in the way in Arizona. Tucson headquarters claimed they were setting off sensors. That’s propaganda coming out of Tucson."
The Minutemen are not stopping illegal immigration. The border crossers are just crossing someplace else, but "it’s not so much what they getting done as much as what they symbolize."
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Cari Hammerstrom covers law enforcement and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach her at (956) 683-4424.
Mike Roy
Minutemen watching for undocumented immigrants continue patrols despite what they say is evidence the government is not doing its job. Minuteman Civil Defense Corps volunteer Ann Andrews of Frisco uses binoculars Sunday to search for movement and activity of undocumented immigrants on a private ranch north of the U.S. 281 Border Patrol checkpoint near Falfurrias.
Yup, there's that ol' fat retired red-necked supply sergeant, fer sure...
She's just doing the interdiction work that the Feds can't do...
(Yeah, I'm trying to be nice...)
Minutewoman Ping!
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off this South Texas/Mexico ping list.
Hey, don't be dissing supply!
Why is it always people with Latino-sounding names objecting to the laws being enforced? This is an insult to all the Latino-descended citizens who came here under the laws and valued American citenship enough to learn about our history to pass the required tests. Some Democrat politicians have been so bold as to lobby that these requirements be abolished. They, of course, are the same people who want all differences between illegal aliens and legal citizens abolished - driver's licences, mortgages, the right to vote...nothing Republican, let alone American, would come from a poor population steeped in socialism, dependence and inadequate education.
The Minutemen are not vigilantes - they are making a statement by observing and reporting incursions in the spirit of non-violent confrontation. They (who choose to be) are armed for the sole purpose of self-defense and have a Constitutional Amendment backing that up. So far there has been no abuses of aliens by the Minutemen other than one instance of photographing by a politician who was immediately kicked out. Vigilantes, by definition, operate above the law. Thus far the Minuteman Project has served the law.
Shut them all down. I want no underage children shipped here as sex slaves, nor want our system of law further corrupted by money gained from such operations. It's far past time to build the wall.
Not me! Heaven forbid, ya' gotta keep your supply sergeant happy if you want beans and bullets up front, right?
That was an oblique reference to a back-handed comment from April...from a poster who's no longer with us.
I do think that the billions of dollars that we are FORCED to cough up for illegal immigration should be paid by the invading countries (Mexico is first on the list), and if they don't pay, the amount should be deducted from the "foreign aid" we send which probably goes into the bank accounts of the corrupt leaders there anyway, probably never reaching the intended recipients.
We have to pay our own bills (in addition to paying for illegals). Why do the invading countries get off the hook so easily?
Protect our borders and coastlines from all foreign invaders!
Support our Minutemen Patriots!
Be Ever Vigilant ~ Bump!
"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,
1. The act of invading; the act of encroaching upon the rights or possessions of another; encroachment; trespass.
LOL, devolve, your barb wire went through an evolution from chads back to barb wire!! The 'hanging chad' fence?
aarrgghh...that hokey music!!! Don't make me come over there and hurt you, devolve....
lol
Ping!
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