Vigilantes at the Border Phil Inq Op/Ed
Well, more uninformed members of the media. When are they going to learn that they are undocumented Border Patrol Agents?
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news ... 339630.htm
csatullo@phillynews.com Editor, Editorial Page
Editorial | Vigilantes at the Border Thanks, but stick to your day job
The West is wild enough without vigilantes patrolling the Mexican border.
Dubbing their operation the Minuteman Project, scores of volunteers - some of them armed - have taken it upon themselves to watch out for illegal immigrants trying to cross the border. Many of them were recruited over the Internet.
Some of these weekend warriors have tripped sensors out there in No Man's Land, forcing the already understaffed U.S. Border Patrol to respond to false alarms when they should be hunting for illegal aliens and drug smugglers.
The volunteers say they are there only to call the Border Patrol when they spy illegals. But their presence increases the chances of armed confrontation and of innocent people getting hurt. What happens if and when one of these novices accidentally trips a sensor at night, and armed border guards with night-vision goggles respond, and nobody is sure who's a good guy? There ought to be a better way to police our borders than having heat-packing retirees set up lawn chairs in the desert.
President Bush rightly criticized this effort as vigilantism, but these volunteers have already succeeded in making a symbolic point. U.S. immigration policy is a failure that has not been corrected even after the lessons of 9/11.
A temporary step in the right direction was the Department of Homeland Security's decision to beef up security on the Arizona-Mexico border with 500 more federal agents.
Beyond that, the President and Congress ought to revisit Bush's realistic amnesty proposal for illegals already working here, combined with more effective border enforcement by people who know what they're doing.