Thursday night Shane Marler made a presentation in Odessa to a group of people about the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and its application along the Texas border. He is attempting to get volunteers for patrolling the Texas/Mexico border to spot people making illegal border crossings and report them to the Border Patrol.
Watch and Report
He emphasized that the job of the volunteers would be to watch and report, and nothing else. He hoped that the organization could establish some patrols along the border in October, and the initial plan is to place four to eight people every eight to 12 miles armed with binoculars, radios, cell phones, and G.P.S. guidance systems. They would be in regular contact with each other as well as with a base of operations.
And since the land along the border is private property then the owners permission would have to be obtained prior to any entry.
Mr. Marler was very emphatic about the need for restraint among those who participate. Racists need not apply. And there would be no violence anticipated. He said that volunteers could not confront anyone they found attempting to enter the country illegally, but their job was to report it to the Border Patrol. If someone initiated a confrontation with a volunteer the volunteer would be required to retreat, and any weapons could be used only in self defense.
Opposition Groups
The goal of the MCDC sounds simple enough, but their work in Arizona generated a great deal of controversy, and if you've seen news reports about them in recent weeks then you're probably aware of some of the hysteria displayed by opposition groups.
In anticipation of such a border-watching movement in Texas, U.S. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, wrote a letter to Texas Governor Perry trying to stop them. Governor Perry responded on May 20 by kicking the ball back into her court:
Thank you for your letter about the Minuteman Project and border enforcement.
As you know, I did not invite the Minuteman Project to Texas. Nor do I, or any other elected official, have the authority to prevent law-abiding citizens from traveling to, from or within this state.
With that said, I fully understand and can appreciate the frustration that many Texans and others across the nation have with illegal immigration, its potential impact on our national security and the unacceptable burden it is placing on taxpayers, and state and local criminal justice, education, and health care systems. A recent report issued by the Pew Hispanic Center found that there has been a 23 percent increase in illegal immigration in the past four years. It is estimated that more than 10 million undocumented immigrants now live in our country with 1.4 million in Texas alone. The continued flow of a significant number of undocumented immigrants into the United States is not acceptable, especially in the post-9/11 era.
Border control and enforcement of the laws against illegal immigration are the responsibilities of the federal government. As a member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims, you are in a position to address this important matter. The federal government can and must do more to close the border to illegal immigration. Until that happens, these kinds of citizen-initiated efforts likely will be the result. If you want to send the Minutemen home, I urge you to make sure we have enough federal agents on the border to secure it.
Sincerely,
Rick Perry
Governor
(Emphasis added.)
The Objective
Mr. Marler reminded the audience how inconvenient it is to board an airliner because of the security put in place after 9/11. But that whole security mechanism is based on the idea that the next 9/11 will also involve airliners. Of course the airlines should be secure, but to ignore the illegal border crossings seems very risky. He pointed out that illegal border crossings were equivalent to someone boarding an airliner through the back door without having gone through any security check.
The point the Minuteman Project is trying to make is that the border enforcement agencies aren't doing their jobs. And their ultimate objective is to pressure the U.S. Government into doing a better job of patrolling the borders. There are a lot of people coming across the river just to get a decent job, and most people sympathize with them, but there could be others who mean us harm. And at present there doesn't seem to be much to stop them.
There was a lot of the finger pointing following 9/11, and we all wish it could have been prevented. However, in light of the controversy surrounding the MCDC in Arizona then one has to wonder how the politically correct crowd would have reacted had someone tried to stop Muhammad Atta, et al., in advance.
Links
For another report of the same event, here's the OA Online report. And Mr. Marler is attempting to set up a website which should be up and running on Monday at Texasminuteman.org.
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