Minuteman National Blog

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

STATEMENT OF TONY DOLZ ON ALBERTO GONZALES AMNESTY SPEECH

SANTA CLARA, CA (July 21, 2006)—Tony Dolz, a Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (“MCDC”) volunteer in California and naturalized American citizen, released the following statement at a press conference on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s pro-amnesty speech today in Santa Clara, California:

“Speaking to you today as a Minuteman Civil Defense Corps volunteer here in California and as a LEGAL immigrant to America, I have personally met the obligations and standards of becoming a naturalized citizen of these great United States.

“Attorney General Alberto Gonzales today has made a mockery of the millions like me who have stood patiently in line waiting our turn, and endured the burdensome legal process to become a citizen. He is saying to me today that I and all those like me who honored the rule of law are chumps, fools, losers—for faithfully showing our respect for America’s ordered liberty, and the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.

“While the Attorney General is today advocating preferential amnesty to excuse millions of serious felonies committed by non-citizens, he is also ignoring gross violations of the law by the very agency he would entrust to police that amnesty. Attorney General Gonzales remains utterly neglectful of addressing the rampant corruption exposed by the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) in its devastating report released March 14th of this year. The GAO charges the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)—the agency of the Department of Homeland Security that would oversee any guest worker amnesty program—with failed organizational infrastructure, and massive mismanagement and corruption. Yet the Attorney General wants to expand the duties and responsibilities of this organization to process millions more illegal intruders through the system.

“This GAO report was commissioned by the U.S. Congress and it was part of an investigation that started immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attack.

“Among the GAO''s most alarming findings were that 33 percent of “religious worker” visas were issued fraudulently. The GAO documents evidence that radical Islamists, with ties to terrorist organizations, have used the religious worker visa category to gain admission to the United States.

“The Copley News Service reported on March 7th, 2006, that ‘Michael Maxwell stepped down last month as Director of the Office of Security at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and sought protection under the federal whistle-blower protection law. He claims that senior agency officials had been retaliating against him for telling Congress about what he described as serious national security vulnerabilities that persisted despite his warnings to those running the agency.’

“In addition, Maxwell claims that the agency lacks the resources to handle some 500 allegations of criminal misconduct against agency employees, including allegations of espionage and acceptance of bribes.

“The GAO report documents that immigration benefit fraud was pervasive and significant and the approach to controlling it was fragmented. In one of the largest labor—that means guest worker—certification fraud schemes ever uncovered by the GAO, federal investigators found evidence that a single prominent immigration attorney in the Washington, D.C., area submitted at least 1,436 and perhaps as many as 2,700 fraudulent employment applications between 1998 and 2002.

“The GAO found that the USCIS is completely unprepared to handle their present 7.5 million case work load with their 3,000 employees. Few if any of the present 500 allegations of criminal misconduct against agency employees will ever be prosecuted.

“And the GAO also conclusively found that the agency as it stands will be unable to handle the proposed guest worker amnesty proposals bandied about by the Bush administration, the Senate and now the nation’s premiere law enforcement officer.

“Attorney General Gonzales would be well advised to focus his attention on his own back yard—clean up the rampant fraud and corruption in the USCIS—and prosecute those who have broken our laws in the immigration system before crossing the country with a charm offensive to promote mass amnesty. Amnesty places millions ahead of the REAL citizenship queue—the one that waits years and years OUTSIDE of the promised land of America. It is patently inequitable and unjust to reward those illegally jumping that line with “sweetheart citizenship” papers that lets them cut ahead of the law-abiding in becoming Americans.

“These illegal migrants have not only broken laws including document fraud, identity theft and income tax evasion, but they have enjoyed the benefits of being in America years ahead of law-abiding applicants waiting for visas and earning citizenship as my wife and I did. The Attorney General has no moral ground to stand on to talk to me and millions more like me about American immigrant values, hard work, and fairness. Whatever happened to equity under the law?”

[See Full GAO Report here: http://judiciary.house.gov/media/pdfs/gaoimmbenefits31006.pdf]

STATEMENT OF AL GARZA ON ALBERTO GONZALES AMNESTY SPEECH

SANTA CLARA, CA (July 21, 2006)—Al Garza, National Executive Director of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (“MCDC”), released the following statement at a press conference on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s pro-amnesty speech today in Santa Clara, California:

“As this nation’s highest-ranking law enforcement officer, it is inexcusable that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would promote a blanket amnesty for people who have committed such felonies as document fraud, identity theft and income tax evasion, and all based solely upon some special status that their illegal entrance into this country and their national origin has somehow allegedly conferred. Their very first act on American soil was to break federal law by entering this country illegally.

