Minuteman National Blog

When the Senate returns Monday from its two-week Easter vacation, Majority Leader Bill Frist says they will once again take up border security. Frist will set a new deadline of Memorial Day weekend.

Keep up the pressure, everyone! They''re feeling it big-time! Now is no time to let up. Let''s take it over the finish line: BORDER SECURITY FIRST AND ONLY! Prove to the American people that you CAN AND WILL secure the border, and once the border is secure we''ll talk about what to do with those millions already illegally here.

From today''s Washington Times:

Senate to persist on border plan
By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The Senate again will take up immigration-reform legislation in the coming weeks with an eye toward at least beefing up border security before the fall elections.

Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican, set a new deadline of Memorial Day to pass a comprehensive immigration bill, Senate Republican leadership aides said yesterday.

Before then, Mr. Frist and other Republicans want to approve immediate spending to improve border security. That money would pay for additional Border Patrol agents, unmanned surveillance vehicles and targeted fencing.

Mr. Frist previously set a deadline of two weeks ago for passing an immigration-reform bill, but it stalled under intense disagreement over several provisions in a Senate proposal that both sides initially hailed as a "breakthrough" compromise.

Conservatives said the bill granted amnesty to the millions of illegal aliens already in this country because it would provide most with a direct path to citizenship. Some said the federal government must rebuild its credibility by securing the border before addressing guest-worker provisions or any direct paths to citizenship for aliens who already have broken U.S. laws.

"The American people are very tolerant and forgiving. But I don''t think they will be forgiving if the Congress passes something to fool them again into thinking we''re actually serious about controlling our borders and illegal immigration," Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, said yesterday.

"There is a growing consensus that we must secure our borders, but the problem is that the ''compromise'' bill''s security provisions are only a promise at this point," he said. "No money has actually been committed to create the 10,000 or so new Border Patrol agents we need, to create the technology, the ground sensors, the unmanned aerial vehicles we need in order to create a virtual wall to protect our borders."

Union officials and other liberals opposed the legislation because they feared that the guest-worker program would flood the job market with cheap labor.

Senate Republicans accused Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and other Democratic leaders of essentially killing the legislation by refusing to allow widely supported amendments. One of those would have barred from U.S. citizenship any illegal alien who has been convicted of a felony or three misdemeanors, or refused a court order to leave the country.

~SNIP~

To read the entire article, click on the title link.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

MINUTEMEN TO CHALLENGE PRESIDENT BUSH AT APPEARANCE IN IRVINE, CA MONDAY

Secure the Borders Now, or American People Will

When: 7:30 a.m. Monday, April 24, 2006
Where: Hyatt Regency, 17900 Jamboree Rd. Irvine, CA

(Twin Peaks, CA) April 21, 2006 – During a presidential event at the Hyatt Regency in Irvine, California 7:30 a.m. Monday, April 24th, 2006 Tim Donnelly, state leader of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (“MCDC”), CA Chapter, will publicly challenge President Bush to fulfill his oath of office and immediately act to secure our borders, or the Minutemen will lead the sovereign American people to act in their own defense.

The MCDC announced yesterday that should the federal government fail to deploy National Guard and reservists to our southern border by May 25th to stop the flood of illegal aliens, halt the rampant criminality there and curtail the potential for terrorists to infiltrate this country via our porous, unsecured borders—then the Minutemen will be obliged to expand their “Border Watch and Report” mission.

The Minutemen will commence building border fencing on private land in Arizona on Memorial Day weekend, in the likely event the president persists in his refusal to protect this country from foreign invasion. Arizona ranchers and property owners along the frontier have already committed more than 70 miles of privately held border line to the project. Land owners in border states other than Arizona have contacted MCDC seeking to join the border fence project to protect their lands. More information on this project is available at www.MinutemanHQ.com

The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps currently has volunteer “watchers” deployed along America’s southern and northern borders for the entire month of April. The Minutemen have observed and reported record numbers of illegal border crossings, a surge fed by the irresponsible “open borders” rhetoric of President Bush and U.S. Senators, who are holding border security hostage to the passage of guest worker amnesty programs.

