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New Congress provides impetus

Groups jockey in a daily derby for attention, money, credibility

By Brady McCombs
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 01.28.2007


advertisementCOCHISE COUNTY — On a frigid night 100 yards north of the Arizona-Mexico border west of the San Pedro River, Michael King sits on a couch inside a small house maneuvering a video-game controller as he stares intently at a TV screen.
Black and white thermal images fill the screen as King pushes and taps buttons, slides an adjuster and navigates the joypad. The goal: find white figures moving north and call the Border Patrol.
This $85,000 camera system is the newest tool of the American Border Patrol, a five-person team building its own virtual fence of airplanes, cameras, sensors and unmanned aerial vehicles on land next to the San Pedro River in Cochise County to show the Border Patrol how it's done. Two to three times a week, president and founder Glenn Spencer posts videos on the organization's Web site of illegal entrants and drug smugglers that technical director King spotted and reported.
" 'Surge' in Southeastern Arizona — Flood of Drugs/People Follows End of Freeze," reads the headline above the link to the most recent video of drug "mules" heading back to Mexico after reportedly being frightened off by the American Border Patrol.
"Our job is to tell the truth about the border," said Spencer, who moved to Arizona from California and founded the organization in 2002. "The American people have to know the truth so they can make sound judgments."
In Southern Arizona, that truth depends on who's at the podium.
From Cochise County to the streets of Tucson, a host of immigrants' rights and anti-illegal-immigrant groups work diligently to convince people of the veracity of their truth.
They send e-mails; update Web sites with pictures, videos and links; organize press conferences, meetings and protests; fundraise; travel to Phoenix and Washington, D.C., to lobby legislators; carry out patrols; and build fences.
With a new Democratic-controlled Congress and what analysts are calling a tight, six-month window for immigration reform, both sides are refining their strategies to stay on the front pages, in the public consciousness, and in legislators' minds.
"We are investing a lot of resources and energy into impacting this debate," said Jennifer Allen, director of Tucson-based Border Action Network.
The organization has evolved from a local, volunteer-run outfit that sprang up in 1999 to one that today focuses on influencing immigration policy.
While they'll continue to maintain contact with local immigrant communities, they'll spend much of 2007 in Washington, D.C., participating in networks, alliances and delegations working toward immigration change. Such change includes a path to legalization for those already here, and responsible border security, Allen said.
"Our communities are not against border security, they are not open border communities," Allen said. "We are not an open border organization."
Humane Borders and its volunteers from around the country won't change any of their tactics with the new Congress, said founder Rev. Robin Hoover. They'll continue to refill and service their 84 blue water tanks throughout the Arizona desert in an effort to save lives. They also will network with U.S. and Mexican officials to advocate for immigration reform that includes an expanded program to bring in necessary workers legally, he said.
"If you have comprehensive immigration reform, then you might begin to have adequate resources for national security," Hoover said.
On March 26-30, Humane Borders will host the "International Conference on the Migrant."
The Coalición de Derechos Humanos will focus on keeping border-security measures out of immigration bills, said co-chair Isabel Garcia. They'll travel to Phoenix and Washington, D.C., and take part in coalitions, such as the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, to pound home that message.
The group has divorced itself from what comprehensive reform has become and is willing to butt heads with immigrants' rights organizations that compromised to accept border enforcements, she said.
"To the immigrants' rights lobby and the Democrats and Mexico, we say to them: Your strategy is an absolute failure," Garcia said. "What did you get? Did you get amnesty for one person? You got a big fat zero."
Anti-illegal-immigrant groups will focus on border security.
The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps is erecting a nearly one-mile fence east of Naco, expected to cost $650,000, that will serve as a small barrier and large symbol of the porous borders. Members will be meeting with state and federal legislators to persuade them to vote down anything resembling amnesty, said Al Garza, executive director.
"Our political arena right now is something that should be a concern," Garza said. "They are talking a lot about amnesty. We did this in 1986 and that's why we are in the position we are in."
Arizonans for Immigration Control will continue to do what they've been doing for 20 years — sending out newsletters and organizing monthly meetings. Their objectives are the same: educate people about the problems of illegal immigration and support the efforts of Border Patrol, said Wes Bramhall, founder and president.
"Our only objective is to try to keep our country the way it is for the next generation," said Bramhall, 85. "My own personal opinion is, one nation, undivided, one language. We don't want to be torn apart, which, if we continue the way it is now, in another generation you are not going to know this country."
Rifts and turmoil exist between all the groups who engage in the daily derby for attention, money and credibility.
Immigrants' rights organizations commonly refer to anti-illegal-immigrant groups as "vigilantes" and scoff at the media attention given to them and their influence in Washington, D.C.
They are grandstanders that are fat on rhetoric and skinny on substance, Humane Borders founder Hoover said.
"They have simplified down to fear-inducing sound bites an incredibly complex political, social and economic dynamic," Border Action Network director Allen said.
On the other side, anti-illegal-immigrant groups criticize their rivals' misguided work. Ensuring the safety of illegal entrants is important, but so is the sovereignty of the nation, American Border Patrol founder Spencer said.
Bramhall took it a step further: "A lot of those people don't know what country they live in."
And even though the organizations can generally be divided into two sides, chasms and divisions exist among them as well.
Take for example, the way Hoover and Garcia handled the human-rights awards given to them by the Mexican Human Rights Commission in December.
Hoover accepted it and attended the ceremony where new President Felipe Calderón gave him his medal. Hoover was extremely honored and didn't consider boycotting, he said.
Garcia, on the other hand, refused to attend the awards ceremony after Mexican officials told her she would not be allowed to speak, despite earlier assurances. She had planned to denounce the effects of border enforcement by the United States, and the Mexican government's complicity in the deaths of thousands of migrants.
Spencer used to support the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, but he calls their fence a waste of time and money and a gimmick to raise money. The original Minutemen have broken up into numerous groups across the country with separate leaders and agendas.
In the end, the multitude of ideas and proposals cover the gamut.
"It's sort of like the market-place of ideas," said Spencer, who first got involved in the debate in the early 1990s. "Different people propose different things and it's up to the public to evaluate each of these proposals."
The flurry of e-mails, protests and sound bites seems likely to rage on.
King, Spencer and the rest of the American Border Patrol crew will continue to test the components of their virtual fence and look for illegal border crossers with their high-tech camera. When it stopped working on a recent night, they vowed to find out what was wrong.
"You can't give up," Spencer said. "What's plan B? Leave this open and let in the whole world?"
● Contact Brady McCombs at 573-4213 or bmccombs@azstarnet.com.
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