“This selective amnesty being proposed by Attorney General Gonzales to excuse millions of NON-CITIZENS from their commission of serious felonies, while American CITIZENS continue to be held accountable under applicable statutes, is unconstitutional. Mr. Gonzales’ familiarity with 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection clause means he understands that point of law. There is no amnesty being offered to those American citizens who have committed document fraud, identity theft or income tax evasion—apparently only illegal border crossers. But Lady Justice is represented wearing a blindfold for a reason, and that reason is the equality of all persons before the law.

“Furthermore, any proposal for amnesty in the guise of ‘guest worker permit path to citizenship’ is a national security risk that is already causing a human tsunami across our unsecured borders for those seeking to ‘get in under the wire.’ In some of the areas the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps has stood watch, the numbers of people crossing the borders illegally have increased tenfold since the talk of amnesty began last year. This wave of illegal migrants is exploiting the black market document underground in anticipation of new amnesty programs—and conceals in its sea of humanity all sorts of criminal and even terrorist elements. I am sure in these days of Middle Eastern violence, our wide-open borders are a fact that has not escaped the notice of Hezbollah, Lebanon, Syria and Iran.

“The critical need is to secure this nation''s borders with federal troops immediately. There is no conflict in doing so with the Posse Comitatus Act, as the war zone that is America’s southern frontier and the wide-open northern border do not represent a law enforcement matter—but a clear matter of national security.

“Mexico’s government has created a majestic disconnect between the wealthy and the peasant by deliberate design. Their failure to organize, demand and promote fair and balanced economic and social opportunities has led to Mexican citizens fleeing their homeland for America by the millions.

“With already overburdened public services, medical facilities, welfare programs, criminal incarcerations and public education systems, Attorney General Gonzales demands his fellow Americans ignore his direct assault on the rule of law and our national security, become complicit in Mexico’s degradation, and subsidize an unending flow of slave-wage labor into this country. Caesar Chavez had it right when he fought so hard to stop this exploitation.

“We are a compassionate nation and believe in fairness, and in that fairness American citizens are first demanding enforcement of our laws. Illegal migrants should not be given preferential rights and liberties after knowingly committing felonies. Special treatment, in such a case, is simply unacceptable, with laws that apply only to some and not to others because they share an ethnicity with our Attorney General.

“Neither should the poorest of the poor be enticed to come here illegally or legally to be exploited like pack-mules. We are a nation founded on human equality, not indentured servitude. The current ‘guest-worker’ proposals are an affront to American principles of social justice and the rights and duties of citizenship.

“We have had promises of border security tied to amnesty after amnesty after amnesty. The American people no longer trust our government to secure the borders. Congress and the Bush administration first need to prove that they have competently secured our borders against foreign incursion and are protecting America’s security and sovereignty. Only then we will deliberate about what to do with those millions already here illegally.”

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We, the undersigned Minuteman Civil Defense Corps officers and leadership, have complete confidence in the professional firms we have retained to perform fiduciary responsibility and accounting for the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. We here reconfirm the Board of Directors’ decision to employ accredited and experienced professionals to assist the organization in management of our finances.

The Declaration Alliance and the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps organizational entities are both in full compliance with IRS regulatory statutes and filing obligations. Each entity will file the requisite Form 990 on deadline by this November 15th, being held to the same standard as every other non-profit corporation in the country.

There are those both within the border security movement and actively opposed to it who, for ideological reasons or in advancement of personal ambition, wish the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps to fail. Critics are obtaining false information from known racialists, anti-Semites and a small handful of disgruntled people who have been terminated from staff or from leadership involvement with the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps over a year ago because they could not meet MCDC standards or adhere to our strict field standard operational procedures.

Consequently, these dismissed Minutemen have no actual knowledge of MCDC finances, regulatory compliance, filing deadlines, non-profit status, or other accountability matters.

The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps with its border watch efforts in all four southern border states and five in the north and growing, has forced into the national spotlight the lawless and wide-open conditions at our borders. Illegal immigration and our lack of border security is now arguably the #1 issue in this country, and tabloid-style gossip of this nature drives readership. Recent criticism of Minuteman Corps finances is utterly without merit.

