Georgetown University School of Law Publishes Jim Gilchrist’s Essay
Thursday, September 18, 2008 — Georgetown University School of Law
AN ESSAY BY JIM GILCHRIST
“Minutemen and women, stand your ground!
By the powers vested in us by our Founding Fathers, we have an irrevocable right to peaceful assembly on U.S. territory.
If it’s a war our political governors want, then we will fight them with the First Amendment and within the rule of law.”
— Jim Gilchrist addressing Minuteman Project volunteers at “Camp Deputy David March,” a forward observation base camp, in Cochise County, Arizona on April 1, 2005.
I. INTRODUCTION
The Minuteman Project evolved as an alternative to the corruption and dereliction of duty of our nation’s political governors and the reckless disregard for U.S. rule of law by domestic and foreign entrepreneurs engaged in the 21st century slave trade.
Weary and frustrated with the decades-long refusal of federal, state, and local governments to simply enforce existing U.S. immigration laws, I set out to bring national awareness to this dilemma in order to rouse a sleeping electorate and force public debate on the matter.
On October 1, 2004, I launched a six-month recruiting campaign inviting Americans from all 50 states to join me in southeast Arizona to observe, report, and deter an overwhelming incursion into Arizona by criminal drug and illegal alien smuggling cartels.
In April 2005, 1,200 rugged American individualists converged on the Arizona/Mexico border for 30 consecutive days and successfully conducted the largest minuteman assembly since the Revolutionary War.
By April 10, 2005, only 10 days into the scheduled month-long operation, the multi-ethnic Minuteman Project completely shut down the illegal alien invasion and drug smuggling activities along the entire 23-mile stretch of the U.S./Mexico border in Arizona’s San Pedro River Valley.
By maintaining a 24-hour physical presence at three dozen outposts along the border, the Project effectively deterred illegal entry into the United States. Under no circumstances, except in the interest of health and safety, were the minutemen volunteers permitted to confront or converse with anyone entering the country illegally.
Only in one instance did I make physical contact with an illegal alien. A 25-year-old Guatemalan hobbled into our camp suffering from hypothermia, dehydration, and starvation. He had gotten separated from the group that escorted him over the border and had wandered aimlessly through the desert for four days. I aided another minuteman in providing nourishing power bars and water to the ailing immigrant, as well as wrapping him with two blankets to raise his body heat. A border patrol medical evacuation was requested via HAM radio, and minutes later the young man was picked up by a U.S. Border Patrol van.
II. THE FOUNDATION OF THE MINUTEMAN PROJECT
The most compelling fundamental in our nation’s compendiums of codes, laws, regulations and other rules of conduct that are necessary to maintain a civilized society is the First Amendment of the Constitution. It was from the principles encompassed in that amendment that our nation was born over two centuries ago. That particular liberty established an irrevocable right to all persons in the United States to freely and peacefully assemble and speak, to bring forth into the public square praise, grievance, or comment about an issue affecting the domestic tranquility of their persons, their community, or their nation.
It was from the First Amendment that the Minuteman Project also was born.
The primary goal of the Minuteman Project is to bring national awareness to the illegal alien invasion of the United States. In a span of only two years, with a paltry purse of public donations, the Minuteman Project has brought more attention to the illegal alien crisis than many larger and longer-established immigration law advocacy groups have done in 25 years with aggregate donations of an estimated $20 million.
The Minuteman Project’s secondary goal is to advocate for the enforcement of the U.S. immigration laws currently in place and to encourage the enactment of new immigration laws to close perceived “loopholes” in existing legislation.
III. THE CRISIS ON THE SOUTHERN BORDER
The porous southern border with Mexico is the most vulnerable of both borders to illegal entry into the United States.
The 1,961-mile border from San Diego, California to Brownsville, Texas is etched with webs of well-trodden trails carved from decades of foot and vehicle traffic by smugglers of drugs and human cargo. The border landscape is comprised of alternating desert highlands, forested mountain ranges, arid valleys of sparsely vegetated desert, and grassy plains. The gusts of wind common to this territory whip the air into a choking yellow dust.
