Border Patrol Takes a Road Trip
August 28th, 2006 by The Bosphorus
Too often, the news reads like some disutopian novel.
The other day NPR reported on the activities of the Minutemen. No, I don’t mean that great punk band from back in the eighties. This is the vigilante boarder patrol keeping watch over our boarder with Mexico, if you have not already heard of them.
Accordind to the NPR report they have begun to see a need here in the interior of the country. Now they are recruiting citizens as close as North Carolina and Alabama. It seems they want to keep an eye on who businesses hire, where supposed illegal immigrants live, and various Emergency Rooms.
Watch out.
August 28th, 2006 at 10:38 pm
I hate to say it, but there has been a chapter in Morristown since early last year.
Not surprisingly, they have done nothing to identify any business which recruits
and hires illegals — the Feds, howver, did indict the Garcia Labor Company.
The local group has been quite chummy with Carl Whitaker, a faux Native America
who is running for Governor and is also running for President. His “campaign”
headquarters are in Morristown.
Just makes ya want to visit this unique community, huh?
August 29th, 2006 at 5:27 am
Only cuz of the Evil Dead connections and municipal broadband, buddy.
Man, the Minutemen. Goodness gracious, its a good thing this immigration is a problem, or else people’d see the similarities to that one sheet wearing, cross burning cult. I still say that 90% percent of this whole immigration thing is brown fear, just made palatable for the news.
August 29th, 2006 at 6:34 am
“I still say that 90% percent of this whole immigration thing is brown fear, just made palatable for the news.”
D’accord.
August 29th, 2006 at 6:53 am
I think that comparison is a little harsh AT. I haven’t seen or heard anything that would make me equate the Minutemen with the Clan. Comparing a group like that to the KKK is a bit like these creatively challenged politicians referring to each other’s bonehead statements or actions as Hitler like or Nazi like.
Personally I think taking a look at US businesses that are suspected of hiring illegal immigrants is exactly what needs to happen. If the government needs a hand from interested citizens I don’t see the problem, as long as individual rights are being crushed.
These businesses that hire illegal immigrants, whether they are brown or not, are certainly breaking the law and providing bait to entice people outside of our borders to break the law as well. These businesses prey on people whose biggest sin is trying to earn more money to support their families. While they pay them much less than they would have to pay US citizens and offer them less in benefits, if any at all, they profit from raping both the American worker and the poor person who doesn’t yet have the rights or the feeling of security to challenge their employer.
IMO anyone that would do anything to protect the companies that hire undocumented workers is more of a bigot than these ” vigilantes.”
August 29th, 2006 at 7:03 am
So, lets take the next step, Daco, and nail the people who purchase the less expensive offerings sold by the businesses who employ illegal immigrants. Got a subcontractor who hires some mexican masons? Man, nail the contractor. But then nail the real estate company, and the person who eventually buys the house that was bricked for 7 an hour instead of 14.
Yeah, I think thats going too far too.
While I agree that businesses shouldn’t hire illegal immigrants, fact is a lot of what makes our economy boom is that cheap assed brown labor. I’m sure you’ve been on a construction site, or in the back of a resturant. Its idealistic to think that a few laws and punishments would make everything legal, but I really fail to see what the larger problem is. As Joel has pointed out many times, they pay taxes. They spend their money in the community. They do nothing worse than the lower class white people do, so whats the deal?
Dammit, I’m going to have to do a post on this eventually.
August 29th, 2006 at 7:14 am
The deal AT is that we have to keep reminding ourselves that we are a nation of laws. If people are here illegally then they are breaking the law. Don’t get me wrong. I will be the first to say that these folks, at least most of them in my estimation, are here for good reason. They want to better their lives in some way. That’s a good thing.
I’m not an economist and wouldn’t pretend to know the real impact of undocumented immigrants in this country but some communities and states are economically baring the brunt of a federal problem. That’s not a good thing.
Look if our economy is so dependent on cheap labor, fine, fast track the citizenship of those needed so desperately. I couldn’t care less what color the guy is that is stacking bricks or serving you your chimichanga, but they do need to be here legally.
“They do nothing worse than the lower class white people do, so whats the deal?” Not a strong argument AT, and maybe a bit racist.
