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Border patrols growing in Arizona
By Mimi Hall and Patrick O'Driscoll, USA TODAY
As hundreds of civilian "Minuteman" volunteers prepare to monitor a 20-mile stretch of Arizona's border with Mexico, the federal Department of Homeland Security will announce plans today to send more than 500 additional agents to patrol the state's remote southern border.
The 25% increase in Border Patrol agents in Arizona is the second phase of a buildup that began a year ago. It's part of an effort to stem the flow of illegal immigrants crossing the state's notoriously porous 370-mile border and to prevent potential terrorists from entering the country.
Because illegal border crossings typically increase in the spring as the agricultural season begins and Mexicans seek work in the United States, the department will add 200 temporary agents immediately. More than 500 more agents will be permanently assigned to the Arizona border during the next year.
The department also will add 27 aircraft to temporarily help patrol the border, including six Black Hawk helicopters.
Arizona's border with Mexico is considered particularly vulnerable because of its remote, severe desert nature. Last year, 51% of the 1.1 million illegal immigrants caught crossing the nation's 2,000-mile southern border were nabbed coming into Arizona.
The department is "determined to gain operational control" of the border, U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman Kristi Clemens said Tuesday.
"We're certainly pleased and gratified that the federal government is listening to the demands of the citizens," said Chris Simcox of Tombstone, Ariz., whose Civil Homeland Defense border group is part of the so-called Minuteman Project beginning this weekend.
"But this is just a repeat of the same thing they did last summer, and it did nothing to stop the flow," Simcox said. "Five hundred agents will do nothing to secure the border. We need 5,000. We need the National Guard or specially trained military, backed up by a firm message from the president of the United States directed at Mexico to secure their borders."
'A big shell game'?
The Minuteman effort involves hundreds of volunteers, now heading for southeastern Arizona. They plan to monitor and report illegal border crossings through the end of April. Organizers say they expect as many as 1,300 participants for the controversial border vigil, billed as a peaceful watch to dramatize what they call insufficient Border Patrol staffing.
There are now roughly 10,000 agents along the entire southern border. Clemens said those being assigned to Arizona will be moved from other southern states.
National Border Patrol Council President T.J. Bonner, whose union represents 9,000 agents, called the move "a big shell game." Sending agents from other states into Arizona will just "push the problem elsewhere" and could lead to an increase in illegal crossings in New Mexico, Texas and California, he said.
But Clemens said the effort in Arizona is part of a "risk-management approach" to securing the border by putting agents in the places where they're needed most.
President Bush's proposed budget for 2006 calls for adding 210 agents to the 11,000-agent Border Patrol.
Sen. John Cornyn (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas, and several other Republican lawmakers are pushing to hire 2,000 border agents next year.
"Our borders are uncontrolled and porous," Cornyn said recently. He called the Border Patrol "underequipped and outmanned" and cited testimony from James Loy, the former Homeland Security deputy secretary, that al-Qaeda members are interested in entering the country across the Mexican border.
Clemens said plans have been in the works since fall to increase the number of agents in Arizona, and decisions on where to put them are "based on threats and intelligence." She expressed concern about the Minuteman effort, which she called a "group of loosely affiliated civilians running around the desert, potentially armed."
Asked about the Minuteman effort last week at his summit in Texas with Mexican President Vicente Fox, Bush said he is "against vigilantes in the United States of America. I'm for enforcing the law in a rational way."
Some fear violence
Other Minuteman critics and skeptics - including the Tucson-based Border Action Network, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Intelligence Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center - contend the project may attract anti-immigration racists bent on violent confrontation. Border Action Network plans a counterprotest Friday in Agua Prieta, Mexico, across the border from Douglas, Ariz.
"We think there's a real danger of something bad occurring," said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project, which monitors hate groups. "People around the country, on white supremacist and neo-Nazi Web sites, are talking about going down there."
But Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist, 56, an ex-Marine from California, insists his members will be peaceful and unarmed. "This is not about race. It's about enforcement of the law," he said.
Gilchrist said he objects to "the notion that we're a bunch of baby-killing, bloodthirsty war machines." He called his group "a bunch of predominantly white Martin Luther Kings, going down there with his model (of non-violence) and the New York City Guardian Angels' model of vigilance."
Gilchrist's group will gather Friday, stage rallies at Border Patrol offices in Naco and Douglas on Saturday and Sunday, and be in the field Monday. Four-member teams will work shifts around the clock at monitoring posts about a quarter-mile apart.
Gilchrist said participants are restricted to identifying and observing illegal border-crossers and alerting the Border Patrol. Simcox said volunteers, who range from doctors, lawyers and former police officers to "senior citizens in lawn chairs," will arm themselves with camcorders, binoculars and cell phones - not firearms.
"We're doing exactly what the president and the Department of Homeland Security have asked all Americans to do since Sept. 11," he said.
"We're not anti-immigrant. There's a legal way to come into this country. What we have are people by the thousands slipping in under the fence."