Donnelly and the CA Chapter of MCDC invite American citizens and legal immigrants to join them at the California border with Mexico, to help repair and extend the existing border fence that the federal government has failed to maintain. “Such neglect puts our nation at ever more severe risk of infiltration, invasion and terrorist attack” said Donnelly. “The American people will act if the U.S. government remains derelict in its duty.”

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The Minuteman HQ has gotten some of the footage from our Minutemen at the border up on the web for viewing. Watch with caution, especially the video of the rape tree and layup areas and MOST especially if you have high blood pressure.

If you are signed up for our email newsletter, these video links just went out, so there may be a big drain on the system right now--so if you can not get these to download quickly enough right now, give it awhile and try again! The links are now also available on the front page of the www.MinutemanHQ.com website!

Cocaine - Huge Lay Up Area
http://www.minutemanhq.com/%7Evideo/Cocaine_Huge_Layup_Site.wmv

Crossing Day and Night
http://minutemanhq.com/~video/mcdc_crossing.mpg

Rape Tree Monster Lay Up Area Trash
http://minutemanhq.com/~video/mcdc_rapetree_monster_layup_1.wmv

Environmental Destruction Monster Lay Up Area Trash
http://minutemanhq.com/~video/mcdc_environmental_destruction_monster_layup_2.wmv

The Center for Immigration Studies has released a new report on attrition (self-deportation) and cost effective strategies for addressing the millions of illegal aliens already in this country.

Attrition Through Enforcement
A Cost-Effective Strategy to Shrink the Illegal Population
Center for Immigration Studies
April 2006

Proponents of mass legalization of the illegal alien population, whether through amnesty or expanded guestworker programs, often justify this radical step by suggesting that the only alternative – a broad campaign to remove illegal aliens by force – is unworkable. One study put the cost of such a deportation strategy at $206 billion over the next five years. But mass forced removal is not the only alternative to mass legalization. This analysis shows that a strategy of attrition through enforcement, in combination with a stronger border security effort such as the administration’s Secure Border Initiative (SBI), will significantly reduce the size of the illegal alien population at a reasonable cost. Reducing the size of the illegal population in turn will reduce the fiscal and social burdens that illegal immigration imposes on communities. In contrast, a policy of mass legalization is likely to increase these costs and prompt more illegal immigration.

Studies of the size and growth of the illegal population show that a borders-oriented strategy like SBI, which aims to improve border security and focuses mainly on removing criminal aliens, will achieve only limited results. If supplemented by attrition through enforcement, which encourages voluntary compliance with immigration laws rather than relying on forced removal, the illegal population could be nearly halved in five years. According to the government’s own cost estimates, such a strategy requires an additional investment of less than $2 billion, or $400 million per year – an increase of less than 1 percent of the President’s 2007 budget request for the Department of Homeland Security ($42.7 billion).

Elements of the attrition through enforcement strategy include: mandatory workplace verification of immigration status; measures to curb misuse of Social Security and IRS identification numbers; partnerships with state and local law enforcement officials; expanded entry-exit recording under US-VISIT; increased non-criminal removals; and state and local laws to discourage illegal settlement.

The purpose of this analysis is to identify both the likely cost to the federal government and the expected effect in terms reducing the size of the illegal alien population, of re-orienting the nation’s immigration law enforcement strategy from one that relies primarily on border control and removing criminal aliens to one that also aims to increase the probability that illegal aliens will return home of their own accord. Among the findings:

A strategy of attrition through enforcement could reduce the illegal population by as many as 1.5 million illegal aliens each year. Currently, only about 183,000 illegal aliens per year depart without the intervention of immigration officials, according to DHS statistics.

Voluntary compliance works faster and is cheaper than a borders-only approach to immigration law enforcement. For example, under the controversial NSEERS program launched after 9/11, DHS removed roughly 1,500 illegally-resident Pakistanis; over the same time period, in response to the registration requirements, about 15,000 illegal Pakistani immigrants left the country on their own.

