Minuteman National Blog

Shots fired, but no reported injuries. From today''s El Paso Times:

Agent shoots at attackers

Daniel Borunda
El Paso Times
Friday, March 3, 2006

A U.S. Border Patrol agent opened fire when he was attacked by men with rocks shortly before 11 a.m. Thursday near the Rio Grande in the Lower Valley, an agency spokesman said.

No injuries were reported in the incident, which remained under investigation Thursday night. The attack, officials said, is part of an increase of assaults on agents in the El Paso region.

The unidentified agent was about five miles east of the Zaragoza Bridge when he was assaulted with rocks by a group of possible undocumented immigrants, who ran back into Mexico, said Agent Ramiro Cordero, a Border Patrol spokesman.

The assault took place on U.S. soil, but investigators were attempting to determine where the attackers were when the agent fired, officials said.

"Our agent was on U.S. soil, of course. They (attackers) were in the river. They were in the dry riverbed," Cordero said.

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

The fake but accurate headline is ours. The text below is from The Washington Times:

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Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican and a supporter of the McCain-Kennedy bill, said those calling for illegal aliens to go home need to grow up.

"America needs to mature on this issue, and they need to understand we''ve got a lot of people here for the right reason," he said.

Mr. Graham said illegal aliens contribute to the economy and take difficult jobs such as landscaping, and he noted that as a golfer he probably benefits from their labor.

That infuriated one observer, Peter Gadiel, a co-founder of 9/11 Families for a Secure America, whose son died in the attack on the World Trade Center.

"I would have thought that a senator of the United States would consider the lives of the 3,000 people lost on 9/11 and the lives lost every day to crimes committed by illegal aliens would be worth more than his ... cheaper greens fees," he said. "I think Senator Graham is a disgrace, an absolute disgrace, to make that kind of statement."

Mr. Gadiel promised to campaign against anyone who votes for legalization if someone from that program commits a crime or terrorist attack in the future.

Meanwhile in the House, Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez Jr., head of the Texas Border Sheriffs Coalition, told a Judiciary Committee panel that all 16 sheriffs in the group think terrorists have "an interest and a desire" to exploit existing vulnerabilities on the nation''s border.

El Paso County Sheriff Leo Samaniego said drug and human smugglers expose a hole in national security.

"If illicit organizations can bring in tons of narcotics through this region and work a distribution network that spans the entire country, then they can bring in the resources for terrorism as well," he said. "If illegal aliens can be smuggled through here in truck loads -- and they are -- then terrorist organizations can also covertly smuggle the people to carry out their plans."

Sheriff Gonzalez also said drug cartels have shown they are willing to fight to protect their drug loads and are a threat to U.S. law enforcement.

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Click here to read the entire article.

KRIS-TV reports on a Falfurrias rancher who testified before the Senate yesterday. Click the title link to read the whole article and to access the video report. If you look close, you''ll see a Texas MCDC volunteer on patrol.

FALFURRIAS - A rancher from Falfurrias testified Wednesday at a Senate hearing on border violence. He was asked to speak by Texas Senator John Cornyn, who''s trying to get Congress to address what he calls an "unacceptable situation".

"My neighbors and I are facing circumstances that can best be described as deplorable," said rancher Lavogyer Durham. He''s a longtime Falfurrias rancher and described to the immigration subcommittee how dangerous life has become for people living in the border region.

"I can provide accounts or ranchers being fired upon, security guards being beaten at gunpoint and women being threatened in their own homes by aliens," he said. The added the stories are endless and only going to get worse. "We now must live with the constant possibility that we could be attacked or killed on our own properties."

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Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar testified before the Senate today and made a shocking admission. In the first two months of 2006, Border Patrol agents have apprehended more than 400,000 illegal aliens trying to cross the border, compared to 100,000 apprehensions in the same two month period in 2005.

The increase in apprehensions is not due to any increase in Border Patrol agents on the border. That number has not yet increased. It is due to the promise of amnesty that our Border Patrol is capturing four times the amount of illegal aliens than the same time period last year. Minuteman sources in the Border Patrol tell us that they are literally being overrun.