The Minuteman Corps has taken on every branch of government, every politician, every government entity and every agency involved in collusion or negligence to keep our borders wide open—and have exposed them as either corrupt, negligent or even criminal in their incompetence. It is no surprise that efforts to discredit our organization abound. We continue in our mission undistracted and undismayed by these groundless attacks.

Chris Simcox, President
Al Garza, National Executive Director
Carmen Mercer, Vice President
Greg Thompson, National Development Director
Bill Irwin, National Operations Director
Bob Wright, National Deputy Executive Director
Carl Braun, San Diego Sector Chief
George Taplin, Director of MCDC Virginia
Steve Schreiman, Director of MCDC Maryland

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

FIRST GOVERNMENT HURDLE CLEARED FOR MINUTEMAN SECURITY FENCE IN ARIZONA

PHOENIX, AZ (July 20, 2006)—Chris Simcox, President of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (“MCDC”) released the following response to the statement of approval of the Minuteman Border Fence design issued by Judy Anderson, Cochise County, AZ Planning Director:

“The decision by the Cochise County Planning Director is in line with what MCDC has said all along: there is no county zoning regulation to prevent a private landowner in a non-residential area from building the border security fence on his own property to protect his family and his livestock from dangerous intruders.

“The ruling stated that there was an ‘agricultural purpose’ for the fencing, but it is shameful that the ruling is for all intents and purposes confirming the government’s position that the rancher can only protect his livestock but not his family—he is not allowed to protect his land, property or way of life—only his ‘agriculture.’

“With this bizarre decision, we are now one step closer to building the first Israeli-style security fencing on private land using private donations along the southern border with Mexico.”

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GOLDWATER, McCAIN, AND INDENTURED SERVITUDE

David R. Usher
July 16, 2006
NewsWithViews.com

Don Goldwater raised the ire of Republican candidate John McCain last week by suggesting that illegal immigrants should be imprisoned and have to help build a wall to stop Mexico from mass exportation of its poor and criminal citizens.

Goldwater is champing for a term as Governor of Arizona. He correctly asserts that foreigners who intentionally go out of their way to violate immigration laws have committed crimes, should be incarcerated for a period of time, and have to work to pay the costs of their incarceration.

Goldwater cites “tried and tested, effective and accepted practices” dealing with convicted non-violent felons in the penal system.

McCain, a leading Republicrat who confidently expects a presidential nomination from whatever party would have him, feels it is “deeply offensive” to do this to criminals, but only if they are from Mexico.

McCain is a decade too late opposing this notion. He supported forced labor camps when he voted for passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Act of 1996. We have been doing this since 1996 to divorced fathers, who for no reason of their own fall behind on child support, and find their way into permanent peonage working for state prison labor camps.

Prisoners make license plates, handle airline reservations, make military tents and garb, and just about anything else the state can think of at the bargain wage of only 25-cents per hour, under the auspices of (Correctional Systems, Inc (CSI), which is America’s largest private prison contractor.

If one is really a criminal, this is a good idea as long as government isn’t competing unfairly with private businesses (which it does). But, if one happens to be a divorced father who is merely unable to earn what some bureaucrat imagines he should, PROWA is an unconstitutional form of eternal slavery.

As if supporting slavery is not bad enough, McCain co-sponsored S.1227 in 1999, in an attempt to amend PROWA to give free Medicaid and SCHIP to illegal immigrant women and children. McCain’s net idea: lock up thousands of innocent divorced men, who labor for 25-cents per hour, to pay for free medical care for illegal immigrants. How dare we do this to good American citizens who have done nothing wrong and committed no crime!

~SNIP~

To read the entire article, click here: http://www.newswithviews.com/Usher/david27.htm

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This opinion editorial by Richard Hodges,the rancher who is stepping forward for the first Israeli-style fencing by the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, is from the Sierra Vista Herald:

Protecting a legacy

COMMENTARY BY RICHARD HODGES

SPECIAL TO THE HERALD/REVIEW

As the great-grandson of homesteaders entrusted with a legacy of hard work and the pioneering American spirit, it has come time to take a stand against the unremitting threats to the safety and security of my family, and the relentless assaults upon local law enforcement and American sovereignty that are coming day and night across our border. I and my family have stepped forward to offer my land for the first full security fencing by the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. Heavily-armed members of international criminal cartels continuously move drugs across my property. The “King of Naco” drug cartel engages in running gun battles with law enforcement at my land and the main roads going to and from the border. Law enforcement officers from the sheriff’s department, city police, highway patrol and the Border Patrol are outmanned and outgunned by the apparent design of our politicians — even as they claim to be grappling with this crisis, and trying to bring some sort of order to a situation that is completely out of control.