Requiring employers to verify the status of workers could deny jobs to about three million illegal workers in three years, affecting at least one-third of the illegal population. This measure is a central feature of H.R. 4437, the enforcement measure passed by the House of Representatives in December, and is estimated to cost just over $400 million over five years.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) knows the name, address, and place of employment of millions of illegal aliens, and issues hundreds of millions of dollars in tax refunds and tax credits to illegal aliens. Changing the laws to provide for information-sharing would help boost immigration law enforcement at minimal cost.

US-VISIT is a critical tool in curbing illegal immigration. Screening must be expanded to include Mexicans and Canadians, and DHS must move forward to deploy an exit-recording system. These steps should be a pre-requisite to adding or expanding any visa program.

Less than 10 percent of ICE investigative resources are devoted to fraud, workplace violations, and overstayers. DHS could double non-criminal removals at a cost of roughly $120 million per year, balancing a "broken windows" approach with its current triage approach to interior enforcement.

Laws enacted by the state governments of Florida and New York to prevent illegal immigrants from obtaining driver’s licenses have induced more illegal aliens to leave than have federal enforcement efforts against certain illegal populations in those states, and have come at virtually no cost to the federal government.

~SNIP~

To read the entire Center for Immigration Studies report, click on the title link!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

MINUTEMEN TO BUILD ARIZONA-MEXICO BORDER FENCE

(PHOENIX, AZ) April 20, 2006 – Chris Simcox, President of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (“MCDC”), today announced plans by the MCDC to work with local Arizona land owners to build border security fencing on private land along the border with Mexico.

At present, six private land owners have partnered with the Minutemen for the commencement of construction of border fencing on their land. Surveillance cameras on the fencing will be monitored via computer by registered Minutemen across the country. We have chosen a fence design that is based on the Israeli fences in Gaza and on the West Bank that have cut terrorist attacks there by 95% or more. In order to be effective, a fence should not be easy to compromise by climbing over it with a ladder, cutting through it with wire cutters, ramming it with a vehicle, or tunneling under it undetected. No fence can be a 100% impenetrable barrier—but a good design will be time-consuming enough to get through that Border Patrol agents can be alerted to get to a point of attempted intrusion before the intrusion can be completed. Our design does this. You can see it at www.WeNeedAFence.com

Two construction companies to date have offered to inaugurate groundbreaking, coordinate volunteer construction crews and donate the use of the necessary heavy construction equipment.

The groundbreaking will begin in Arizona on Memorial Day weekend, unless in the interim President Bush deploys National Guard and reserve troops to immediately secure the out-of-control southern border.

The fencing will be built with privately donated funds, engineering and labor and will be used as an example to educate the public about the feasibility and efficacy of fencing to secure America’s borders from illegal incursion by aliens and international criminal cartels. A non-profit organization dedicated specifically to this purpose will facilitate and administer donations for construction of the fence. Monetary and in-kind contributions for this effort will go directly into building materials for this private, volunteer fencing project.

Simcox issued the following statement on the MCDC border fence project:

“President Bush once said he would not wait on events to act to protect our country. He has been president for over five years, and still he has not acted to secure our territorial frontier, even as his administration admits the United States government does not have operational control of our borders.

“On Memorial Day weekend, the American people will exercise their God-given rights to protect their lives and property by initiating construction of fencing along the border on private land unless President Bush immediately deploys National Guard and/or reserve troops along the breadth of the Southwestern border line with Mexico, thereby retaking the region from the international criminal cartels who presently are in operational control of the border. Additional support is available from military units presently training to guard the borders in other countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan and they should immediately relocate their training to the Southwestern border.

“The existing border crisis is a dereliction of duty by those entrusted with American security and sovereignty, leaving America vulnerable to terrorist infiltration and an unprecedented crime wave caused by drug smugglers, rapists, thieves, human traffickers and murderers who currently cross our border at will.

“President Bush and Congress have taxed the wages of the American people to pay for the protection of our country, and expended those dollars to subsidize millions of low-wage illegal workers with housing, education, medical care, and welfare benefits. Yet even the most basic level of national territorial integrity requires that our elected representatives secure the border. Should they continue to refuse to do their Constitutional duty, the Minutemen will again step into the breach and commence building the required border barriers on private land and with private donations.

