| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Minutemen build their own fence against migrants |
| 2007-01-03 |
| Two men stand working in the afternoon sun just metres from the United States-Mexico border. Clad in hard hats and work shirts, tool belts slung around their waists, they have been toiling at this spot in the Arizona desert since early October. One holds an iron stanchion while the other bolts a horizontal bar to it. But before the joint can be tightened, the whole structure starts to sway. A shout goes up: "Watch out!" The five metre pole lurches toward the dry red earth, bringing its neighbour down with it. The latest weapon in the fight against undocumented migrants looks a little shaky. The iron and steel fence is the latest project from the Minutemen, the volunteer group of anti-immigration activists that has placed itself at the sharp end of the immigration debate since launching a highly publicised series of border watches in 2005. Now, frustrated at what the group sees as the inaction of government, it has taken matters a step further, building its own border fence at a cost of around $1-million at one of the busiest points on the line, 144km from Tucson. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #14 "They'll just go around this fence in the way they go around others," says Daniel Griswold of the Cato Institute think tank in Washington DC. "All a fence will do is direct people to more remote areas and create the likelihood of more deaths." Just sipping some tea, wondering about the world inside my Think Tank. |
| Posted by: Spomort Greling4204 2007-01-03 21:58 |
| #13 BTW it sucks that donations aren't tax deductable |
| Posted by: Jan 2007-01-03 20:15 |
| #12 donate photos of trash left by illegals crossing Hope this helps |
| Posted by: Jan 2007-01-03 20:14 |
| #11 Each mile of fence built by private dollars on private land pushes the illegals further out into the deserts and wastelands along the border. In a lot of cases, the only water for miles is the ranch's well/cattle tanks, and those are getting destroyed by the illegals/vandals. So if you put a good fence that is hard to cross or cut on your land, it will force the illegals to go around and cuts down on their survivability. That makes it less likely they will cross in your zone, and acts a small deterrent. A few hundred or so of these fences would actually have a major impact on illegals, since there are large sections of the border that no one in their right mind would try to cross on foot. |
| Posted by: Shieldwolf 2007-01-03 18:11 |
| #10 After building this mile, build the next and the next. |
| Posted by: ed 2007-01-03 17:44 |
| #9 Reforming Mexico is the only long term solution. So the Mexicans should go home and get to it, instead of coming here to commit the crimes our native-born citizens and legal immigrants won't. |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2007-01-03 17:41 |
| #8 You could always ask Ethiopia to invade Mexico and clear out the problem. |
| Posted by: Excalibur 2007-01-03 15:43 |
| #7 I think we have a few better options than invading Mexico. I feel that we need to enforce the laws that we already have on the books about needing to be here legally to work, live, and travel within our country. If you couldn't work being here illegally yes the crime rate would go up, but I think in the long run we would see less. Also if they weren't able to get housing they wouldn't be able to stay here. We need to make it hard for them to live here, and stop giving away the farm with our emergency medicaid for illegals. Our hospital is full of illegals costing taxpayers loads of money. The hospitals have hired folks that all they do is sign these illegal patients up for emergency medicaid and give them temporary social security cards for the new born babies. Please, I see this every day. The health care and education abuses hopefully would go down as well, without our making it so damn easy to stay here. I feel that's why they come here, for the free health care, education, and all the other percs that we hand over to them on a regular basis. A fence helps when these laws aren't followed. I have always liked the idea of a fence. Put it where they're building the freeway that will run from Mexico clear up through to Canada. Stop this freeway idea as well! No one ever asked us about this. We were just informed about this globalization crap happening. If we don't stop this illegal activity soon, our country will sadly be in ruin. The poor education level of folks coming into our country (some can't even read spanish) and the high level of education of folks being exported = tragedy. It's always the lowest denominator. In a few more years our country will be in deep shit. Is there a donation site that we can give to this cause? You go Minutemen! |
| Posted by: Jan 2007-01-03 15:04 |
| #6 But there is a flaw in the Minutemen's plan. While the US-Mexico border stretches for 3 188km, from California to Florida, the Minuteman fence when finished will be just 1,6km long. Ummm, what map is the Mail lookin' at? At last count, I thought the US/Mexico border ranged from Cali to Texas. Of course, I'm not a highly enlightened liberal within the beltway, so whadda I know? And, I usually agree with many things the CATO Institute says/does, but this is NOT one of those issues. |
| Posted by: BA 2007-01-03 13:54 |
| #5 A small amount of fence can make a big difference when it is put in the right spot. 1.6k does not seem like much, but that is a very significant obstacle in the hot months, one third of the year. It is complementary to the rough terrain. It also significantly slows down the illegals, and makes their movements much easier to track, channelizing them. Across the border, there are literally as few as a dozen major but narrow corridors. If you fence across those areas, the degree of difficulty jumps. This is why, despite congress, a government private piecemeal effort will start paying off. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-01-03 13:31 |
| #4 Reforming Mexico is the only long term solution. As long as the politicians rob the people blind down there the brave folks will try to go wherever they can to earn cash to get by. Mexico has been a failed state for a century and it's time we did something about it. Either (a) Invade and clean up the place or (b) isolate it and let it finally fall and hope something better rises from the ashes. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2007-01-03 12:07 |
| #3 More slanted “news” from “The Wail.” Of course, the Minutemen are portrayed as a group of bumbling “anti-immigration” xenophobes spoon-fed on Fox News propaganda. Whilst a cheerleader for an open border policy such as Griswold is portrayed as erudite scholar fighting the good fight for the “undocumented worker” against the “restrictionists” attempt at failed draconian policies of “more walls and barbed wire, entire divisions of troops at the border, the massive deportation of undocumented workers at great economic and human cost.” Spit! |
| Posted by: DepotGuy 2007-01-03 10:40 |
| #2 Gee, why not put a 50 cal at the ends of the fence ? Then, the wetbacks would be herded into the |
| Posted by: wxjames 2007-01-03 09:37 |
| #1 "All a fence will do is direct people to more remote areas and create the likelihood of more deaths." It's a feature, not a bug. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2007-01-03 09:12 |