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Immigration See other Immigration Articles Title: Minutemen Say Volunteer Calls Pouring In Over Border Fence Proposal Minutemen Say Volunteer Calls Pouring In Over Border Fence Proposal By Associated Press Apr 22, 2006 - 12:27:18 am PDT TUCSON, Ariz. -- Volunteer offers are flooding in to a border watch group that said it will build a fence on the Mexican border unless President Bush militarizes the border and adds new security fencing, group spokesmen said Friday. "We've certainly struck a chord and a nerve with the American people on this one," said Chris Simcox, national leader of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, which is conducting monthlong border watch operations in Arizona and more than a half-dozen other states on the Mexican and Canadian borders. Group members are watching for illegal immigrants and smugglers entering the country and are reporting them to federal authorities. Minuteman spokeswoman Connie Hair called the response to the fence proposal unbelievable -- "people wanting to donate, to help build a fence, people wanting a fence on their land." People have called talk radio programs "offering to buy 100 feet of fence," she said. Others have pledged to bring earthmovers to the border, as long as they can operate the machinery themselves, or promised a trade union's assistance. So far, Simcox said, landowners owning a total of some 70 miles of border property have said they would allow Minutemen to build fortified fencing. Of that, about 20 to 25 miles are in Arizona, the busiest illegal entry point on the U.S.-Mexico border, he said. The longest contiguous line is about 15 miles. The rest of the committed land is in California, Texas and New Mexico, he said. Simcox said he hopes to hold construction costs to between $125 and $150 a foot, since labor and equipment will be donated. The Minuteman group envisions fencing fashioned after an Israeli design. It would include a 6-foot deep trench to keep vehicles from crashing through, concertina wire and two 15-foot-high heavy-gauge steel mesh fences with the tops angled outward and separated by an unpaved dirt road. It also would have inexpensive mounted video cameras. Kat Rodriguez, coordinating organizer for the human rights organization Derechos Humanos, called the idea misguided. For the last 10 years of enforcement policies, despite heavy militarization in San Diego and Texas, "migration has failed to be affected in any meaningful way," she said. "Bottom line, it doesn't work. Will that fence stop people from crossing? Absolutely not." She said fencing has only shifted migration patterns. Meanwhile, Minutemen members in California will begin repairing holes in and beneath existing steel-mat fencing about 75 miles east of San Diego on April 29. Tim Donnelly, head of the group's California operations, said volunteers will concentrate on about a 200-yard area near the small town of Boulevard. They'll drive rebar into the ground and weld it in place to fill holes dug beneath the fencing, and also repair holes cut by torch into the steel fencing. The Minutemen also will be repairing barbed wire fencing set back from the wall. "We might make it part of our regular watch," Donnelly said.
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#1. To: Mind_Virus (#0)
I would be wiling to donate money to help build the fence. I'm living in Mass so I can't really get out there, but I'd certainly give money to this.
I say HOORAY for the Minutemen! They are truly American heroes! If I had the money to go, I'd volunteer with the Minutemen.
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