Thread: Citizens' patrols not so welcome in Texas

Citizens' patrols not so welcome in Texas
05:17 PM CDT on Wednesday, June 1, 2005
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... c8be5.html

Associated Press

HARLINGEN, Texas – Volunteer border patrols known as the Minuteman Project alerted officials to hundreds of illegal immigrants in Arizona and were praised by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, but they're getting a pre-emptive cold shoulder in Texas.

The group drew international attention in April when volunteers showed up in Arizona to prove the border could be secured simply by putting more personnel there. They did not apprehend immigrants. But organizer Chris Simcox said the group alerted the U.S. Border Patrol to suspicious behavior and helped catch 335 immigrants.

Simcox said if Congress didn't buttress the Border Patrol with National Guard or other military this summer, Minutemen would deploy to California in August and Texas in October.

But civil rights groups, clergy, newspaper editorial boards and politicians are folding up the welcome mats.

"I think it's a problem all of Texas has with having vigilante groups from other parts of the country come to our state to try to tell us how to run our business," said state Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa, D-McAllen, an author of a resolution that urged Gov. Rick Perry to oppose Minuteman plans.

Eleven senators signed it, and state Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, wrote Perry that Minutemen "are not welcome in Texas."
Perry responded that he can't ban people from legal activity.

"He understands and appreciates the frustration that many Texans have with illegal immigration and its impact on national security, but ultimately this is a federal issue," Perry spokeswoman Kathy Walt said.

The Texas border differs from the Arizona border in key ways.

Most of the Texas land is privately owned, so Minutemen would need landowners' permission to be there. The border also is overwhelmingly Hispanic and more urban, and Minutemen opponents wonder how the volunteers will distinguish illegal immigrants.
Opponents also fear the movement is fomenting racial hatred.

"I don't think that there's any doubt that there's a tinge of racism beneath the surface in their attempt to try to stop immigrants from Mexico," Hinojosa said. "Why don't they do that in Canada?"
Schwarzenegger in a radio interview in April said the patrols "have done a terrific job." An aide later said the governor would welcome the Minuteman Project in California.

After protesters in California threw rocks and unopened soda cans at police and attendees at a speech by Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist, Simcox called the protesters "brown supremacists."

"If anything, we've exposed the sleeper cells of true terrorism in our country, those who live here and have no allegiance to us at all," he said. "It's heating up. I've got a feeling you're going to see some violent civil unrest."

U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, said she smelled such trouble long ago.

She wrote an amendment to a Homeland Security budget bill that blocks funding to "any border patrol activities that are unauthorized by law."

She said the Minuteman Project was "an appropriate wake-up call for the United States" about the need to better fund border security. But, she said, it has completed its mission and needs to disband because of potential for violence.

"The California event wound up in almost hand-to-hand combat. The meeting in Las Vegas also produced violent reaction. What can we expect at the border?" she said. "The Minutemen are as bad for the southern border as the Ku Klux Klan was for the South."

But McGauley said the group would be as peaceful as they were in Arizona and wanted to call attention to the danger of terrorists as well as illegal immigrants.

"I don't care who you are, you're under the same danger as I am," he said. "Right now, Baghdad's more secure than the border."

SHeila Jackson Lee is as pro-illegal as they come. Just look at the bills that she sponsors and her voting record on immigration issues!

She is a traitor to this country if ever there was one!

She said the Minuteman Project was "an appropriate wake-up call for the United States" about the need to better fund border security. But, she said, it has completed its mission and needs to disband because of potential for violence.

I'd like a clarification on the "potential for violence!" Was she referring to the ILLEGAL ECONOMIC TERRORISTS?

Since when was she ever concerned about the "potential for violence"?

How does she feel about the 10,000 Californians murdered by illegal gangs?

HOW ABOUT THAT POTENTIAL FOR VIOLENCE CONGRESSWOMAN JACKSON?

Oooops....I'm sorry, that's not potential violence, that's actual real live violence...10,000 dead people with grieving families in Caifornia....

WHAT ABOUT THAT REAL VIOLENCE CONGRESSWOMAN JACKSON???

You hypocritical two-faced low-down dirty Traitor!!

Well! I vote we send her to Mexico with the rest of the trash and SHE DOESN'T GET ANY HAPPY MEAL EITHER!
{then she'll get first hand knowledge of violence!}

And a Mighty Fine Suggestion That is, 2ndamendsis, I second that motion!!

What a WITCH to insinuate that citizens guarding the United States creates the "potential for violence"....they are trying to Keep the Violence OUT of the USA!!

Hey!! How about we get one of those Coyotes to take her to Mexico...you know on one of their back-haul runs....afterall they know the way and are headed that direction anyway. Then we wouldn't even have to spring for a bus ticket!! From the sound of her, she'd lappreciate the Personal Escort and Special Attention!