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Originally posted by sgtgump:
I think it's a good idea, kind of like volunteer fire departments. What do you guys think?

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I think it's a good idea, kind of like volunteer fire departments. What do you guys think?

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Originally posted by rue:

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I think it's a good idea, kind of like volunteer fire departments. What do you guys think?

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I just don't see that there's an appropriate level of coordination.
My cousin was a Border Patrol agent on the southern border for around 10 years. I got a fuzzy picture of what his job was like, and a starting point for what I imagine now: any combination of agents, minutement, drug smugglers, and illegals in the area, at night, with everybody sneaking around, everybody wired-up and at least a few people with guns. It could be like one of those Italian opera farces, where people hide behind curtains, duck into closets, bump into each other out on the same balcony ..., except without the comedy.
I do hope nobody actually encounters anybody else.

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Originally posted by Jasonzzz:

These guys alos have a couple of single engine airplanes they are planning on deploying. I guess they have enough folks donating money for the gas and maintenance.

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excerpted from http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/allheadlines/68578.php
TOMBSTONE - Only a fraction of the promised 1,000 Minuteman volunteers showed up here Friday for the start of their month-long protest of the federal government's inability to control the U.S.-Mexican border.

In a crowd of more than 150 reporters, photographers and camera crews, about 150 Minuteman volunteers registered for the project, photos of the event show. Reports were wildly scattered, with the Associated Press reporting 100 while CNN reported hundreds.

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Originally posted by SoupCatcher:
Just an update on this story.

I guess 15% turnout is better than 0% turnout. But when you're outnumbered by the press...

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excerpted from http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/allheadlines/68578.php
TOMBSTONE - Only a fraction of the promised 1,000 Minuteman volunteers showed up here Friday for the start of their month-long protest of the federal government's inability to control the U.S.-Mexican border.

In a crowd of more than 150 reporters, photographers and camera crews, about 150 Minuteman volunteers registered for the project, photos of the event show. Reports were wildly scattered, with the Associated Press reporting 100 while CNN reported hundreds.

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excerpted from http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/allheadlines/68940.php
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Eager to avoid confrontations between volunteers and its people, Mexico is sweeping the area south of the Minuteman Project clear of migrants.

Gov. Eduardo Bours Castelo has placed 44 members of the new state police force across the border at La Morita, a cattle ranch that leads directly to the border south of Bisbee, said Diego Padilla the governor's Arizona representative.

The state police are working with Grupo Beta, Mexico's migrant protection force, which is plucking migrants out of the desert and depositing them in nearby Agua Prieta, where they are encouraged to wait before trying to cross.

"We are very crude with them; we tell them they may be shot, that there's rancheros out to stop them and hurt them," said Enrique Enriques Palafox, a Grupo Beta commander in Agua Prieta. The point is to terrify the migrants from the area so they won't cross illegally and encounter Minuteman volunteers, he said.
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excerpted from http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/allheadlines/69461.php
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On Wednesday afternoon, Bryan Barton, 24, and two other volunteers, found an illegal entrant on Arizona 92 near Palominas, said Carol Capas, a spokeswoman for the Cochise County Sheriff's Department.

The men videotaped the encounter, which showed the volunteers approaching the man, giving him food and water and calling Border Patrol to pick up the entrant.

In addition, Barton gave the man $20 and a T-shirt that read "Bryan Barton caught an illegal alien and all I got was this lousy T-shirt."
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excerpted from http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/breaking/040105minute.php
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But some residents worry. "I feel like the rest of the country thinks we're a bunch of gun-toting rednecks ready to shoot Mexicans," said Dixie Van Asch, who rents rooms at the Tucson Motel. Van Asch questions the economic impact the project will have on the community, which annually draws up to 500,000 tourists. And she worries about the type of people the project has attracted.

Last Sunday morning, she walked out of her house to find a plastic bag weighted down with rocks. Inside, she found an anti-immigrant flier from the National Alliance, considered one of the country's largest white supremacy organizations.

The fliers also showed up in Douglas, Nogales, and Bisbee.

Chris Simcox, the editor of a local newspaper and a project organizer, has refuted any link between the Minutemen and white supremacists or any other racist organizations. Simcox has accused Douglas Mayor Ray Borane, a frequent critic, of distributing the fliers in an attempt to smear the project.

"I wonder what he's smoking," the mayor replied. "He has no idea the kinds of people they're going to be attracting."

National Alliance chairman Erich Gliebe, who refers to the group as "white separatist," confirmed that local members of the group distributed the fliers in an attempt to build on the efforts of the Minuteman Project. Reached by phone in West Virginia, he said he didn't know if they would participate in the project.

"We have found that a lot of people in the area are sympathetic to our message, but won't admit it," Gliebe said.

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excerpted from http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/allheadlines/68547.php
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But what the creators of the dog and pony show don't get is that they picked the wrong place to make their media-manipulated tirade. If the Minutemen really wanted to bring public awareness to the causes of illegal immigration, they would have flocked to different places, far away from the border towns of Naco and Douglas and the desert in between.

They should have taken their weapons and self-serving protest to the Arkansas headquarters of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

The world's largest retailer, which influences marketing and labor practices wherever it operates, paid a record $11 million fine last month to settle a civil immigration case. The federal government charged the global behemoth and 12 contractors with hiring illegal workers to clean 60 stores in 21 states.

The contractors that did the hiring pleaded guilty to criminal charges and paid an additional $4 million.
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