American law enforcement officers in this border frontier are forced to take fire, but seldom can they return fire and more often they are forced to retreat as these criminals transport billions of dollars of contraband into the United States.

Rape, robbery, assaults and murder are all part of the violent chaos inflicted upon people attempting to enter this country illegally from Mexico, and upon the American citizens who are in the path of the criminal traffickers. This has got to stop, and when our government refuses to stop it, it is up to a self-governing people to bring this lawlessness to an end.

My land has a rich history and is representative of an era when stout-hearted Americans crossed the vast frontier on horseback and constructed the railroad to settle this desert wilderness. My great-grandparents, August and Augusta Schlaudt, were some of the courageous homesteaders who in the late 1800s tamed this harsh but beautiful land. They became patent holders of the land in agreements signed by Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and William McKinley in the early 20th century. In those days it was a two-day ride on horseback just to traverse the 25 miles to Tombstone where August fulfilled the requirements of the land office to register his land patents.

August twice encountered Pancho Villa himself — and he lived to tell about it both times — once on the edge of town and once at Monument 91, a U.S. Geological Survey survey border marker, which is a corner post for my ranch.

Honoring the sacrifices and legacy of my great-grandparents and with some risk of repercussion from criminal cartels whose only allegiance is to money, we will work with the Minuteman Corps in an effort to close this corridor to rampant criminal enterprise. The security fencing will be erected as a barrier to help curtail this lawless activity that our government has failed to halt. The fencing construction is an enormous undertaking and has many challenges ahead, as architects and engineers finalize the plan specifications for the Israeli-style security fencing on this remote terrain. I am proud to announce that so long as weather and materials delivery permit, construction will begin in July.

RICHARD HODGES lives in Cochise County. His column was shared with the Herald/Review through the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.

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Pro-illegal immigration supporters attempted to change the name of their IDOT road assistance from "Illinois Minutemen" because of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. They felt it would be "confusing" to motorists seeking assistance. I guess the illegals would see the "Illinois Minuteman" patch and think I.C.E. was there to deport them? Unbelievable.

The final decision came down to keep the "Minutemen" moniker, as the IDOT road assistance has used the name for over four decades.

From the Chicago Tribune:

Minutemen name rescued
IDOT workers keep it even though immigration group uses moniker

By Jason George
Tribune staff reporter
Published July 16, 2006

When the state''s tow-truck teams found their Minutemen nickname increasingly confused with immigration enforcement advocates of the same name, some managers decided to steer clear of controversy.

But last week, Illinois Department of Transportation officials decided to stick with the name motorists have gotten used to during the last four decades, regardless of who else is using it.

During the last several weeks, Minutemen managers in the Chicago area had begun replacing "Illinois Minutemen" patches on drivers'' coveralls with ones that say "Emergency Traffic Patrol," the group''s original and official name. Graphics on the lime-yellow tow-trucks that contained the phrase "Illinois Minutemen" also were scheduled to be removed, according to drivers.

The public relations tune-up was an attempt to distinguish the red-jumpsuited Minutemen, who patrol Illinois highways for disabled vehicles, from other Minutemen groups who have patrolled the U.S.-Mexican border for illegal immigrants and are a prominent voice for stricter immigration enforcement.

IDOT spokesman Mike Claffey said the Minutemen management took action with good intentions, but without authorization from officials at IDOT''s district headquarters in Schaumburg, who learned of the changes from the Tribune last week.

"There was a proposal that was floated among personnel at Emergency Traffic Patrol. There was concern that people might mix up the IDOT Minutemen and this other group," Claffey said. "However, this proposal had never been signed off on by IDOT higher-ups.

"Upon consideration we are not going to go in that direction," he said, pointing out that most people can distinguish between the two groups. "We feel very confident that the motoring public understands that the Minutemen are there to help them when their car breaks down--regardless of what they look like or where they come from."

~SNIP~

To read the entire article, click here (requires registration):

Minutemen name rescued

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