Thread: Minutemen: Volunteer calls pouring in over fencing proposal

http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/176269/4/

Saturday, April 22, 2006
Minutemen: Volunteer calls pouring in over fencing proposal

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ARTHUR H. ROTSTEIN - The Associated Press
TUCSON, Ariz. -- Volunteer offers are flooding in to a border watch group that said it will build a fence on the Mexican border unless President Bush militarizes the border and adds new security fencing, group spokesmen said Friday.

"We've certainly struck a chord and a nerve with the American people on this one," said Chris Simcox, national leader of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, which is conducting monthlong border watch operations in Arizona and more than a half-dozen other states on the Mexican and Canadian borders.

Group members are watching for illegal immigrants and smugglers entering the country and are reporting them to federal authorities.

Minuteman spokeswoman Connie Hair called the response to the fence proposal unbelievable -- "people wanting to donate, to help build a fence, people wanting a fence on their land."

People have called talk radio programs "offering to buy 100 feet of fence," she said. Others have pledged to bring earthmovers to the border, as long as they can operate the machinery themselves, or promised a trade union's assistance.

So far, Simcox said, landowners owning a total of some 70 miles of border property have said they would allow Minutemen to build fortified fencing.

Of that, about 20 to 25 miles are in Arizona, the busiest illegal entry point on the U.S.-Mexico border, he said. The longest contiguous line is about 15 miles.

The rest of the committed land is in California, Texas and New Mexico, he said.

Simcox said he hopes to hold construction costs to between $125 and $150 a foot, since labor and equipment will be donated.

The Minuteman group envisions fencing fashioned after an Israeli design.

It would include a 6-foot deep trench to keep vehicles from crashing through, concertina wire and two 15-foot-high heavy-gauge steel mesh fences with the tops angled outward and separated by an unpaved dirt road. It also would have inexpensive mounted video cameras.

Kat Rodriguez, coordinating organizer for the human rights organization Derechos Humanos, called the idea misguided.

For the last 10 years of enforcement policies, despite heavy militarization in San Diego and Texas, "migration has failed to be affected in any meaningful way," she said. "Bottom line, it doesn't work. Will that fence stop people from crossing? Absolutely not."

She said fencing has only shifted migration patterns.

Meanwhile, Minutemen members in California will begin repairing holes in and beneath existing steel-mat fencing about 75 miles east of San Diego on April 29.

Tim Donnelly, head of the group's California operations, said volunteers will concentrate on about a 200-yard area near the small town of Boulevard.

They'll drive rebar into the ground and weld it in place to fill holes dug beneath the fencing, and also repair holes cut by torch into the steel fencing.

The Minutemen also will be repairing barbed wire fencing set back from the wall.

"We might make it part of our regular watch," Donnelly said.

The American people people can and will do something if the government just stays the heck out of it and for alot cheaper than they could ever dream of. I doubt there's anything that would ever be 100% guarenteed to stop it, but if it slows it down, the rest could be managed if they enforced the laws. I take my hat off to them.

Amen for the Minutemen! I heard about this on Roger Hedgecock yesterday.

This is incredible!! I love it! Wish I could go there myself, was a Carpenter for 20 years on high-rises.

You can go, Rockfish.

We should hold a telethon.

We should hold a telethon.

That's a great idea ! We could raise enough money to build the entire thing in no time flat. I would make a donation in a hearbeat and consider it money well spent .

Originally Posted by diana717

We should hold a telethon.

That's a great idea ! We could raise enough money to build the entire thing in no time flat. I would make a donation in a hearbeat and consider it money well spent .

ditto

added to the homepage
http://www.alipac.us/article1174.html

You can make donations at their website. Please do; I have.
minutemenhq.com or minutemanhq.com. Lets join them in any way we can. They ask for any and all to come to the border, or join them in any way--become a member!