Border Patrol bureaucracy will tell you that 3 to 4 get away for every one illegal alien caught. The agents on the front line tell us it is more like 9 to 10. You do the math.

A report from CNN''s website:

U.S. agents: Mexican gangs terrorize border

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Armed gangs dressed in military uniforms often illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border, providing cover for the trafficking of drugs and illegal immigrants into the United States, a Senate panel heard Wednesday.

U.S. government officials and sheriffs from border areas told lawmakers these intruders were becoming more sophisticated and ruthless, often clashed with U.S. Border Patrol agents and committed crimes in the United States.

"We are indeed aware of criminal organizations that wear military-style uniforms, use military-style equipment and weapons and employ military-style vehicles and tactics while conducting illegal activity in border areas," Border Patrol chief David Aguilar told a joint hearing of the Senate subcommittees on immigration and terrorism.

However, Aguilar said there was no proof that Mexican army personnel were involved or that the Mexican military had intentionally violated U.S. sovereignty.

In January, Texas deputies spotted two dozen drug smugglers wearing military-style uniforms, armed with automatic weapons and driving three vehicles loaded with marijuana they were trying to bring across the Rio Grande.

When one of the vehicles got stuck in the river, the uniformed men took up protective positions as others unloaded the drugs. Then they set the truck on fire and retreated back to Mexico.

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday takes up immigration reform legislation that is expected to include steps to tighten the 2,000-mile U.S. border with Mexico. The House of Representatives in December passed a bill that called for the construction of 700 miles of fence along different stretches of the border.

But Aguilar said he did not favor the plan because his agency did not have the resources to manage such a barrier. Instead, he said the United States should employ the latest technology to build what he called a "virtual fence" that would give it the ability to monitor the entire border and respond quickly to incursions.

The Border Patrol has intercepted more than 400,000 illegal immigrants trying to cross the border in the first two months of this year, compared with around 100,000 a month -- 1.2 million -- last year. About 10 percent of those caught had criminal records.

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

The Washington Post published a story today about an interview conducted Friday with Mexico''s ambassador to the United States, Carlos de Icaza:

Ambassador Carlos de Icaza acknowledged frustration on both sides of the border at the lack of progress on an agreement regulating the flow of unskilled labor between the two countries, but he emphasized that no problem can be solved by throwing up barriers.

"We need more bridges and less fences," he said in an interview Friday, the day Specter introduced his draft legislation on a guest worker program. "To continue working together on security issues, we need to put at the center of the relationship our human dimension." He told the story of a Mexican worker he encountered in Arizona who had risked his life to cross the border to be able to provide for his family. "For people like us, there is no other way," he recalled his countryman telling him.

"You have hundreds of thousands living in a state of fear and in the shadows," the ambassador noted. He made the case for Mexican government proposals backed by the National Congress that acknowledge the principle of "shared responsibility" by both countries.

The statistics he cited are daunting. Fifty-seven percent of all undocumented workers in the United States come from Mexico, America''s second-largest trading partner. Of the 25 million residents of Mexican origin in the United States, 15 million are U.S.-born, while 900,000 people cross the border daily in both directions, he said.

"We hope the American Congress will decide on . . . comprehensive immigration reform and a guest worker program that corresponds to the reality of the problem," de Icaza said.

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The ambassador said Mexico is prepared to cooperate with the United States on conducting background checks for workers and providing some training, and also wants to have enforceable contracts on workers'' pay, health and insurance benefits. Both countries would share the costs, he said.

"Nothing seems to be stopping the undocumented flow of laborers. Even if we get immigration from Mexico to decline, we are a transit country," he said. Mexico, he explained, has had to deport 250,000 migrants trying to push through its southern border in hopes of reaching the U.S. labor market to stake out their own slice of the American dream.

"We are neighbors. This is a marriage with no divorce," de Icaza said.

Click the title link to read the rest of the article.