“Should President Bush and Congress fail to fulfill their oaths of office, and meet their Constitutional obligation to protect these United States from invasion, we, the sovereign people of the United States, having suffered a long train of abuses at the hand of a willfully insolent government, do hereby declare that these States ought, should and will be protected by American Minutemen.”

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We Need A Fence design:

Well, the story is out! The press release goes out tomorrow...

From tonight''s Associated Press:

Ultimatum to Bush: ''Build fence or Minutemen will''

Associated Press
Apr. 19, 2006 06:12 PM (pacific)

TUCSON- 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.

The ACLU last week attempted to have the Minutemen thrown off of a private ranch because the ranch owner leases land to the State of Arizona. The article incorrectly reports that the MCDC didn''t have permits, but we already HAD permits PRIOR to the commencement of operations April 1st. They do report that the land office decided we didn''t need them.

In addition, the Minutemen contracted with the ranch owners to do ranch work there, including some cleanup of land completely trashed by crossing illegal aliens.

From the Associated Press, via the KVOA News website:

ACLU fails to toss Minutemen from state lands

Members of the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps can continue patrolling on state trust lands without permits because they''ve been invited by ranchers leasing the land and agreed to do ranch work, a state official said.

The decision ends an attempt by the American Civil Liberties Union to get Arizona to force the volunteer anti-illegal immigration activists off the land because they hadn''t gotten state permission.

"They are authorized to be there under the terms of the lease," deputy state Land Commissioner Richard Hubbard said Tuesday. He said a state employee who had told the Minutemen members on Monday they needed permits was incorrect.

The group is carrying out a monthlong patrol south of Three Points on the private King''s Anvil Ranch southwest of Tucson. Pat King, whose ranch includes some state trust land that she leases, said she has a contract with the Minutemen to monitor cattle, pick up trash and fix fences.

King is a supporter of the Minutemen and said the ACLU efforts were wrong.

"Those American Civil Liberties Union persons up there are not concerned about me at all," King said. "So they are not really the American Civil Liberties Union are they? Because they don''t give a darn about what has happened to my constitutional rights to property."

The ACLU''s Ray Ybarra said his group complained about the Minutemen to the state Land Department last week.

~SNIP~

To read the entire article, click on the title link!

William La Jeunesse is down at the border with the Minutemen. They''re doing LIVE reports every hour from Three Points, AZ.

You can watch one of the reports here: HERE (OR CLICK ON THE TITLE LINK!)

Thank you, Fox News, for reporting the flood over the border seeking to get in under the wire for amnesty.

If you''re looking for a list of Senators to call to demand NO AMNESTY, those listed below have not yet given a firm commitment FOR or AGAINST AMNESTY. The total is 29 Senators in the uncommitted column:

Sen. Lott R-MS (202) 224-6253
Sen. Allen R-VA (202) 224-4024
Sen. Allard R-CO (202) 224-5941
Sen. Bond R-MO (202) 224-5721
Sen. Burns R-MT (202) 224-2644

Sen. Chambliss R-GA (202) 224-3521
Sen. Cornyn R-TX (202) 224-2934
Sen. Hatch R-UT (202) 224-5251
Sen. Dorgan D-ND (202) 224-2551
Sen. Kyl R-AZ (202) 224-4521

Sen. Sununu R-NH (202) 224-2841
Sen. Ensign R-NV (202) 224-6244
Sen. Rockefeller D-WV (202) 224-6472
Sen. Stabenow D-MI (202) 224-4822
Sen. Feinstein D-CA (202) 224-3841

Sen. Frist R-TN (202) 224-3344
Sen. Talent R-MO (202) 224-6154
Sen. Thomas R-WY (202) 224-6441
Sen. DeMint R-SC (202) 224-6121
Sen. Burr R-NC (202) 224-3154

Sen. Bennett R-UT (202) 224-5444
Sen. Hutchison R-TX (202) 224-5922
Sen. Snowe R-ME (202) 224-5344
Sen. Enzi R-WY (202) 224-3424
Sen. McConnell R-KY (202) 224-2541

Sen. Murkowski R-AK (202) 224-6665
Sen. Santorum R-PA (202) 224-6324
Sen. Thune R-SD (202) 224-2321
Sen. Bunning R-KY (202) 224-4343

If you make some calls, be sure to post what the Senate offices tell you here on the blog!