August 29th, 2006 at 7:17 am
BTW, I like your “next step” senario. As long as people know that the goods or services that they are purchasing have been produced by Mexican slave labor, damn straight nail them too.
August 29th, 2006 at 7:43 am
Bearing what brunt? They can’t get food stamps, I don’t undertand how they get welfare (seeing as how they need everything but a blood sample). Sure, the kids go to schools, but if they were born in the US (as a lot of them are, who crosses the border with kids?), then they’re citizens anyway, just as SA mentioned on the forums (I can cite it here, but that was only after 10 seconds of looking, which is all I allot to a comment citation). If you talk about booting these American kids from school, then damn, thats brown fear.
As to the nation of laws malarky, Daco, fact is we’re a nation of law avoiders. We speed, we (well, some) smoke weed, we litter, from the top on down we find every possible loophole in existing laws, or we make em. I don’t see the law thing being a very valid argument. Yeah, they’re breaking the law. If I anoymously call you a butt pirate on a website, damn, I’ve broken a federal law. As well as a few ‘good taste’ rules, probably.
Finally, I wrote the reverse racism sucker punch line, so don’t try to pull that back on me. They’re lower class. Frequently, you have several families living in the same house. They drive busted up vans. They’re ’swarthy’. Thats the only reason I can think of why people are getting so worked up, because I haven’t seen any Mexicans breaking into your house or stealing your daughters.
If its a white guy living that way, they’re good ol boys. If you’re going to come back and say you don’t know what I’m talking about, then we both know you’re full of crap.
Butt pirate.
August 29th, 2006 at 8:11 am
“I don’t see the problem, as long as individual rights are being crushed.”
Heh.
August 29th, 2006 at 8:22 am
LOL
August 29th, 2006 at 8:29 am
“As to the nation of laws malarky, Daco, fact is we’re a nation of law avoiders.”
Sorry AT, avoiding the law doesn’t make it go away. Why not change the law as I suggested?
If more poor people are needed to operate this country then why not just make it easier for us to bring in more poor people to work?
And yes…the companies that wire undocumented workers are breaking the law in the worst way because they prey on these people.
As for kids in school, I agree I’m not aware of people dragging their kids across the border, but I personally think the law should be changed.
A pregnant woman who manages to cross the border just in time to birth a child in the US shouldn’t be rewarded by her child being called a citizen of the US. Sorry, you may disagree.
August 29th, 2006 at 8:50 am
Why not, Daco? That kid’ll likely grow up to be every bit as productive as you or I. What right do we have to the fat life over any of these people?
August 29th, 2006 at 11:17 am
BTW, that municipal broadband is funded solely (at this point) by all taxpayers in the county fer over $20 million bucks, and at the best of all possible outcomes, will give service to maybe 7000 people. That’s one hell of a waste of tax bonds, and when the operation fails, as 90% of such utility-operated systems do, again, all utility customers and countywide taxpayers will have to pay for it.
Charter Communications has had countywide broadband available for 4 years.
What possible reason could prompt government to fund and finances a biz to compete in the private sector?
Also, broadband is available via phone and satellite companies.
Sorry, but the municipal broadband idea just makes no sense to me and uses up finances that could go to decrease the two to three year delay in getting city services once an area is annexed.
But, yeah, we got Evil Dead!! and me, of course! :)
And for what it’s worth - the similarities to the Klan and these Minutemen- it’s racial intimidation.
August 29th, 2006 at 11:52 am
Sorry Joe, wasn’t aware of the racial intimidation. Can you point me in the general direction of some evidence of that?
August 29th, 2006 at 12:08 pm
Don’t know about actual victims of intimidation, but I don’t know why anyone would support these bums.
Ye may know them by the company they keep:
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=557
http://www.adl.org/PresRele/Extremism_72/4255_72.asp
August 29th, 2006 at 12:29 pm
According to their website…
“MMP has no affiliation with, nor will we accept any assistance by or interference from, separatists, racists, or supremacy groups.â€
http://www.minutemanproject.com/default.asp?contentID=1
August 29th, 2006 at 12:36 pm
If I could name a specific instance which I witnessed I would report it to the authorities of course. That said, here’s a section of a story from last August from the Tennessee Independent Media:
“Alarmed by recent hate crimes, such as the July indictment of an East Tennessee ex-Klan member who was caught in a plan to plant pipe bombs under buses transporting Hispanic migrant workers, Alianza del Pueblo, a local Hispanic advocacy center, is leading a community effort to demonstrate support for tolerance and diversity over hatred and division. The rally will feature speakers from the immigrant, African American and Native American communities, as well as from the broader Morristown community.
