America's Mexican Experience

America's Mexican Experience: Indignant Citizens on Both Sides of the Border

"Illegal" immigration has been taking place since 1848 when we finagled present-day California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas from Mexico in the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo. Except for survey markers set up soon after the war with Mexico, the border has been marked only by the Rio Grande River, barbed wire and short stretches of a medium gauge metal fence. In other words, the border has been and remains virtually 100% porous.

Adventurers, outlaws, smugglers, mercenaries, and ordinary folks from both sides of the border crossed largely unhindered, except for sporadic attempts by the U.S. Cavalry "Buffalo Soldiers," based near the border at Fort Huachuca in the territory of Arizona, to suppress weapons smuggling. As the U.S. developed its newly acquired territories, the requisite labor came mostly from . . . where else? Today, except for the increasing number of laborers who cross into el Norte, in response to mushrooming growth, nothing has much changed. Except, that is, Americans are becoming aware of the problem, exacerbated by security awareness born out of 9/11/01 and the serious tax burden on taxpayers to support burgeoning social services in support of the "illegals."

The "Minutemen" Project (not to be confused with the 1960s-1970s ultra right-wing organization of Robert Welch) was well timed. A brash young Californian, Chris Simcox, recently transplanted to Arizona in search of self-employment, bought an obscure, marginal weekly newspaper (The Tombstone Tumbleweed) in the tourist-trap, movie-set village of Tombstone. With help from a California friend, Jim Gilchrist, Simcox formed the Minutemen and tapped into the Internet for "volunteers" to "force Washington to do the job it is failing to do," according to him, "to seal off" the border.

To seal or not to seal--that is the question: The Minuteman Project caught the fancy of the national and international media, turning the project into some real--even if its self-declared charter is at cross purposes with the U.S. Border Patrol's mission, which is not to "seal off" the border, but to "secure" it (that is, to maintain and manage the environment, and to control who enters--when and how). This small mission detail gets lost in the discussions and debates. In the face of hundreds of thousands of illegal entries annually and the specter of Al Qaeda and other evil-doers carrying their WMD devices into the country, in addition to the untenable, mushrooming social service costs to state governments, the Minuteman Project is forcing a public debate and politicians are being pressed "to do something."

Governor Richardson (D-New Mexico) recently declared a state of emergency in their states. Gov. Richardson, whose state has been officially and tangibly accommodating to Mexican illegal-immigrants (issues driver's licenses, pays for schooling, awards scholarships, etc.), led off.

Gov. Napolitano (D-Arizona), , quickly followed suit. Her action was a bit puzzling, because the governor, a long-time pro-immigrant advocate, has tried her best to block implementation of Proposition 200, passed last November by Arizonans (requiring voters to show a valid ID at polling stations, and requiring state officials to dispense services only to authorized, legal residents).

And this week, the "Governator" (R-California) is said to be interested in a similar action designed, of course, to extract money from federal coffers, as well as to prepare for the possibility of placing their states' national guards on duty at the border--a very contentious step that would collide head-on with Posse Comitatus, the protocol that since 1878 forbids using active duty military to "execute the laws" of the land.

Is this a Red State-Blue State issue? Hardly. Historically, both Republicans and Democrats have preferred to remain silent. Business-oriented Republicans traditionally ask: "What would our vegetable, fruit, and cotton farmers do without itinerant farm labor?" Socially-oriented Democrats assert "promoting people first," which generally translates to a hands-off "open border" policy. So the border has remained porous to the satisfaction of all parties--until now.

Enter Simcox's Minutemen Project about a year ago. After being bashed by both sides of the immigration issue, the Minutemen survived as a media darling--a good story having the elements of poverty, racism, national security, and politics. After a month-long vigilance in April along an 11-mile stretch (of Arizona's 750-mile-border) of desert scrub and rusty barbed wire, Simcox claimed triumphantly and the media reported enthusiastically (and demagogically) that the Minutemen had drastically reduced the number of illegals entering the country. The claim was technically correct--along the 11-mile patrolled stretch, many fewer illegals crossed in April. What wasn't reported was that the illegals merely went east or west of the Patriots' sector and forged ahead without missing a beat.

Although that little discrepancy isn't widely publicized, we locals know the truth. Here's what a local blacksmith near the border wrote to a local paper during all the hoopla:

So much attention for just sitting around in lawn chairs

To the Editor:

The Minutemen Project was much ado about nothing. I have a blacksmith shop on a piece of land along the border in Cochise County. I have a front row seat on the tidal wave of humanity said to be moving north, [but before the Minutemen] I could count on one hand the number of times that I have seen the travelers near my land. The Border Patrol has everything under control.

I was puzzled when the Minutemen set up camp just below me on the Border Road. That's a section where Mexico and the United States converge on different sides of the road. Of course, the Border Patrol has always kept a close watch on this area. But they didn't need any assistance. [I'm guessing that] the Minutemen felt safer where they were surrounded by so many patrol vehicles.

