Minuteman Project: ENCORE!

I should have posted this photo a while ago. This is a patriot's response to the billboard in LA (which was taken down!):



On May 15 I was able to attend the "Minutemen May Surprise" event. We went down to the border again for one weekend in May. I had just bought a 2001 Ninja 750 to replace the one that was in the accident 8 months ago, so I could do a little off-roading (driving on the dirt frontage road is considered off-roading for a Ninja):



One of the first things I noticed out there this weekend was that there were literally and absolutely zero Border Patrol trucks roaming around. In April they were everywhere. This weekend I didn't see a single truck patrolling. Not one. This is because Border Patrol Chief Nicely has ordered apprehensions be kept to a minimum so that it looks like the Minuteman were ineffective in April.

I was placed just to the east of Highway 92 by the Huachuca Mountains. I hid behind a bush so that the drug runners could not see me. They were watching from this building:



I was there to watch the entrance to a gated community. Often the drug runners do their deals at the front gate because it can't be seen from the highway. Illegals are often picked up there as well.

About an hour into my shift I saw some action. Two vehicles, a maroon SUV and a white SUV left the highway and barreled toward the community entrance. They must have been going at least 40MPH, so I watched them carefully. Just passed the entrance, I heard the sound of tires for a second or two then a loud thump. It appeared from where I was that the maroon SUV had slowed and the white one rear-ended it. I called the accident in on the radio and reached for my camera. As I did, the white SUV began to leave the scene (this was about 30 seconds after the wreck) and I didn't get a photo of it. Here is a shot of the maroon SUV after the white one left.



It took a few minutes for other Minutemen to arrive at the scene. Given what I know of the area I didn't want to approach the vehicle alone. When Minutemen did arrive I went down to take a look. Apparently I was wrong about the rear-ending:





Some on the Minutemen looked in the vehicle to make sure no one was hurt. There was no one inside. They found out that this was a rental, and three days overdue. We began to speculate on what happened and came to two possible conclusions:

(1)- This vehicle was being ditched. They just wanted to have some fun doing it. The driver of this vehicle would have left in the white SUV.

(2)- This was a pick-up vehicle, and since they were going way to fast and there was gravel on the road right there, they simply missed the turn and crashed. The road they were turning down led to a power transformer just off the road. It would have been an ideal pick-up location. The driver of this vehicle would have left in the white SUV because they knew that the accident would have drawn attention.

In a few minutes speculation #2 seemed far more likely. One of the community residents noticed a woman walking down the street toward us. It ended up that she was simply a concerned resident, but as she approached I noticed two people in a nearby field wearing dark clothing. They ducked behind a hill. I informed a few of the Minutemen and they sent out a truck to investigate. As soon as the truck arrived, six illegals came out from behind the hill asking for water.



We kept our distance the best we could and set some Gatorade on the ground for them:



A few minutes later someone noticed two more only a short distance down the road:



By that time the sheriffs had arrived at the scene of the wreck. One of them had come down to where we were to keep an eye on things. They drove down to bring these two up to where the six were. As far as I know no one asked them to, they did it on their own.

Here are the two arriving. The sheriff's vehicle is just outside the left of the photo:



Here is the photo of the two:



It took 30-45 minutes for the Border Patrol to arrive. This was because the Naco station had not been answering their phone all weekend. Every Minuteman there believed this was because they were under orders not to answer the phone. We knew that Border Patrol Chief Nicely had ordered them to keep apprehensions very low, so it was obvious to us. We had to call Wilcox to get a truck out there.

It is important to say that while we waited the illegals could have left at any time. We never told them to stay, we never told them to sit. We simply gave them Gatorade. They stayed completely on their own. Had they tried to leave, we would have let them. We would have reported to the Border Patrol where they went, but we would have let them leave. My guess is that they were happy to be picked up. They were extremely thirsty, and I believe that their pick-up vehicle had just been in an accident.

The first Border Patrol vehicle arrived, but it was too small to carry all 8. Here is the agent talking with the illegals while waiting for another vehicle to arrive.



This is a shot of the wreck from where we found the illegals. The maroon SUV is the dark vehicle that looks black in the photo:



This guy was persistent... He would keep doing this and we would do it back and both he and we would laugh about it:







We continued to wait for the second Border Patrol vehicle to arrive:



Eventually a Border Patrol van arrived. The illegals were searched for weapons and loaded into the van:






After looking for my keys for my bike in the desert for a while, I headed back to my post and ate some long overdue lunch. Just after I finished eating, a dark blue pickup pulled off the road just across the highway from me. The driver got out and went to the far side of the vehicle, and appeared to pick up something from the ground and put it into the bed of the truck. He got back in, moved forward about 20 feet, and did it again. He got back in, and did it yet again. I called it in on the radio (VERY quietly, I was within earshot now) and was told that this was not a Minuteman, and the section leader would be there in a minute- I was alone and didn't want to come out of hiding.

Here he is messing around with stuff in the bed of the pickup:



When the section leader got there he walked out to talk to the guy. I followed, and we quickly found out what was going on:



He wasn't a drug dealer after all, he was just looking for his jack, which he apparently had left at home. I don't carry a jack while I am riding my bike, so I couldn't help. As my shift was over, I left for the Trading Post where I found out that we had a total of 68 Minutemen show up that weekend, and assisted the Border Patrol in the apprehension of 25 illegals. Not bad for 48 hours...

Minuteman Project: Conclusion

I did not do any patrolling this last weekend, but I did attend the MMP conclusion ceremony. Here are some photos from the ceremony.

A very tasty cake:



Jim Gilchrist:



Our favorite local residents:



Minuteman Flag:



Of course the media was there:



Chris Simcox and myself:



Interestingly, even as we were chatting with the media, the Border Patrol was busy picking up some illegals in the area just behind the church we were at. I don't know how many they located.