The Washington Times reports on a Senate hearing yesterday in which it was revealed that the Bush administration is still playing games with border security:

The Bush administration sent a "hollow" budget to Capitol Hill that does not fulfill its funding commitment to add 1,500 law-enforcement officers to guard the borders against illegal aliens, key Senate appropriators said yesterday.

"This is a situation of showing a proposal and then hiding the funds, and so we end up with a budget that we''ve got a $1.6 billion hole in," said Sen. Judd Gregg, New Hampshire Republican and chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on homeland security.

Facing off against Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff during a budget hearing yesterday, Mr. Gregg said the funding priorities of the Bush administration treat border protection like "a stepchild of national defense."

"I can''t think of anything more significant to national defense than protecting our border and making sure that our homeland is secure, and yet the Department of Homeland Security is being starved for funds in crucial areas," Mr. Gregg said.

"It''s a hollow budget and I can''t understand it because I''ve watched the press conferences where the administration has said it''s committed to border security and domestic defense, and yet this budget isn''t going to get there," Mr. Gregg said.

Money needed to hire 1,500 more border agents and supply additional beds to house illegal aliens awaiting deportation would come from the administration''s proposal to double fees paid by commercial airline passengers from $2.50 per airport stop to $5. The same proposal to increase passenger fees was killed last year by Sen. Ted Stevens, Alaska Republican.

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Click the title link to read the rest of the story. Maybe John McCain can propose a tax on the fee coyotes charge to transport illegals instead. Just a thought...

The Joplin Globe reports on a gross miscarriage of justice. A confessed child molestor will be deported rather than do hard time for molesting two children. Any guesses on how long before he''ll be back in the States molesting more children?

A Joplin resident who pleaded guilty to two counts of sodomy with a child less than 12 years of age was granted suspended sentences on Friday.

Rapheal O. Garcia also was ordered to be held in jail pending deportation from the United States as an illegal alien.

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Dermott rendered the sentences after accepting a plea bargain Garcia reached with the Jasper County prosecutor''s office in December.

In the plea bargain, the prosecutor agreed to cap the prison time Garcia might be required to serve on each count at five years and to recommend that the sentences run concurrent.

Court documents state that Garcia touched the genitals of a boy less than the age of 12 several times in 2004 and early 2005, and that he touched the genitals of a 5-year-old boy and exposed himself to the boy in February and March of last year.

Click the title link to read the rest of the article.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

MINUTEMEN ISSUE CHALLENGE TO SENATE:

PERSONALLY INSPECT SOUTHERN BORDER BEFORE VOTING ON SECURITY AND GRANTING AMNESTY

(PHOENIX, AZ) February 28, 2006 – On behalf of the more than 120,000 Minuteman supporters and volunteers nationwide, Chris Simcox, President of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, today sent letters to all 100 United States Senators challenging them to personally inspect our southern frontier before voting on the so-called “comprehensive” border security and amnesty bills currently scheduled to come before the Senate in debate on the floor late next month.

In the letter, Simcox notes that Senators have traveled around the globe to get firsthand knowledge of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but that very few Senators have witnessed for themselves the ongoing daily battle being waged for control of our own borders.

After personally experiencing the conditions along our border line, Simcox hopes the senators will be convinced of the necessity to secure the borders immediately before addressing any amnesty or guest worker legislation. The Minutemen firmly believe that without first securing our borders, amnesty and guest worker programs would hopelessly exacerbate our already disastrous border crisis, by creating even more incentives for illegal entrants to flood into our country.

“The United States Senate needs to observe in person what caused Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to admit in statements to the press after his own tour of our southern line that we do not have ‘operational control’ of the southern and northern borders,” said Simcox in a statement regarding the challenge letters. “Mexican military, international criminal cartels and millions of illegal aliens violate our laws, our sovereignty and our territorial integrity on a scale that along the southern border, U.S. law enforcement officers and average citizens live in fear for their very lives,” Simcox added.

Simcox and the Minutemen believe it would be a dereliction of their sworn oath of office for Senators to vote on legislation with such grave national security implications without personally witnessing the daily lawlessness and terror that exists in our border regions.