A 30-foot-wide dirt road parallels the worn, and often broken, four-foot-high barbed-wire fence that serves as the legal dividing line between the United States and Mexico.
Scattered piles of non-biodegradable trash litter the land on both sides of the international border: plastic jugs and glass bottles, clothing, backpacks, tires, rusted cans, and the skeletal remains of stripped vehicles long ago abandoned. The border is a public dump for hundreds of millions of pounds of rubbish discarded by the endless exodus of migrants coming north.
The southern border region is a loosely guarded, lawless wasteland, an open invitation to enter at will for illegal aliens, fugitives, terrorists, and criminal cartel members who want to avoid detection.
IV. THE RAMIFICATIONS OF LOOSE BORDER ENFORCEMENT
The failure of elected and appointed officials to enforce immigration laws poses a threat to the security, sovereignty, and prosperity of our nation, particularly to our middle class and labor union work forces and to the safety of our families.
There is no net positive impact on the U.S. economy due to the importation into our economy of unlimited numbers of unskilled and low-wage laborers. Albeit very profitable for the persons or businesses exploiting the illegal alien worker, the overall costs to the U.S. taxpayer and the legal labor force far outweigh the benefits to the businesses engaged in that practice.
The cost of a pound of vegetables may be a few cents less for a consumer due to their harvesting by a cheaply paid laborer who receives no benefits. But, that nickel savings pales in comparison to the additional tax assessments levied on consumers to pay for education, sheltering, feeding, medication, and various other social programs to sustain the illegal alien worker and his or her family members.
The illegal alien crisis is misconstrued by many as only “one” issue. But that seemingly sole issue harbors a wealth of major issues having a dramatic impact on the lives of all Americans and the future health and prosperity of the United States.
The following are only a handful of benefits inherent in proactive enforcement of U.S. immigration laws, and the enactment of some new laws:
1. Preservation of a long-established American heritage, culture, and language to facilitate commerce and communication, and provide a common bond among the population.
2. Elimination of traffic gridlock, car pool lanes, or tolls for local highway use.
3. No hospital closures from bankruptcy due to unpaid treatment for illegal aliens.
4. Substantial reduction in the threat of terrorist attacks against public and private establishments, i.e. schools, temples, churches, businesses and government buildings.
5. Stabilization of housing costs and the cessation of homeowner flight that has caused an irrational demand for non-stop new housing and strip mall construction.
6. Cessation of real estate developers devouring our forests, mountains and streams, as they pave over, and build upon, every square inch of American countryside.
7. Elimination of laws requiring the U.S. to support, school and raise the children of illegal aliens.
8. Substantially more after-tax take-home pay for the taxpaying consumer to spend on investment, education, leisure, travel, entertainment, child care, home improvement, etc.
9. Less demand for resources, resulting in lower utility bills and the preservation of natural resources.
10. Less pollution: cleaner air, streets, and waterways.
11. Significant drop in crime, especially violent offenses and identity fraud.
12. Significant decline in the costs of housing illegal alien criminals in prisons.
13. Elimination of the thousands of undetected cases of communicable and deadly tuberculosis, leprosy, and hepatitis hosted by illegal aliens who have never been screened before entering the United States.
14. Decline in health, auto, and other insurance costs.
15. Better public schools, with smaller budget demands and fewer students per teacher. The literacy rate in Los Angeles is now at a historical low of an estimated 47%, a rate previously unheard of in a developed country.
16. Elimination of the 160,000+ illegal alien street gang members that the Minuteman Project estimates currently reside in the U.S.
17. Drastic reductions of domestic unemployment rates.
18. A positive future for American youth.
19. Elimination of multi-billion dollar annual frauds against U.S. taxpayers.
20. Sharp reduction of neighborhood terrorism conducted by fearless street gangs.
21. Reduction in the lethal illegal drug importation businesses that have sprouted up in every community in the country.
22. Elimination of the slave labor trade that enables those who employ illegal aliens “off the books” to criminally evade federal and state employment taxes levied against law-abiding U.S. employers and employees.