On several occasions in April, I drove the Border Road from end to end. I counted far less than two hundred people they claimed had volunteered--more like a dozen or so--in three or four cars and three or four recreational vehicles. They sat on folding chairs with their binoculars, and waved little American flags.

One day, I saw a volunteer couple with a microphone and a camera "documenting" a short man, standing on the Mexican side of the road, wearing a western style cowboy hat and a T-shirt that said "Undocumented Border Patrol." This was some kind of souvenir set-up, I guess.

On the American side of the road stood a couple of grandfatherly looking men and three teenage boys. They couldn't have been locals, because they were all hatless in the desert sun. I think they were initiating the boys, the older men lecturing and the young men listening. I'd guess they brought the boys up to the border to watch the flood of illegals, but it had turned out to be more like a snipe hunt at summer camp.

The Minutemen were not here to "help the Border Patrol." They were here only for the photo ops. This was not a real event. It was a media mirage. Lou Dobbs (CNN) reported untruthfully that "thousands" of Minutemen had volunteered. Bay Buchanan was solemnly worshipful of the volunteers. Sean Hannity (FOX) sounded ecstatic on his radio program as he interviewed a Minuteman and an anonymous Border Patrol agent. Governor Schwarzenegger of California also patted them on the back for doing a terrific job. Senator John McCain of Arizona said he understood their frustration.

The Border Patrol said that they were a nuisance, tripping off all their sensors and causing confusion. I am truly amazed that a dozen people, sitting on lawn chairs in the desert, pissing in the wind, could garner that much attention and such blind devotion.

It was true that a lot (hardly "thousands") of retired and out-of-work volunteers drifted into Tombstone in search of a time-killing adventure with the Minuteman Project. But what wasn't reported was that the county sheriff, an old-fashioned, no-nonsense lawman, knowing the problems a few out-of-state, pistol-packing volunteers, emboldened by beer and boredom, could cause, took direct action. As the wannabe border patrolees came into town, he read each of them a plain-spoken riot act and then quietly urged the obviously unqualified ones to leave his county. Each day he patrolled the 11-mile stretch, making sure the handful of Minutemen were behaving. If anyone had come to the border with the notion of doing a little self-styled "enforcing," Sheriff Devers quickly introduced them to his reality. Fortunately, the Mexican Army, after running a military jeep up and down the Minuteman's sector on the Mexican side the first couple days--undoubtedly scaring the bejeezus out of Simcox's volunteers--wisely withdrew.

Adding a low-key note to the media story, the most vocal and newsworthy opponents of the Project sent their lawyers to the scene: the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center and a couple of the usual left-leaning, publicity-seeking outfits. Alas, all they could do was issue their respective anti-Project statements to the media--there simply weren't enough patriots around to stir up a newsworthy controversy. Chris Simcox, the publicity-savvy organizer, wisely avoided contact with his antagonists; he was seeking only the positive "spin" that CNN and FOX networks generously afforded him. Things almost got out of control when the Al Jazeerah Network announced it was coming to interview the Project!

The view from Mexico: As attentive readers will have deduced, the average Mexican, abused by his own country's ability to provide him work, sees el Norte as the way to escape his misery--and if someone were to ask him about the "ownership" of the land north of the border, he might well answer that it is "naturally" Mexican by virtue of history and culture. At a more sophisticated level, Presidente Vincente Fox, for his own political reasons, seeks to acquire the U.S. government's agreement to accommodate Mexicans who he says have a "natural" right to residence beyond its legal northern boundary. As if poking Mr. Bush in the eye, Señor Presidente okayed the publication and distribution of a "how-to" manual to Mexicans about how to safely undertake the crossing. This little comic-book style booklet even has advice on what to do when encountering U.S. Border patrols. Fox seems bent on pressing the U.S. unrelentingly, taking full advantage of Mexico's considerable leverage on the American economy--not to mention the several billion dollars his countrymen annually send back to their impoverished relatives. So far, however, Señor Fox has managed only to arouse more indignation in the minds of more Americans, who are becoming increasingly aware of this ongoing problem. Even if it's accurate to say that the Minuteman Project is more a media phenomenon, it is also accurate to say that it has been responsible for making more Americans than ever aware of the enormity of the problem.

Solutions, anyone? Should the 2,000 mile-long border be "sealed" as some insist? How and at what cost? What to do about the estimated 7 to 13 million illegals estimated to be living in the U.S.? President Bush favors a program designed to control the ingress and egress of laborers the business community says are sorely required for the agriculture and construction industries. A couple other plans have been proposed by two senators and at least one congressman. But will they see the light of day to become law? And if so, will those plans be adequate and enforced, or will this be a replay of the 1980's efforts to control illegal immigration?

So where are we headed? What will the governors do, now that they've declared a "state of emergency" in their states? Will the plans, hastily put together by a handful of senators and representatives, ever see implementation by Congress? I do have some ideas for a solution to this thorny problem, but that's not the purpose of today's blog. Maybe later.