UPDATE NOTE: Make sure when you call your Senator and they say they are AGAINST AMNESTY that you ask them if that means they are voting AGAINST the so-called "compromise" bill in the Senate with a "path to citizenship" -- which IS AMNESTY, no matter what they try to call it!

From the Foster''s Daily Democrat on Sunday:

Minutemen: We''re just doing a good deed

Immigrants'' group: Tactics are worrisome

By NATE PARDUE

EXETER — For the most part, they sit in lawn chairs on fields and rural terrain — and wait.

Sometimes the day''s highlight is lunch at a nearby restaurant.

"It can be pretty boring. We figure if we''re lucky, maybe we''ll see a moose go by," said Ron Oplinus, 64, an Exeter resident and director of the New Hampshire chapter of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.

The group, with more than 8,000 members nationwide, is made up of private citizens who serve as an unofficial border patrol. They are not affiliated with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, the nation''s official border protection agency.

Their tools of the trade: cellphones, binoculars and something comfortable to sit on.

Members of the 16-person New Hampshire group will visit the town of Pittsburg, with a population of 863, to man the Canadian border for two days starting on Saturday. They will watch for illegal immigrants trying to enter the country in what is the state group''s first formal "operation."

Their efforts are necessary, Oplinus said, because the federal government doesn''t have enough manpower to do it themselves.

"Nobody really wants to do this, but as concerned citizens, it''s something we feel we have to do," said Oplinus, a retired engineer, divorcee and father of three. "We''re just another set of eyes and ears."

Minuteman operations begin with the selection of a location anywhere along the Canadian and Mexican borders. Members stake out their posts with other members of the group for safety reasons. Selecting a location is not a systematic process — anywhere there is a chance for illegal border-crossing has potential.

If they see anyone who appears to be crossing the border illegally, they call the nearest U.S. Customs and Border Protection office and provide any information they can — such as license plate numbers and physical descriptions.

The Minutemen are within their rights to patrol the border, as long as they are law-abiding and don''t interfere with Border Patrol officers. But federal officials aren''t going as far as to say the group''s efforts are constraining illegal immigration.

"The successes we are seeing are due to the men and women on the front line who work for the Border Patrol every day. We don''t fly in, work for a month, and leave. We are there every day, no matter the climate, patrolling and securing the border," said Todd Fraser, a Border Patrol spokesman.

Ross DeLacy, a Border Patrol spokesman for the Swanton, Vt., district, which includes New Hampshire, said there have been no instances where the Minutemen''s efforts have led to arrests of deportable aliens in the region.

But Oplinus said his group is making a difference, and hundreds of illegal immigrants have been identified and deported because of Minuteman operations in states like Arizona and Texas.

There essentially are two rules volunteers must follow before they can become part of the Minutemen: "obey all laws" and "avoid all contact with illegals."

"We don''t want to mix it up with these folks. We don''t want to take the law into our hands," Oplinus said.

But that''s exactly what some groups feel the Minutemen are doing.

~SNIP~

To read the entire article, click on the title link!

These just in from Tony Dolz:

Just in from Stacey O''Connell:

Monday, April 17, 2006

Three weeks into "Secure Our Borders" with 950 sightings and 399 Apprehensions. Over the Easter weekend, we saw the numbers diminish across our lines, but jumped right back up this AM on the Alpha Line.

Easter Sunday we were blessed with a sermon by Phyllis Gross, a Minuteman volunteer and minister. Our MM stood down that AM to hear her speak and to take a much needed break. The weather continues to be typical for the season, cool at night, warm/hot during the day with lots of bright sunshine. A Minuteman or two have had the pleasure of knowing what it feels like to be bitten by the sun in Arizona!