23. Reduction or elimination of tuition charges for state colleges and universities, as surplus tax funds are directed to this benefit program for U.S. citizens.
24. More medical and quality of life support for disabled and elderly citizens
Our emergency clinics and hospitals are closing their doors under the immense financial pressure of providing free medical services to the uninsured population, including large numbers of illegal aliens. The Minuteman Project estimates that about 100 emergency room (ER) centers have closed in California alone in the past 15 years. The Project also estimates that illegal aliens that have committed crimes other than illegal entry into the U.S. account for approximately 30% of U.S. prison and jail populations. Public schools are seriously overcrowded and financially over-burdened. These are but a few of the many dozens of issues flowing from an irresponsible neglect of U.S. immigration policy and law.
These burdens to U.S. taxpayers would be more appropriately carried by the foreign nations from which the illegal alien populations have come. Except for life saving medical treatment, under what legal authority is the United States required to medicate, educate, shelter, feed, or otherwise provide for the welfare and sustenance of foreign nationals who have already broken our laws to come here?
Such precedent invites the world’s population to enter the United States at will and select from a menu of “entitlement” programs originally intended for U.S. citizens. If this is the intention of the U.S. Congress, then it should enact legislation forcing reluctant U.S. taxpayers to pay for an “in house” global welfare system for any of the six and one-half billion members of the world’s populace who want to take up illegal residency in the United States.
The huge amount of money, maybe even hundreds of billions of dollars, saved annually, by eliminating the extraordinary costs of sustaining an impoverished illegal alien population, could be diverted to programs for the betterment and enhancement of the nation’s infrastructure and its society, including improvements to roads, bridges, attention to inner city blight, and a serious reduction in various income, sales and utility taxes.
V. RULE OF LAW AND LEGAL REFORM
Simple enforcement of existing U.S. immigration laws would be a panacea for many of our domestic problems and certainly for the risk of terrorist attack by international saboteurs. However, new legislation is required to stop the “anchor baby” crisis.
In addition to the ongoing risk of Al-Qaeda terrorist infiltration, the infusion of criminal cartels, like the El Salvadoran MS 13 gang, pose an added risk of attack against U.S. territory and citizens.
The United States Border Patrol (USBP) claims that 1.2 million illegal entrants were apprehended between the ports of entry each year during 2005 and 2006 at the U.S./Mexico border. Yet, according to one USBP estimate, only one in four or five illegal entrants are ever apprehended. That means that approximately five million illegal aliens enter the United States undetected each year over our southern border alone. Estimates for the numbers who enter through U.S. seaports or the Canadian border are unofficial and unreliable.
The number of illegal aliens entering the United States each week from our southern border is equivalent to four reinforced U.S. Army divisions, or about 75,000 persons. Daily, USBP has estimated that over 10,000 persons trespass into the U.S. undetected. Annually, the size of the invasion explodes to the equivalent of 208 reinforced army divisions, or about five million persons, entering and occupying U.S. territory. That is larger than all the current U.S. military forces combined: Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, Marines, Reservists, and the National Guard. No one knows who these millions of persons are, where they are, or what their intentions are. What we do know is that they are entering in staggering numbers, occupying U.S. territory, and not leaving.
Based on these trends, it is possible that over six million illegal aliens have trespassed into and occupied the United States during 2007. And the year after that the number could rise to seven million, then to 10 million or more per year in subsequent years. As resources for the USBP and the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) weaken, the invasion strengthens and the numbers grow even larger.
There are two common ways to seize a country: by military invasion with bayonets fixed and guns blazing, or by incrementally transferring an aggressor nation’s population into the target nation, thereby overwhelming the host country by sheer numbers. The United States is the victim of the latter method.
While a Trojan horse, covert invasion carried out over a few decades requires no military might, it accomplishes a similar goal: seize the target nation’s infrastructure and take it over from within. However, with tens of millions of illegal aliens, especially from one country or one region of the world, occupying U.S. territory, it is possible that a violent coup could ensue. I doubt that the U.S. will have a civil war in the very near term. But, a break up into several “nation states,” much like what occurred in Russia, is not beyond imagination for the not-so-distant future.