In addition to the recent bombing incident, and the vandalism of a Mexican Grocery store by Neo-Nazi sympathizers in the nearby town of Maryville, there have been reports of Tennessee Minutemen members impersonating police officers, and attempting to turn in Hispanics to local immigration enforcement. There have even been reports of immigrant disappearances, as Morristown Resident Alicia Johnson states, “There are several local Hispanics who recently vanished, and have not been heard from again. They left all their belongings behind, and neither their friends nor families have heard from them since.â€
The link for the story:
http://www.tnimc.org/feature/display/6629/index.php
August 29th, 2006 at 12:59 pm
Well Joe, it doesn’t sound like the ex-clan member made any claim to be affiliated with the Minuteman project, and I assume this cretin was charged with his crimes and will at some point pay for them.
I know that the “Neo-Nazi sympathizers in the nearby town of Maryville†were busted and, as I recall, found guilty of their crimes but I didn’t hear of any link to the Minuteman project.
The problem that I have with this story is that it is pretty specific until it mentions the minuteman project. “…there have been reports of Tennessee Minutemen members impersonating police officers, and attempting to turn in Hispanics to local immigration enforcement.†Who reported it? When was it reported?
I don’t know anything at all except for what I have read online and seen on television about these Minuteman project guys, but I still don’t see any signs that they are doing anything to convince me that “it’s racial intimidation.â€
Sounds to me as if you guys disagree with their politics and would like to strengthen your argument against them by linking them to crazy militia groups and hate groups. If they are in fact in anyway tied to any hate group, and they may be, I will gladly apologize for wasting your time.
August 29th, 2006 at 1:32 pm
Likewise lacking is a single report of the local Minutemen protesting outside a business they claim
is hiring illegals or selling fake documents. Also lacking are protests against landlords who rent
two-bedroom apartments to over a dozen Hispanics.
Given these absences, and the reality of the rallies they do hold, which malign immigrants legal
or not, then, however mistakenly, I see them as a source of intimidation.
Local police chief Roger Overholt also termed their group as part of a ‘credible threat” when state,
local and federal officers surrounded an anti-illegal immigrant rally in May of this year.
August 29th, 2006 at 1:39 pm
Daco, some people like their cucumbers pickled.
I’m not linking them to a hate group, although what I said was:
“or else people’d see the similarities to that one sheet wearing, cross burning cult.”
Similarities. Here goes:
KKK: Founded to resist reconstruction, the arrival of new people/culture from the nouth inseminating the southern land, as well as freed slaves getting jobs, taking government benefits, and just generally being in the same neighborhood.
MM: Founded to resist illegal immigration, the arrival of new people/culture from the south inseminating the land, as well as these people getting jobs, taking government benefits, and just generally being in the same neighborhood.
Since you’ve been so uptight on links, and argument strengtheners, theres some stuff for you.
However, the jist of this thing is what I said up there, I want you to tell me that you believe, head to toes, that the first and foremost motivator in this thing is something other than racism. The Minutemen represent those who don’t want these dirty Mexicans dating their daughters, and you and I (and Joe) know it. The rest of it is window dressing.
I got no beef with Mexicans, and I think that informs my opinion of illegal immigration.
August 29th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
Joe, man, Overholt perceived everybody as a friggin threat at that thing. Seemed a bit jackbooted, as you mentioned.
August 29th, 2006 at 1:54 pm
AT, I can see that you are getting emotional about this thread. This is your house and I’m not going to raise my voice here to make a point.
Bowing out.
August 29th, 2006 at 1:59 pm
Dude, where do you see anything about emotional? Bow out now, and you’re a girl.
I’m interested in you honestly answering my question.
August 29th, 2006 at 2:29 pm
Yeah, you pegged Overholt, no doubt. I cringed at using his fear-mongering.
