Arizona border vigilantes -- pro or con?

Great Debates
1

Armed vigilante groups in Arizona are patrolling the Mexican border, trying to keep illegal immigrants out. This article appears somewhat sympathetic to the illegal immigrants. It points out that American benefits from the immigrants’ work, and that the vigilantes may behave illegally.

OTOH the vigilantes might argue that they are upholding the law in a situation where the INS and other law enforcement groups are failing to do so. Also, some of the illegal immigrants are dangerous. One shot and killed a park ranger a month or two ago.

So, should we applaud these vigilantes or denounce them?

2

Denounce them of course.

Marc

3

Let’s see… an armed group without a shred of legal authority patrolling the borders of the state, rather than their own property lines. What’s the term for that again? Oh yes; it’s an “outlaw organization.”

I’d have to say denounce.

4

Applaud.

If the gov’t refuses to enforce the law, what recourse do these citizens on the border have?

And whatever the purported economic benefits of illegal immigrants may be, they are illegal. Not legal. As in, shouldn’t be here. Should be elsewhere.

The governments refusal (through both Republican and Democratic regimes) to guard the borders is criminal, IMHO. The protection of our borders is one of the few things I expect the gov’t to do, yet they manage to hose that up wonderfully, one side for votes, the other for profit. Disgusting.

5

Robert:

Prove that the government is refusing to enforce the law. Prove that the government is refusing to guard the borders.

In other words, “Cite?”

One vote here for “What Xenophon said.”

6

I find the concept that vigilateism might be a good thing so utterly stupid that I am not even going to address it. But I do want to address one point:

>> Also, some of the illegal immigrants are dangerous. One shot and killed a park ranger a month or two ago.

This is so biased and unfair and shameful that I do not know where to begin. The man was a murderer fleeing from Mexican authorities. To somehow link him to those who come to the US looking for work is despicable. There is no group in this earth who does not have a member who has not committed some big crime. Shall we judge Americans by their worst criminals? In discussing Jews would it be fair to bring up some awful criminal and imply somehow that the rest of Jews somehow share some similarity? Shame on you december.

7

How many thousands of troops do we have guarding other nation’s borders? How many of our troops, paid for by our tax dollars, do we have guarding ours?

We have what is basically an open border in the south. Also in the north, but not too many Canadians come charging into America illegally.

If the gov’t was serious about protecting our southern border, the BP would have a decent budget. We would have our troops on the borders until the situation was under control. We’d be doing a lot of things differently, if the whores of both parties would quit worrying about votes and profit and would worry about enforcing the borders.

But alas, the gov’t, at its highest levels, does not care, so we have our current sad situation. Ranchers are supposed to be happy to have a bunch of mexicans come charging onto their property, and are not supposed raise a finger to protect their land. Nice.

8

Let’s see… heavily armed uncontrolled and unanswerable militia easily infiltratable by xenophobes and racists patrolling the border looking for targets?

Absolutely not.

9

Bingo. Vigilanteism seems to me bad at any time. There is no training, little discipline and will undoubtedly be abused by nuts who think that John Wayne movies reflect “how we, by God, ought to handle these (enter name of the enemy du jour).”

10

You tell me. How about some facts, instead of rhetoric?

What American troops are there guarding what other nation’s borders, and where? All I can think of offhand is the troops on the DMZ in Korea, and that’s only about 300 soldiers.

So, where else? The 5,000 or so troops in Saudi Arabia are mainly Air Force personnel, and they are located at Air Force bases (duh), and they are there mainly to monitor the “no fly” zones–they’re not spread out along the border to physically keep Iraq from invading S.A.

The troops in Afghanistan aren’t there to keep Pakistanis out. I doubt if you could pay the Pakistanis to take it.

It looks to me like there are “zero” thousands of American troops guarding other nations’ borders.

The U.S.-Canadian border is, famously, the longest unguarded border in the world, so I guess that the answer, again, is “zero” troops guarding that border.

And the U.S.-Mexico border is guarded by a large fence and the Border Patrol, who are agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which is a division of the Department of Justice, which is a federal Civil Service agency, and thus is not a military arm of the government, and so once again, the answer seems to be “zero”. There are “zero” troops guarding our border with Mexico.

So, your point is what? Just the fine hand-waving rhetoric of, “We have THOUSANDS of troops guarding other borders, but hardly any at all guarding the Mexican border!”

That we should station the Army along the Mexican border, to keep out the illegals? Wouldn’t this be tantamount to declaring war on Mexican nationals? I believe there are rules in the Constitution (or perhaps it’s just in the general legal code) for how the Federal government is allowed to dispose of Army troops. Don’t they need a Congressional okay or something, to dispatch troops somewhere? Let alone to station them along the Mexican border and sic 'em on any border crossers.

That’s really stupid.

The ranchers don’t have to “protect” their land against illegal immigrants. The illegals don’t want their land. The illegals wouldn’t have their land if you handed it to them on a platter with watercress around it. All the illegals want is to get across the land, to a place where there are jobs, so unless the ranchers in question are operating Burger Kings on their property and are worried that the illegals might sneak in and start handing out Kids Meals at the driveup without anybody noticing, the ranchers don’t have a thing to worry about.

