Wednesday, May 25, 2005 | A recent article by Jerry Seper of the Washington Times reported on the deployment of 36,000 National Guard troops or state militia on the U.S.-Mexico border. The deployment would stop the illegal flow of illegal aliens into our country, according to a congressional report that credits the Minuteman Project with proving that additional manpower could “dramatically reduce, if not virtually eliminate” illegal immigration at the border.
This report was prepared by investigators for the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus. It states that the Minuteman Project, who shut down a 23-mile stretch of the Arizona border last month, served as a model for a government effort to reclaim control of our international border with Mexico.
The report continues, “The tide of illegal crossings on the border of the United States is beyond unsatisfactory; it is catastrophic. It does not ebb and flow, it only grows. It is rising without measure and eroding the very fiber of our safety, life and culture.”
It further states that the U.S. Border Patrol failed “through no fault of its rank-and-file enforcement officers” to protect the United States from the influx of illegal aliens and the threat to our security and control of communicable disease it represents. It said the agency’s uniformed leadership should be pointed in a “new direction” as it is in “total denial of the magnitude of the disaster.” As currently organized, staffed and supported, the border patrol “cannot be relied upon” to remedy the situation soon, the report said.
I do not believe that a continuation of the Minuteman Project, in the long term, is a viable solution to the problems that exist along our borders, but it has and will continue to prove that if we have the will, we can stem the flow of illegals that are coming into our country.
It is the responsibility of our federal government to guard our borders and the further exercise of the individuals’ rights to demand that they do so, is clearly within the purview of the Minutemen.
One can only hope that the administration will recognize the facts that are expressed in the congressional report and take the necessary actions suggested, before private citizens are forced to suffer bodily harm by the violent actions of the “coyotes,” who look to illegal aliens to provide their livelihood. It is not a matter of if violence occurs, but a matter of when.
Byron Slater is a member of the Border Solution Task Force, a local organization concerned with reforming border control and immigration policy.