The Minuteman Project estimates there are about 35 million illegal aliens currently occupying U.S. territory. Other sources provide differing estimates. For example, the upper estimate by Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) is 38 million. The Time Magazine model would provide an estimate of about 31 million illegal aliens now in the United States. The U.S. government, however, has widely publicized a questionable estimate of only 12 million.
At the current rate of invasion, by the year 2025, only 17 years hence, the Minuteman Project estimates that there will be more illegal aliens occupying U.S. territory than there will be citizen voters. The consequences could be incredible. As timid members of Congress quiver in the face of perhaps as many as 200 million illegal aliens demanding instant amnesty and citizenship, an immediate compromise will probably be made wherein the illegal population becomes “legal,” with citizenship status and voting rights. This “instant legalization” will be granted by the virtual waving of a congressional magic wand without any conference with the electorate.
Consequently, tens of millions of unassimilated, newly “declared” U.S. citizens with dual voting rights and primary allegiances to their lands of origin could simultaneously vote for candidates in their homelands as well as in the United States.
Imagine, for example, 200 million unassimilated foreign nationals of voting age becoming dual voting U.S. citizens. Concurrently, they could very well support candidates in their homeland(s) and the United States who are running on parallel platforms favorable to the interests of their homeland(s) and hostile to the United States.
It is also possible for many of the U.S. candidates to be former illegal aliens, unassimilated into U.S. culture, who just walked across the border yesterday to get amnesty today. They could quickly become candidates for U.S. public offices: mayors, senators, representatives, or city council and school board members.
Year 2030 could bring the first attempt to introduce into Congress legislation designed to trump English with Spanish as the national language. The bill will fail…the first time. As the Spanish language becomes more dominant throughout the United States so will the likelihood of further attempts to replace English with Spanish as the nation’s “new” common bond of language.
The Minuteman Project supports legal immigration, but opposes amnesty for the uncounted millions of illegal aliens in the United States. The Project also supports the enforcement of all U.S. immigration laws. Ultimately, under U.S. rule of law,
the 35 million or so illegal aliens currently in the United States would be repatriated to their lands of origin and stand in line at a U.S. embassy with an application for legal entry into the United States, just as millions of their legal immigrant predecessors have done. Anything less would mean that U.S. rule of law is meaningless and immigration laws apply only to those gullible and foolish enough to obey them.
The referenced Bear Stearns study is already three years old. The Minuteman Project claims an additional 15 million illegal aliens have migrated to the United States since the 2004 study.
It is said that illegal aliens come to the United States only to seek a better life, be it through respectable employment or criminal enterprises. But, immigration not of an orderly and managed queue, and not accompanied with assimilation, will morph our nation’s tradition as the world’s “melting pot” of diversity into a pot of segregated peoples divided by race, culture, language, creed, religion and color.
Recently, in Little Rock, Arkansas, the Mexican government installed its 47th consulate in the United States. About half of the states in the U.S. now host one or more Mexican consulate. Some Americans see this as a precursor to the colonization of the United States of America by Mexico, an incremental part of what appears to be an unlimited exodus of the impoverished and criminal elements of Mexican and also Central American populations into the United States.
Each day an average of 25 U.S. citizens and legal residents are killed by illegal aliens by manslaughter (i.e., drunk driving) or homicide (i.e., shooting, stabbing, beating, strangulation, etc.), for a recurring annual total of 9,125 deaths.
That daily rate would result in over 55,000 U.S. residents having been killed by illegal aliens since the 9-11 attacks, compared to about 4,000 U.S. troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, as estimated from various media sources, during the same period.
The Minuteman Project supports an immigration policy based on the following premise:
(a) An orderly queue of a prescribed number of vetted, legal immigrants,
(b) With specific vocational skills necessary to continue our nation’s prosperity, and
(c) Of character and integrity necessary to continue our history as a civilized nation governed under the rule of law.