Unless they’re worried about the illegals littering, or peeing into the bushes, or chipping off little souvenir bits of rocks, or picking the flowers, or riding ATVs up and down and totally destroying the local landforms, hey, that desert soil can take centuries to form, don’t these damn wetbacks know anything about microbiotic soil crust…?

Or do you mean “their land”, as in “America”? The ranchers have to protect America from the alien invaders? Geez, that’s really stupid…

When Mexico declares war on the United States and formally announces that it intends to retake California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, by force of arms, then Joe Citizen will have the right to shoot any Mexicans who show up on his ranchland. But not until then.

11

Suppose, instead of the current situation, the sheriffs of Yuma, Pima, Santa Cruz, and Cochise counties swore in and trained additional deputies, and put them to work guarding the southern edges of those counties.

What, if any, objections might someone offer to that plan?

  • Rick
12

Very few (except for a bit of scepticism about the assertation that more manpower will help the situation, and that the problem of illegals needs to have that much money thrown at it, but I could be convinved on both points).

Then the agents would have proper training and responsibilities, and be aware of the rights even illegals posess. If the vigilantes are convinced that more manpower along the border is needed, then they should lobby Congress and the White House to increase the border patrol, not do it themselves.

People have the right to defend their own property. They may be able to detain trespassers on their own land (maybe, IANAL).

Looking at the article, however, I also wonder if these groups as truely armed vigilantes, or if that’s a mexican urban legend. The most active group seems to be a glorified and narrow-minded neighborhood watch.

13

The right to petition the government for a redress of grievances? Ya know, the first amendent to the Constitution of the United States.

14

Bricker: *Suppose, instead of the current situation, the sheriffs of Yuma, Pima, Santa Cruz, and Cochise counties swore in and trained additional deputies, and put them to work guarding the southern edges of those counties.

What, if any, objections might someone offer to that plan?*

That it’s unlikely to work. As this 2001 article notes,

As long as there are jobs in the US for Mexican workers who can’t earn a living in Mexico, people will continue to be willing to risk their lives to cross the border. Heck, using that annual $3 billion to build new infrastructure and support economic development in Mexico as a gift would probably cut down illegal immigration more effectively than our current policy does.

And adding armed vigilante border patrols into the mix is not likely to help in any way. Sounds a lot too much like the self-described mission of groups such as the Ku Klux Klan for my comfort. Official trained sheriff’s deputies would probably be more law-abiding, but IMHO not significantly more effective in the long run.

15

Drudge links to this article which states that the AZ militia in question is rather small, about 50 people.

My $.02: we need the military on the border.

16

To keep out the Evil Aliens who are destroying the American Way of Life?

Gimme a break. :rolleyes:

17

If you do not like what the government is doing you have the right to vote for another government, you have the right to petition, you have the right to run for office yourself, you have the right to express your opinion o what the government is doing, what you do not have is the right to usurp government functions or to take the law into your own hands. That’s the way it works with civilized people in civilized countries at least. YMMV.

18

And, how’s that look to Mexico? The basic idea in Life is to try to get along with your neighbors, and deploying troops along the border to keep out illegals looks darn unfriendly, doncha think?

Not to mention stupid, and paranoid. Fox would be well within his rights to ask, “Hey, if y’all really don’t want us there, why not just enforce the laws you already have penalizing employers who hire illegals?”

And what would troops be expected to do? Shoot them? Or just detain them? What if they didn’t consent to be “detained”? How soon would it take them to discover that the GIs won’t shoot, so if you can run like a Martian scopolomander off into the bushes, you stand a good chance of getting across?

From what I’ve read, many of the ones who are caught simply give up as soon as the INS guys spot them because they know that they’ll just be trucked across the border and dropped off, and they can try again the next day. So if the troops are given permission to shoot them, how soon before the illegals start shooting back, given that it’s suddenly not a game anymore?

Or should the troops just detain them and stow them away in a permanent prison camp somewhere? Again, how long before the word got out that if you got caught, you’d rot in a secret prison camp somewhere in Utah, and how long before the illegals started fighting back?

You put soldiers on the border and you’ve got yourself a war. That’s how it works.

19

[aside]I found this tidbit from the article amusing:

[/aside]
Vigilantism rarely, if ever, should be applauded.

20

Back in the 1950’s, a number of Northerners went to the South to work in opposition to Jim Crow. Some of their activities violated local and state laws. We consider these people to be heroes. What’s the difference?

Incidentally, your earlier comment was touchingly naive:

This fleeing murderer was one of the illegal Mexicans illegally crossing into Arizona. No doubt most of the illegal immigrants are looking for work, but we have no way of knowing how many of them may be criminals, or smugglers, or anything else. Note that the vigilantes are risking their lives, just as the freedom riders did, because they don’t know what they’ll run into.

Don’t forget that every one of these people was willing to break the immigration law to come here and, if they’re seeking work, they’re willing to violate the employment laws, too.