MinuteBrains

I've been watching the updates on the Minuteman Project with a great deal of sadness. For those of you that don't know, a group of anti-immigrant volunteers have headed down to the Arizona border, brandishing weapons (for their own protection, they claim), and are out scanning the desert for potential illegal crossings. The claim is that, when they find someone, they'll simply call the US Border Patrol and alert them. Andrew Gumbel in The Independent has pooh-poohed the story, but I think he misses the point. He covers it purely from the angle of the media tiring of the overblown bluster from the Minuteman leaders:

Some, it is true, were armed with 9mm semi-automatic pistols, but most turned up with nothing more threatening than lawn-chairs.

The 1,000 people promised by the Minuteman Project's organisers ended up at just 480, the organisation said. Reporters who attended their inaugural rallies outside two Border Patrol stations in Cochise County, south of Tucson, said there were 150.

A few groups of volunteers ("patrol" would be too grand a word for it) eventually fanned out along the border on Saturday and Sunday, and one alerted the Border Patrol to suspected illegals. But mostly, media crews were left staring at each other, wondering what the fuss was about. When news of the Pope's death hit the South-west at lunchtime on Saturday, several journalists were called home, as the airwaves were bombarded instead with a non-stop diet of mourning and remembrance. As Ray Borne, the mayor of the border town of Douglas, told reporters: "This is a monster created by the media. But by Tuesday it's going to fizzle out."

When and if the media does turn a blind eye, that's when the trouble could really begin.

Illegal immigrants do indeed cross the border every day, but is there any way this kind of thing can end well? You have armed and angry (mostly) white men, recruited on the Internet, with American flags on their trucks and SUV's, using night vision scopes, holding big guns and looking across the border for brown people. Is that really how we want to run the country? With vigilante justice? Most of the stories on this note that no incidents of violence have been reported. Of course not! Who's going to report them? Illegal aliens? There isn't exactly a reporting structure for them to complain to the US government.

The Border Patrol has said that they don't need the help. The numbers bear that out. The Moonie Times claims that 120 illegals have been arrested based on calls from the US Border Patrol. It's not verified by anyone, but that's great. Let's see, last year 1.15 million illegals were caught by the Border Patrol. That's 3,150 a day. The Border Patrol claims that 40% were captured in this area of Arizona. That's 1,260 a day. So thanks for your less than 10% contribution, Minutemen. Is it worth the violence you're almost sure to cause? The international incident you're sure to spark?

By the way, these bunglers in the desert are apparently also interfering in Border Patrol business by tripping sensors and disrupting operations, according to the border guards. They're forcing agents to chase false alarms.

President Bush has obliquely called the Minutemen vigilantes, but has done little to stop them. He won't disarm them because of his fealty to the NRA. How about for obstructing US government operations? Whatever the manner, getting lunatics with guns off the border sounds like a good idea to me.