This week in Washington
Congressman Charlie Norwood, 9th
District, Georgia

April 8, 2005

The Miracle on the Southwest Border: Illegal
Immigration Smashed
A Direct Field Report on the Arizona-Mexico No-Man™s Land

April 4, 2005: The Arizona border with Sonoraoutside Naco

By Congressman Charlie Norwood

An on-going miracle is occurring this month in Americ's Southwest, a miracle with a direct impact on our district. After decades of being told that it is impossible to stop illegal immigration on the Arizona border, it has been all but halted since April 1 through the very means we were told wouldn't work “ dedicated manpower and willpower.

This past Sunday, the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, of which I am a member, sent two senior staffers to investigate first-hand a chain of events beginning in late March which could force Congress and the Administration to dramatically rethink our approach to combating illegal immigration.

I insisted that John Stone from our Washington staff be a part of that first two-man team, so that we would have the most direct information on the situation possible. Stone is currently a Captain and public affairs officer with the Virginia Defense Force, the reserve to the Virginia National Guard, and a homeland security policy advisor. He partnered with retired Marine Colonel Fred Peterson, an expert on international homeland defense. They went into the border zone independently from any other federal agencies, with Caucus instructions to investigate every side of what is occurring in the zone, talk with any and all sources both on and off-the-record, and report those findings back to
Congress. Their final and full report will be filed May 2, but their initial findings need to be known immediately.

The catalyst for the new focus on the border is a controversial movement by private citizens who are simply fed up with the ineffectiveness of federal efforts to combat the problem. They call their effort the œMinuteman Project, and have kicked off what they describe as a Neighborhood Watch effort to help our Border Patrol control illegal immigration through additional free, volunteer manpower.

Our Border Patrol has officially responded with less than open arms to the offer of free help, in spite of complaining for decades of not having enough officers to adequately cover the vast desert region. It is estimated that more than half of the current 16 million illegal aliens in this country walked right through this same sector, yet the Border Patrol still says œno thanks.

Vigilantes or Patriotic Volunteers?
While that hasn't slowed the Minutemen down in bringing their 30-day project to reality, it has created an uncomfortable situation of armed civilian volunteers operating without first being sworn in by a lawfully authorized local, state, or federal agency.

That is a legitimate concern. One of the foundations of our Republic is that our military and law enforcement answers through an established chain-of-command to publicly elected officials. It is one of the key differences between the 200-year success of our nation and economy and the banana republics to our south that are the precise cause of so many folks wanting to flee to the United States.

Yet it is likewise an underlying principle of our Republic that elected officials faithfully act to defend and enforce the laws of the land, including our immigration laws. And our elected officials have repeatedly failed to take the necessary steps to do so.

Are the Minutemen vigilantes? That is a question for which Congress needed direct, unedited feedback from the field to attempt to answer. President Bush has said he is against œvigilantes, while not directly calling the Minuteman volunteers by that name. But Mexican President