“Senators should go out on a patrol with someone like 100-pound female Border Patrol agent Lisa Martinez,” suggested Simcox. “Armed with only a 9mm pistol for protection and a radio that only works in some locations, Agent Martinez regularly encounters groups of 30 to 40 men illegally crossing the border on moonless nights in Cochise County, Arizona. She and her fellow agents frequently face down drug smugglers armed with automatic weapons who are working under the protection of elements of the Mexican military and heavily-armed paramilitary groups,” Simcox continued.

The Senators are also invited to spend time with the Minutemen as they conduct their civilian border observations. The Minutemen stand ready to escort the Senators to places at the border of unrelenting human misery, where people are abandoned to die in the desert wilderness, women and young girls are gang-raped by their human traffickers with their undergarments hung as trophies in “rape trees,” where land owners are terrorized daily by a flood of illegal aliens crossing their property, killing their livestock and dogs—and where locals wake up in the morning to find intruders in their kitchens eating out of their refrigerators.

“Through the peaceful, lawful exercise of our First Amendment rights, the Minutemen have raised political awareness of the national security crisis at our out-of-control borders,” Simcox said. “Yet too many politicians still view this as merely an issue to be managed to get past the next election, rather than seeing the situation at the border for what it really is: an ominous threat to the survival of this nation in a time of war.”

“People throughout the country will be watching which Senators personally inspect the border and we will pick our targets and work to ensure that politicians who disregard our national security pay at the ballot box come election time,” Simcox said.

The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps will be holding a month-long border observation program this April on the southern and northern borders. 6,500 Minutemen are expected to participate.

The text of the letter:

Dear Senator Specter:

The occasion is finally before the Senate to exert responsible leadership in addressing the crisis of our nation’s unsecured borders. Before you conclude your deliberations and cast your vote on upcoming border legislation, the Minutemen would like to challenge you to travel personally to America’s southern boundary line, and see for yourself the danger our open borders pose to our national security and sovereignty.

Various members of the United States Senate have traveled to Iraq and Afghanistan to personally gauge our war effort. A 100-member congressional delegation to assess the progress being made on the Hurricane Katrina rebuilding effort was announced last week—yet how many members of the Senate have actually traveled to the frontier of our own country, and assessed first-hand the national security threat presented by our uncontrolled border?

Whether you arrange a ride along with the U.S. Border Patrol, or would like to get a more independent look at the crisis, the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps stands ready to serve. We are pleased to offer assistance with any information you request, or plans you might wish to make, to aid you in evaluating the border security situation.

We as a people face important choices as we move forward to secure this nation’s borders. Some of those choices will doubtless be difficult; some may be politically controversial.

To make an informed and productive decision, the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps believes it is incumbent upon you to first come to the border and experience for yourself what your fellow Americans who live there must contend with every day. Unless you have been to the border and talked to law enforcement on the ground striving to stem the tide of illegal incursions, and those struggling to hold fast to their safety, livelihoods and property, you cannot possibly make a responsible determination about the requirements of U.S. border integrity.

In the interest of national security, we issue this challenge. We hope that every single member of the Senate will do his and her duty to our country, and become personally informed of the true dimensions of this national security crisis—by actually coming down to Arizona, Texas, California or New Mexico and learning the unvarnished facts about our porous and violent southern border line.

Sincerely,

Chris Simcox
President

Scripps Howard published an opinion piece that uses a strawman to slam the Minutemen for urging U.S. Senators to place the interests of Americans before those of other countries. For that we get this:

A new form of guilt by association may be in the offing, one that is faintly reminiscent of the Joseph McCarthy dark days of the 1950s. This time it is not what individuals do, but whom U.S. senators hear.

When news hit that Latin American countries are sending delegations to Washington to talk to fellow legislators about border security and illegal immigration, Chris Simcox of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, for one, seems to have gone berserk. He insists that our senators are vulnerable to placing the interest of Latin America ahead of the United States. He claims in a press statement that "those governments are too inept and corrupt to provide a bright future" for their own people. Why then should we hear what they have to say?