The wild hysteria that marked that day, though, makes me ponder if officials are
in fact very aware of how dangerously racist the community has become. Or, that
perhaps they need to haul out the Big Guns in order to justify bloated spending.
August 29th, 2006 at 6:42 pm
Okay I’m back…and I ain’t no girl either you butt-pirate.
AT, have you bothered to read what the Minutemen say about themselves on their website? http://www.minutemanproject.com/default.asp?contentID=2
Sorry man, I don’t see anything racist about this group on its face. I have no doubt that there are a bunch of gun toting toothless goobers that would like to identify with this group because the action that they take at the border is obviously opposing a group of people that aren’t white. That doesn’t make this group or their actions racist.
You list your summary of reasons why the KKK and the MmP were formed, but you didn’t get either of them right. The KKK was formed for the reasons that you mentioned and many more. The MmP was formed for the reasons listed in the link above.
The way I see it, the KKK was formed by a bunch of people that wanted to, by using illegal means, stop others that weren’t breaking the law. The MmP was started by people that want to use legal means to stop others that most certainly are breaking the law.
You can bait me with all the “Brown People†speak all you want but my arguments are not racist and neither are the actions that you and Joe have attributed to the MmP.
“However, the jist of this thing is what I said up there, I want you to tell me that you believe, head to toes, that the first and foremost motivator in this thing is something other than racism. The Minutemen represent those who don’t want these dirty Mexicans dating their daughters, and you and I (and Joe) know it. The rest of it is window dressing.â€
“I’m interested in you honestly answering my question.â€
I would be lying if I told you that I knew what the “first and foremost motivator in this thing is,†other than to say that until I learn that this group is doing something racist, I will take them at their published word. What the Minutemen represent to you and Joe is obviously something different from what they represent to me, so I can only answer for myself here and say that for me the motivator is not racism. If anyone thinks it is then they don’t know me very well at all.
As the great Forrest Gump said, “That’s all I’ve got to say about that.”
August 29th, 2006 at 8:08 pm
Heh, this is a disscussion like from back in the day. About time.
I don’t know if any of you all listened to the NPR piece, but what it brings out is the haphazard way they go about executing their mission. For instance the reporter references their tactic of going to E.R.s and taking pictures of folks they claim are illegals. How exactly do you recognize an illegal sitting in an E.R.?
Daco, I’ll agree w/ you that we are a nation of laws. That can’t be taken too lightly. That’s where the Minutemen get questionable in my book. They’re vigilantes. Let’s let our duly elected officials uphold our laws and let’s hold our sherriffs, etc, accountable. We don’t need, as you said, a “bunch of gun toting toothless goobers” going about protecting mama and apple pie.
There’s not much more dangerous than a do-gooder with a gun.
August 29th, 2006 at 8:15 pm
They don’t carry guns Bos…that was part of the appeal for me.
Ordinarily I would agree that our elected and appointed officials should be trusted to do their jobs. How many undocumented aliens do they say are in the U.S. right now? Millions? Are our elected and appointed officials doing their jobs?
August 29th, 2006 at 9:04 pm
Heh, Bos. Thought you started something and ran away.
I’m content, however, with just sitting here and reading stuff.
August 29th, 2006 at 9:11 pm
Hey, AT, this is fun.
And as for the overall impact of the Minutemen — it seems their efforts might best be served
if they protested wherever Bush appeared in public, or challenged their reps in Congress.
Until his I’m Gonna Reform Immigration speech this spring, his administration had prosecuted
3 companies for violating immigration laws, whereas during Clinton’s tenure, the number was over 200.
August 29th, 2006 at 9:24 pm
Joe, I couldn’t agree more.
August 29th, 2006 at 9:26 pm
BTW, gotta a link for those numbers?
August 29th, 2006 at 10:25 pm
You know, Daco, I have trouble getting past the fact they’re vigilantes and thereby taking the law into their own hands.
You ask, “Are our elected and appointed officials doing their jobs?” How is this question on your part different than when AT asked if we’re not a country of law evaders? Simply because some have failed at their jobs doesn’t mean we skirt the system, in this case by some sort of vigilanteism.
August 29th, 2006 at 10:37 pm
Na, it’s easy Bos. Are our elected or appointed officials being effective at stopping or even slowing the flow of undocumented aliens across our borders? If they are, then there isn’t a problem.