The ACLU continues to berate our Minutemen and are continuing to encroach on our area of operations. They are coming out of the Prescott College in Tucson, using the college van to bring them out to our lines. Saturday afternoon, they parked across from the ranch house as a few of them started blowing up 2 large red and green balloons. Interested, we watched as they continued to work. Then, we saw them let the balloons go into the sky, floating 100 feet over the ranch house. There was a large sign that flew behind it, unreadable as the wind was strong. Suddenly, the tether broke from the balloons and the sign became readable...."Pendajos". (Spanish for A_hole). We got a good laugh as the wind took their intelligent sign South, towards the Mexican Border!

As I write this tonight, the ACLU is out on our Bravo Line; an area of operation that was considered private property to the land owner we are working with. Apparently, Ray Yberra and Kristen Synema (AZ State Representative) called AZ Fish and Game to allow them onto the land. It seems that some of the land they have is leased by the State of Arizona. They showed a permit to access State Land, and the Fish/Game allowed them access. Luckily, some of our MM volunteers have permits, and we are allowed to stay giving them word that we will all get permits to be there, regardless if the land owners have already given permission to be on the land they lease. So, tonight they are snooping around our posts, video taping, and God knows what else. I ask that before you come down, please go to www.land.state.az.us/news.htm and get a State Land Use Permit which will costs you $15. [NOTE: THE STATE OF ARIZONA HAS NOW RULED THE MINUTEMEN DO NOT NEED THESE PERMITS SO YOU DO NOT NEED TO GET THEM] You can do this online, or if you are in Phoenix or Tucson; visit the local State Game office for it.

The ACLU will not hinder our operations, they are a mere fly buzzing around and we will deal with them as weve done in the past. We ignore them, we video tape them when they get close. We will make their activities public at a time MCDC decides.

Our numbers of volunteers continue to be strong. We continue to draw 65-75 Minutemen per day during the week, and 125+ on the weekends. There is plenty of time to make your arrangements and join with us for the last two weeks of operations.

May 20th MCDC AZ will be hosting a Clean-Up Event near Lake Pleasant outside of Phoenix. A large Lay-Up area was spotted there by one of our new volunteers, and the BLM will be supporting the effort with trash bags, porta potties and maybe even lunch. More info to follow in the coming week. We hope you will join with us that day and help clean up a Lay Up area that is very much in need.

Semper Vigilans.

Stacey O''Connell
AZ State Director
MCDC

Photos of the ACLU using the Prescott College van to transport their "legal observers" to harrass Minutemen:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

A MINUTEMAN GOES TO WASHINGTON

“SECURE AMERICA’S BORDERS NOW!” PETITION NATIONWIDE DRIVE, FIVE MORE STATES ADDED

(PHOENIX, AZ) April 17, 2006 – The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps today announced additional tour cities in five states for the cross country “Secure America’s Borders Now!” petition drive led by Minuteman volunteer Tony Dolz, a naturalized American citizen from Cuba. The tour will feature stops at state offices of United States Senators to deliver the petition copy now in circulation which communicates the Minuteman message for a secure America on behalf of her concerned citizens. A copy of the petition is available online at http://www.MinutemanHQ.com

Dolz, himself a legal immigrant to this country, is making his journey from California to Washington, D.C., meeting fellow Minutemen and supporters, and gathering additional petition signatures to deliver to the White House and Congress.

Cities added today are the Paducah office of Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell on Tuesday, April 18th, the Nashville, Tennessee office of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist on Wednesday, April 19th, the Greenville office of South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham on Thursday, April 20th, the Raleigh office of North Carolina Senator Elizabeth Dole on Friday, April 21st and the Roanoke office of Virginia Senator John Warner on Saturday, April 22nd.

The Minutemen are reporting an alarming increase in numbers of people illegally crossing along the entire southern border—in some areas the Minuteman sightings are over four times the numbers sighted last October. Dolz invites all those who would like to make their voices heard in Washington on this URGENT and immediate border security catastrophe to meet him at his stops at Senate offices throughout the country, sign the petition, take copies to gather signatures of friends and family, and to write letters to the editor and call into talk radio shows all over America.

