Ernesto Portillo Jr. The Arizona Daily Star Tucson, Arizona | Published: 06.21.2006
It all seemed so easy when the Minutemen announced their plan to build a border fence.
It's the vaunted Minutemen, after all. As they're only to happy to tell us, they have widespread appeal and have singlehandedly made illegal immigration a national issue. But the reality is, the group can't attract enough volunteer laborers to build its fantasy fence along the border.
And the other reality is, a fence will not stop illegal immigration. Illegal border crossers would just go around the overpriced desert ornament. Smugglers are already changing their routes as the U.S. government deploys National Guard troops at ports of entry and adds U.S. Border Patrol agents to heavily crossed areas in Arizona.
But don't bother telling that to the Minutemen. They're too busy trying to save face - and their project.
The Arizona-based Minuteman Civil Defense Corps hired a contractor to oversee the building of a fence on private land near Palominas in Cochise County.
Apparently the self-described border guardians can't stand Arizona's June heat. When the group started its fence project in late May, its leaders said volunteers would flock to a ranch on the border and do what the federal government will not do - build a fence.
In typical Minuteman fashion, its proclamations were filled with hotter air than a Southern Arizona summer day. There has been no flood of volunteers lugging tools, putting in posts and stringing wire while singing Toby Keith country songs and trashing the Dixie Chicks.
The Minutemen claimed they would build a multilayer fence with concertina wire, trenches and surveillance cameras.
Well, that kind of high-security fence is not what the property owner had in mind, said a story from the Sierra Vista Herald/Bisbee Daily Review that ran in the Arizona Daily Star. "From our perspective, the whole idea of the fence is to keep Mexican livestock out. We know a barbed-wire fence isn't going to keep people out," said Jack Ladd, on whose property the fence is being built. "We want to make it clear that while we oppose illegal immigration, we weren't necessarily trying to keep Mexicans off the land."
While the Minutemen are having trouble getting their modified but still symbolic fence up, it's not to say the group will fail. The fence could be erected with the help of a contractor, legal workers or illegal workers with fake documents.
Despite the public-relations setback, the Minutemen are still putting a positive spin on their project.
Connie Hair, spokeswoman for the group, said Monday that slightly more than two miles of the intended 10 miles of fence is up. Hundreds of volunteers have flocked to Cochise County, and more are expected, she said. In addition to the fence on the Ladd property, Hair said work will begin next month on a second fence, similar to the first , on nearby private property.
Even if the fences are built, the Minutemen have a greater challenge before them. Illegal border entrants have returned to San Diego and El Paso, are crossing through tunnels and are paying more to smugglers who'll find other, desolate crossing points into our country.
They know where Canada is.
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/border/134531.php
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