CONCLUSIONS:

The Minuteman Project is something that history will not soon forget. American citizens, determined to be heard, gathered together under the rights secured in the First Amendment. And we were heard. Our nation is now obsessed with talk about immigration, and our politicians cannot ignore it any more.

Something else was different about the Minuteman Project- and this drew me to it more than anything else. This was a peaceful gathering that actually did something about the problem instead of waving signs and shouting slogans. Well, we did that too... but at the same time we were actually on the border taking care of the problem we wanted the nation to hear about. Any we did it; it worked. Our goals were met. We secured our section of the border, and the word is out. Only time will tell if our politicians will hear us, or be voted out of office.

I learned a few things during this project.

I have learned that this immigration issue is so much more than I originally knew. Even before I signed up, I was convinced that this issue was bad enough that I should leave my family every spare day and vacation day I had for a month. But I learned that this is not only an economic issue, this is not only a cultural issue. This is an invasion with the intention of taking over our cities and influencing our elections.

I have learned that illegals who come here "for a chance at a better life" don't care whose land they trash, whose animals they kill, whose tax dollars they steal. They dont care if a hospital or school closes as long as they can get something now for free. They don't care who they insult when they joke about who has avoided deportation the longest. They spit on our soverignty when they ignore the laws of our border, and claim they are not criminals.

I have learned that the phrase "porous border" is an understatement. The fence might as well be a spoon in the Matrix- there is no fence. I have seen sections of the so-called fence where the barbed wire is cut literally between every other fence post. I have seen sections of the fence where the fence posts are nothing more than sticks picked up off the ground. I have seen paths created by illegals that have been traveled so much that they are literally feet deep, so one could simply walk under the fence.

I have learned that our government cares not about security, but control. What is the point of forcing everyone who flies to go through a checkpoint, take their possessions without compensation and make them risk jail time, all to protect a plane with 100 people in it, but leave a border such as this one where anyone can simply walk into one of our cities, with populations in the millions, to poison a water supply? to shoot at a school? to set off a car bomb at a mall? to detonate a nuclear device? What is the point of regulating our driver's licenses when the real solution is keep the illegals out to begin with? No, our government has other agendas, and they have nothing to do with our safety. They care nothing of the Fourth Amendment and assume guilt until we prove we are innocent. Our border is proof they don't care.

I have learned that "Republican" does not always mean "conservative." I will vote conservative from now on.

I have learned that our nation no longer knows what a "traitor" is, or how to deal with them. There are many traitors in our nation today, from civilians to elected officials. It wasn't too long ago that these people would be tried, convicted and executed for what they have done to this country.

I have learned the importance of sovereignty, and I have learned how little it means to many of our elected officials. I have learned the dangers of globalization, and how it will destroy not only this country, but ultimately oppress the world under a socialist world government.

I have learned that the true cause of illegal immigration is the liberal way of thinking and socialism. We allow anyone into this country, we don't allow our law enforcement to ask about someone's legal status, and we provide "day labor" locations for them to get work (illegally) all in the name of liberal ideals. They come here because we redistribute our wealth straight into their pockets. Our companies hire them because it is so expensive to hire Americans who, understandably, would rather live off of our socialist wealth redistribution instead of working for low wages. So instead of getting a hard-working American, we get an over-worked abused Mexican shipping his wages and welfare check to Mexico and an unemployed American living off of someone else's money he believes he is "entitled" to. This in turn raises taxes for everyone making welfare sound even better since you can't keep much of your money anyhow. This makes American workers even less competitive, which encourages companies to hire more Mexicans. Pretty soon, that's going to be the only way for a company to stay in business, similar to how a company currently can't stay in business unless it outsources as much as possible or simply buys all of its products from overseas. And the vicious cycle continues until the system collapses. I, for one, don't see how this is going to work out. I have learned that this is not the companies' faults- the blame is purely on the shoulders of liberals and socialism.

I have learned that the Second Amendment is even more important than I had realized. I thought I had this one figured out, but there is so much more to the right to keep and bear arms. The Minuteman Project was a group standing up to the government DEMANDING that they do their job, a job that the government does not want to do. Had we not been an armed group, I have very little doubt that we would not all have been arrested on some bogus charge. Rumor has it that it was discussed anyway by our wonderful Governor Napolitano, but she decided it was better to "ignore us." Our right to keep and bear arms protected our right to assemble peacefully, of that I have no doubt. The biggest thing I learned is that the simple right to keep and bear arms did this- we never fired a shot, nor did we threaten to. Oh yeah, our guns also kept us safe from drug runners who I am sure left us alone because they knew we could (and would) fight back.

I have learned that Mexican military cross the border onto U.S. soil, shoot at American civilians and Border Patrol agents, and no one seems to care.

I have learned that there are some decent journalists. I was pleased to find more decent than bad. But bad journalists unfortunately exist as well. I also learned that while there are decent journalists, the bad ones seem to get published easier.

I have learned that liberals are racists. When they look at someone they can't see anything but their color. They simply must separate everyone into groups based on thair race, and can't see beyond those groups. Worst of all, they can't imagine anyone else thinking any differently, which is why they kept calling us racists.

I have learned that no one in the ACLU can stomach the sight of a good guy with a gun. And when one tries to strike up friendly conversation, they speak in one-word sentences, afraid to make eye contact, while hurrying to their cars to drive away as fast as possible.

I have learned that liberalism is, in fact, a mental disorder. I have learned that freedom is the cure.

I learned that there are still patriots left in America. After years of so little hope, I am proud of the American flag again. The flag again represents the people of this nation who are unafraid to stand up to our government and say "enough is enough, we want our country back."