Dolz has previously held petition drive stops in California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Kansas and Missouri. The petition drive is expected to arrive at our nation’s capitol as the U.S. Senate reconvenes April 24th.

The petition is available online so that those unable to join the Minuteman tour in person because of responsibilities to work and family can add their names. To view the petition online, go to: http://www.MinutemanHQ.com

Secure America’s Borders Now! Petition Drive

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 – 3:00 PM
Office of Senator Mitch McConnell
Professional Arts Building
2320 Broadway St., Suite 100
Paducah, KY 42001

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 – 6:00 PM
Office of Senator Bill Frist
28 White Bridge Road
Suite 211
Nashville, TN 37205

Thursday, April 20, 2006 – 6:00 PM
Office of Senator Lindsey Graham
Upstate Regional Office
101 East Washington Street, Suite 220
Greenville, South Carolina 29601

Friday, April 21, 2006 – 6:00 PM
Office of Senator Elizabeth Dole
Raleigh Office:
310 New Bern Avenue
Suite 122
Raleigh, NC 27601

Saturday, April 22, 2006 1:00 PM
Office of Senator John Warner
1003 First Union Bank Building
213 South Jefferson Street
Roanoke, Virginia 24011

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These photos just in from the Minuteman Goes to Washington petition drive at Sen. John McCain''s office in Phoenix on Friday. Chris Simcox was able to attend and sent these in! Over 300 people met with Tony Dolz to pick up petitions for the signature drive in Phoenix, and brought lettuce and a resume!

Tony Dolz gets signatures on the petition:

Chris Simcox gives Tony Dolz a hand getting signatures and handing out petitions:

The rest of these are self=-explanatory!

Jeff Kropf of Oregon is a pilot and a state representative from Oregon. He is providing air support for the Minuteman effort at Three Points, Arizona.

From the Albany Democrat-Herald:

Desert scenery includes phony corpse, Minuteman says

Flying his Cessna 150 over Arizona, Jeff Kropf thought he saw a body down below.

Upon closer inspection by people on the ground an hour and a half later, it turned out to be a dummy decked out in clothes, tennis shoes, stocking cap and gloves and arranged to look like somebody passed out face-down in the desert. Kropf thinks it might have been intended as a diversion to keep searchers busy.

The Oregon legislator, whose House District 17 includes Lebanon and Sweet Home, reported on the fake body and other incidents in a telephone interview Friday night from Three Points, Ariz., a small town and gas stop where Kropf says he goes to make phone calls. Cell phone coverage is no good on the nearby ranch where he and other members of the Minuteman Project have been watching for illegal aliens for the past week.

Among other adventures related by Kropf:

• The Minutemen he was with checked a huge pile of old clothes and other things left behind in the desert. They found a 2006 day planner in which the owner, apparently a migrant-smuggling “coyote,” detailed his business including lists of people being transported. It was translated by one of the Minutemen, a Mexican-American.

• In his plane, Kropf came to the aid of a Border Patrol helicopter, keeping an eye on a group of illegals, when the chopper was running low on fuel and had to leave. The Border Patrol radioed their thanks when they returned after refueling.

• Thursday night, the Minutemen had spotted five groups totaling about 40 migrants and called them in to the Border Patrol. “They didn’t respond,” Kropf said. “They were so overloaded.”

• Also Thursday Kropf “got my eyes on” two men down below, whom he reported and the Border Patrol picked up. He thinks they were the rest of a group of 14, 12 of whom had been picked up the day before.

Kropf has been flying with different spotters. One of them is Carmen — the Minutemen don’t give out last names — a German immigrant to the United States and one of the original founders of the Minuteman Project in that area.

“I wish every congressman and senator could come down here and see this,” Kropf said. “They would build that wall. That’s the only way to stop this.”

Friday evening he could not fly because of stormy weather.

He took his plane to Arizona April 9 and planned to help patrol a patch of the state for a week before returning to Oregon.