Senator suggests deputizing citizens for border security

[Desertdog]

Senator suggests deputizing citizens for border security
Apr 21, 2005, 12:07 PM
http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=3242155

A Republican senator said Wednesday the government should consider deputizing private citizens, like the Minuteman Patrol in Arizona, to help secure U.S. borders.


Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., said the U.S. Border Patrol also should look to local law enforcement and state officials for help along the most porous parts of the U.S.-Mexico line.

"I wonder sometimes if maybe we're not looking too much to a federal solution," Allard told Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing.

"I happen to believe that those people down along the border that formed the Minutemen organization have some real concerns," Allard said.

Hundreds of civilian volunteers this month are monitoring a 23-mile stretch of the Arizona border.

The volunteers, some of whom are armed, alert authorities when they spot people illegally crossing the border. The volunteers are not allowed to detain anyone.


Immigration advocates and border patrol officials have raised concerns about the volunteers. President Bush has said that he is opposed to "vigilantes" and that the Border Patrol should enforce the border.

More than half of the 1.1 million illegal immigrants apprehended in the United States last year entered at the Arizona border. Recent intelligence suggested al-Qaida terrorists might enter at that point.

Chertoff sidestepped Allard's suggestion to deputize citizens to patrol the border. But the secretary said Border Patrol agents are working with authorities in Arizona.

"Depending on what community you're in, some law enforcement officials want to be involved in and engaged in the process of enforcing the laws against illegal immigration," Chertoff said. "Some don't. I don't think we can make them do it."

The Senate committee focused on security and immigration problems at the Mexico border.

GOP Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, told Chertoff that Congress probably would not significantly raise airline passenger fees as proposed in the Bush administration's 2006 budget.


The spending blueprint would increases fees by $3 per ticket to help finance a $2.2 billion increase in the budget for the Homeland Security Department.

 

[dasmi]

The volunteers, some of whom are armed, alert authorities when they spot people illegally crossing the border. The volunteers are not allowed to detain anyon

They always have to throw that in, don't they?

"The volunteers, some of whom are black..."
"The volunteers, some of whom are white..."
It's a pointless bit of information added to scare the sheep.

 

[Indy7373]

I was noticing the same thing. Nothing like a pointless statement to interrupt the story with a scare line.

 

[Standing Wolf]

I'm proud to tell you I voted for Wayne Allard.

 

[Vernal45]

Depending on what community you're in, some law enforcement officials want to be involved in and engaged in the process of enforcing the laws against illegal immigration," Chertoff said. "Some don't. I don't think we can make them do it."

Well if SOME LEO's dont want to enforce the LAW, or cant be made to, maybe they need a new job.

 

[Henry Bowman]

"I wonder sometimes if maybe we're not looking too much to a federal solution,"

Most of what congress does is not a federal issue. This one, however, is.

 

[bradvanhorn]

"I happen to believe that those people down along the border that formed the Minutemen organization have some real concerns," Allard said.

I don't know if this is good or bad. I feel good that he seems to be interested in the problem, but the mere fact he made this statement makes me wonder... Maybe I'm just paranoid today

President Bush has said that he is opposed to "vigilantes" and that the Border Patrol should enforce the border.

Ah, well of course. This must be why the President decided the undermanned, underfunded Border Patrol should get a whole new 200 agents this year. If I recall correctly, the committee recommended doubling the Border Patrol from 10k to 20k over the next four years, and recommended recruiting at least 2,000 new agents this year alone. Instead the President gives us 200? From my point of view it's obvious the President does not take this issue seriously.

 

[El Tejon]

This seems (at least to me) to make the most political sense. Ask for volunteers, give them a junior G-Man badge and let them hang out with a real life Border Patrol Agent for a hour, give them cell phone and binocs and sit them in the middle of the desert.

The BP gets dedicated volunteers (heck, you probably get guys making computer charts and graphs) and a political out to an intractable problem. Plus, marching around in the desert makes them forget all about the real problems of illegal immigration--the Welfare State and large corporations actively recruiting along the Mexican side of the border.

 

[Lennyjoe]

The Civil Air Patrol was developed during WWII to protect our coasts, why not creat a Civil Border Patrol to protect our borders?

 

[garyk/nm]

Lennyjoe, I saw that you brought up this idea on another post as well, and I would just like to say that this is the best idea that I have heard in a long time. Civil Border Patrol. It has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?
The current administration would, no doubt, consider this a vigilante group and give it no credence, but the idea is still a great one.

 

[Old Fuff]

Vernal45:

>> Well if SOME LEO's dont want to enforce the LAW, or cant be made to, maybe they need a new job. <<

I live in Cochise County, Arizona where the Minutemen have been operating only a few miles from where I sit.

Just to set a few things straight. The reason our local sheriff’s department and various local police departments do not enforce “the law,†is because the federal government –who are the ones who have jurisdiction and are responsible for enforcing immigration laws and border security – refuse to compensate the local law enforcement folks. If the police or sheriff deputies pick up illegal aliens, they have to assume the considerable costs of what follows the arrest, including medical treatment for the prisoners on occasion, housing and feeding them, and whatever. There is no reason the taxpayers in Cochise County – or for that matter, any border county, should have to pick up the tab for doing Uncle Sam’s job while the folks in Washington sit on their dumb butts.

 

[TarpleyG]

Why deputize anyone? What's wrong with US citizens protecting their own damned country, huh???

Greg