Border patrols growing in Arizona
By Mimi Hall and Patrick O'Driscoll, USA TODAY
As hundreds of civilian "Minuteman" volunteers prepare to monitor a 20-mile stretch of Arizona's border with Mexico, the federal Department of Homeland Security will announce plans today to send more than 500 additional agents to patrol the state's remote southern border.
The 25% increase in Border Patrol agents in Arizona is the second phase of a buildup that began a year ago. It's part of an effort to stem the flow of illegal immigrants crossing the state's notoriously porous 370-mile border and to prevent potential terrorists from entering the country.
Because illegal border crossings typically increase in the spring as the agricultural season begins and Mexicans seek work in the United States, the department will add 200 temporary agents immediately. More than 500 more agents will be permanently assigned to the Arizona border during the next year.
The department also will add 27 aircraft to temporarily help patrol the border, including six Black Hawk helicopters.
Arizona's border with Mexico is considered particularly vulnerable because of its remote, severe desert nature. Last year, 51% of the 1.1 million illegal immigrants caught crossing the nation's 2,000-mile southern border were nabbed coming into Arizona.
The department is "determined to gain operational control" of the border, U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman Kristi Clemens said Tuesday.
"We're certainly pleased and gratified that the federal government is listening to the demands of the citizens," said Chris Simcox of Tombstone, Ariz., whose Civil Homeland Defense border group is part of the so-called Minuteman Project beginning this weekend.
"But this is just a repeat of the same thing they did last summer, and it did nothing to stop the flow," Simcox said. "Five hundred agents will do nothing to secure the border. We need 5,000. We need the National Guard or specially trained military, backed up by a firm message from the president of the United States directed at Mexico to secure their borders."
'A big shell game'?
The Minuteman effort involves hundreds of volunteers, now heading for southeastern Arizona. They plan to monitor and report illegal border crossings through the end of April. Organizers say they expect as many as 1,300 participants for the controversial border vigil, billed as a peaceful watch to dramatize what they call insufficient Border Patrol staffing.
There are now roughly 10,000 agents along the entire southern border. Clemens said those being assigned to Arizona will be moved from other southern states.
National Border Patrol Council President T.J. Bonner, whose union represents 9,000 agents, called the move "a big shell game." Sending agents from other states into Arizona will just "push the problem elsewhere" and could lead to an increase in illegal crossings in New Mexico, Texas and California, he said.
But Clemens said the effort in Arizona is part of a "risk-management approach" to securing the border by putting agents in the places where they're needed most.
President Bush's proposed budget for 2006 calls for adding 210 agents to the 11,000-agent Border Patrol.
Sen. John Cornyn (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas, and several other Republican lawmakers are pushing to hire 2,000 border agents next year.
"Our borders are uncontrolled and porous," Cornyn said recently. He called the Border Patrol "underequipped and outmanned" and cited testimony from James Loy, the former Homeland Security deputy secretary, that al-Qaeda members are interested in entering the country across the Mexican border.
Clemens said plans have been in the works since fall to increase the number of agents in Arizona, and decisions on where to put them are "based on threats and intelligence." She expressed concern about the Minuteman effort, which she called a "group of loosely affiliated civilians running around the desert, potentially armed."
Asked about the Minuteman effort last week at his summit in Texas with Mexican President Vicente Fox, Bush said he is "against vigilantes in the United States of America. I'm for enforcing the law in a rational way."
Some fear violence
Other Minuteman critics and skeptics - including the Tucson-based Border Action Network, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Intelligence Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center - contend the project may attract anti-immigration racists bent on violent confrontation. Border Action Network plans a counterprotest Friday in Agua Prieta, Mexico, across the border from Douglas, Ariz.
"We think there's a real danger of something bad occurring," said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project, which monitors hate groups. "People around the country, on white supremacist and neo-Nazi Web sites, are talking about going down there."
But Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist, 56, an ex-Marine from California, insists his members will be peaceful and unarmed. "This is not about race. It's about enforcement of the law," he said.
Gilchrist said he objects to "the notion that we're a bunch of baby-killing, bloodthirsty war machines." He called his group "a bunch of predominantly white Martin Luther Kings, going down there with his model (of non-violence) and the New York City Guardian Angels' model of vigilance."
Gilchrist's group will gather Friday, stage rallies at Border Patrol offices in Naco and Douglas on Saturday and Sunday, and be in the field Monday. Four-member teams will work shifts around the clock at monitoring posts about a quarter-mile apart.
Gilchrist said participants are restricted to identifying and observing illegal border-crossers and alerting the Border Patrol. Simcox said volunteers, who range from doctors, lawyers and former police officers to "senior citizens in lawn chairs," will arm themselves with camcorders, binoculars and cell phones - not firearms.
"We're doing exactly what the president and the Department of Homeland Security have asked all Americans to do since Sept. 11," he said.
"We're not anti-immigrant. There's a legal way to come into this country. What we have are people by the thousands slipping in under the fence."