It should be understood from the outset that Simcox''s group is no cheery, feel-good Pied Piper. Its leader, who headed the Minuteman operation in Arizona last April, has a checkered, gun-toting background. The Southern Poverty Law Center describes him one of a number of "celebrity extremists."

He, of course, is no advocate of cross-border dialogues. One ought to be wary of this caution.

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It''s a good time to heed Edward R. Murrow, whose heroics were captured in the movie "Good Night and Good Luck."

On March 9, 1954, Murrow took on the extremists of his day. He said into the television camera that night, "We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason ..." He said, "we are not descended from fearful men, not men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes which were for the moment unpopular."

Before he got specific about the transgressions by the alcoholic Wisconsin senator who caused so much havoc, Murrow said, "This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy''s methods to keep silent. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result."

Sobering words. The issue is whether extremists have kidnapped a public concern about immigration and now want to control the outcome by screening out the voices our representatives need to hear.

Click the title link to read the rest of this love letter. BTW, please note that the columnist added his own comments to Chris Simcox''s statement to twist them around. Chris never said don''t listen or meet with the Latin American delegation.

Here''s a link to what Chris really said.

The San Antonio News-Express expresses their contempt for the Minutemen:

Motivated by an important issue — but bloated by self-importance — the Minutemen patrolled the border to stem the tide of illegal immigration.

President Bush called them "a vigilante group," a potentially dangerous intrusion into the realm of law enforcement officials.

That was almost a year ago, and his words ring truer than ever.

Already unnecessary, the Minutemen have been rendered even more superfluous, thanks to a state program dubbed Operation Linebacker, which has allocated nearly $10 million for border security since December.

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The Minutemen, as stubborn as they are unnecessary, may not go away quietly, but if they really want to serve their country, they will let more qualified people — the law enforcement officials on the border — address the problem.

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With the assaults against journalists in Nuevo Laredo and the intimidation of deputies in Hudspeth County, those threats have become more serious than ever.

Instead of helping solve it, the Minutemen aggravate the problem.

Samaniego is right; Texas does not need them.

The Minutemen have said we''ll stand down when the borders are secured. They''re not secured yet. Operation Linebacker is better than nothing, but it hasn''t done the job.

Click the title link to read the rest of the editorial.

With all of the rush to the microphones by grandstanding polticians this week over leasing of ports, Jerry Seper of the Washington Times gives Chris Simcox''s point of view of the disaster at our borders some great exposure:

Minuteman says border deserves sway over ports
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 26, 2006

The president of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps has accused Congress of "grandstanding" on the issue of security at U.S. ports, saying that for decades it has allowed "free passage" of drugs, illegal aliens and criminal cartels across the U.S.-Mexico border.

"I have watched in disgust as grandstanding politicians who have for decades allowed international criminal cartels free passage of drugs, weapons and human chattel across our borders now rush to the microphones in the name of national security to decry government contracts with an Arab-owned and Mideast-based corporation to operationally manage several U.S. shipping ports," said MCDC President Chris Simcox.

His reaction comes amid intense criticism from Democrats and Republicans about the Bush administration''s approval of a United Arab Emirates company, Dubai Ports World, to take over operations at some U.S. seaports.

"Many of these politicians noisily vowing to do everything in their power to stop Dubai Ports World from managing the operations at six of our shipping ports have repeatedly refused to do anything in their power to secure our borders," Mr. Simcox said.

The former Tombstone, Ariz., newspaper publisher who headed efforts by the Minuteman Project to patrol the border in Arizona in April and from Texas to California in October, said international drug cartels, shielded by the Mexican military, ship thousands of tons of drugs across the border with impunity every year.

"These criminal gangs also traffic massive inventories of contraband in weapons, stolen cars and, most outrageously, human beings," he said. "Yet there is no rush to the television news cameras by Senators Schumer, Menendez and Hillary Clinton -- much less by Senate Majority Leader Frist or House Speaker Hastert -- demanding our borders immediately be secured."

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