Actually Bos, it’s easier than that. They aren’t taking the law into their own hands at all. They aren’t making arrests, nor are they prosecuting crime and they aren’t even holding prisoners in jail…so no they aren’t taking the law into their own hands at all. They are, as we called tattletales when I was a kid, “narcs.” They alert law enforcement when the law is being broken.
Now, if you have trouble with that I really don’t have any further arguments for you. It would appear that you just don’t want to stop illegal immigration.
August 29th, 2006 at 10:52 pm
Daco, my memory was a little off - here’s the quote from the Washington Post story:
“Between 1999 and 2003, work-site enforcement operations were scaled back 95 percent by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which subsequently was merged into the Homeland Security Department. The number of employers prosecuted for unlawfully employing immigrants dropped from 182 in 1999 to four in 2003, and fines collected declined from $3.6 million to $212,000, according to federal statistics.
“In 1999, the United States initiated fines against 417 companies. In 2004, it issued fine notices to three.”
The link for the story:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/18/AR2006061800613.html?referrer=email&referrer=email
August 30th, 2006 at 5:51 am
I’m back.
“It would appear that you just don’t want to stop illegal immigration”
I’d amend that, in my case, to ‘it would appear that I don’t see illegal immigration as a major concern of our day, or as a threat to the nation’.
It ain’t easy to come over the border. People are still doing it. I like the approach of seeing if we can help Mexico maybe not suck so much that people want to take a 2 day hike across a desert and risk getting arrested by foreign law officers. I fail to see why people are getting worked up over it in 2006, and call it a 100% “don’t look in the middle east, or at the economy or gas prices for that matter” snow job for the election year. A mountain out of a molehill, if you will.
Sure, I’d love to stop illegal immigration, right after we fix health care, figure out a decent SSI patch for my sorry ass in 50 or so years, ease dependance on foreign oil, curb these tendancies to get high school kids killed in Eden, and _____________ (add your own genuine problem here).
Yesterday, we were talking about the whole brown fear thing, and I suppose its just going to have to be a bone of contention. I would still maintain, but could never prove, that the motivator for just about everybody adamantly resolving to chuck illegals out of the country is either light racism, or strong ethnocentrism, and there isn’t much excuse for either in 2006.
Is a job threatened? Well, maybe that shiny capitalist system needs some more bondo.
August 30th, 2006 at 7:47 am
“I fail to see why people are getting worked up over it in 2006…” I’m not. If you recall, I originally took issue with your comparison of the MmP to the KKK.
I think that I agree with you guys on many more points than we disagree, but I sure as hell have had fun poking a sharp stick atcha.
BTW Joe, thanks for the link and the clarification.
September 2nd, 2006 at 9:15 am
I do not want to whitewash the Minutemen with the same paint as some of those other racist groups, but whenever there is an immigrant rally here in East Tennessee those that show up representing that side are mostly comprised of skinheaded zeroes who believe that wresting is real and the moon shot was a fake.
September 2nd, 2006 at 10:29 am
How do they represent the Minutemen Jenn? Tee shirts, membership cards, funny handshakes?
September 3rd, 2006 at 9:01 am
This bunch who calls themselves “Minutemen” obviously take their name from the amount of time it takes for them to count to three.
September 3rd, 2006 at 9:04 am
And I am tired of the persistent arguement that the Hispanics are “taking away our jobs”. I don’t know to many locals who want to ride in the back of a pickup truck twenty miles to pick tomatoes in Rutledge - do you??
September 4th, 2006 at 9:56 am
I’m probably paraphrasing, here, but the phrase “you will know them by the company they keep” comes to mind.
There’s a reason that so many people associate skin heads and racists with the Minutemen.
September 4th, 2006 at 10:07 am
That has a familiar ring to it, GAC (see August 29th, 2006 at 12:08 pm).
September 4th, 2006 at 10:11 am
Yeah, we argued past that days ago GAC.
September 4th, 2006 at 10:23 am
Heh.
See, I don’t pay much attention to these serious posts.
Usually pretty boring, they are.
September 4th, 2006 at 10:47 am
Actually I think this one was one of the best in a while. Your ole man’s blood pressure got up a bit.