Although U.S. immigration laws are in place, there seems to be no serious interest by bureaucrats to enforce these laws, despite polls indicating that most Americans want, and expect, an “enforced” immigration policy. From mayors and local city council members, all the way up to the highest level of government, immigration laws enacted to preserve and protect our nation are blatantly ignored.
If simple enforcement of U.S. law becomes too heavy a burden, or a nuisance, for elected and appointed members of government, then it is up to citizens to fulfill the destiny envisioned by our Founding Fathers and accept the challenge of exercising the right to self-governance.
There are six and one-half billion people in the world, many of whom would like to immigrate to the United States to take advantage of its civil liberties, benevolence, and opportunity for free enterprise. Many would like to take advantage of an expansive system of taxpayer-funded welfare and public assistance programs. Others want to come to the United States to operate criminal cartels, including drug smuggling, child prostitution, or identity fraud and theft rings. And some simply want to kill Americans.
VI. THE BUSINESS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
Selfish opportunism of business and political interests, coupled with the influence of foreign nations seeking a convenient dumping ground for their unwanted populace, have encouraged the illegal alien invasion into the United States and its attending social problems and financial costs.
Because U.S. government estimates of the numbers and costs of illegal aliens appear to be unreliable, I have prepared my own estimate of the approximate dollar cost to U.S. taxpayers to sustain the current illegal alien population in the United States. I estimate the yearly cost to house, educate, medicate, and otherwise support 35 million illegal aliens is $384 billion after consideration of the various taxes contributed by the illegal alien population. Without a vigilant tally of these costs, of course, it is difficult to derive an exact dollar amount. I am comfortable with the nearly $400 billion annual cost estimate, which directly adds to the national deficit each year.
What drives the arrogant disregard for U.S. immigration law enforcement? Follow the money. It is all about “market share.” It is all about pledging allegiance to the almighty greenback and all the power it can buy, as opposed to pledging allegiance to a nation and all the priceless principles for which it stands:
— Politicians lust for the prospective votes of illegal alien families who might be granted prompt amnesties and citizenship, despite their aversion to pledge any allegiance to the USA.
— School administrators hunger for more per-student allocation of taxpayer funds as their classroom enrollments expand beyond realistic teaching capacity, and more demands are made against the taxpayers to provide more tax money to pay for more ever-expansive school programs.
— Religious orders yearn for a robust increase in illegal alien parishioners who will most certainly be accompanied by donations into the collection plates.
— Land developers drool at the prospect of paving over, and building upon, every inch of American countryside as the endless stream of illegal aliens explodes our population and bloats the demand for more homes, strip malls, freeways and parking lots.
— Meanwhile, 21st century slave traders lure or purchase economic refugees from third world countries and greedily mark them for exploitation by unscrupulous American employers, a scenario not seen since the pre-Civil War era where morally cheap slave-masters justified their piggish behavior only by what was financially good for them. Then, as today, greed trumped consideration for human rights or any ominous economic consequences to our nation.
VII. SOVEREIGNTY, INVASION AND AMERICAN IDEALISM
When foreign nationals assemble on U.S. soil under a foreign flag in defiance of U.S. rule of law, as recently seen in the illegal alien metropolitan sanctuary hubs like New York City, Chicago, Milwaukee, Atlanta, and Los Angeles, that is a declaration of dominion over the United States. Such foreign nationals are neither friends nor allies of the United States. Moreover, such incursion upon U.S. territory is an obvious invasion, a clear and present danger to the sovereignty of the USA, and an outright insult to its laws and its people.
Social or political activism carries with it the liability that persons not emotionally prepared to conduct themselves in a respectable manner may join in the “animated contest for freedom,” as Samuel Adams once said. In an ideal world, each of us would present arguments and engage in debate in a peaceful and rational manner. But, reality shows that not all persons who exercise their right to free speech do so in a “peaceful” manner. Both sides of the immigration issue attract disorderly persons who tarnish the lustrous meaning of freedom of speech by taunting each other into physical confrontation.
My personal experience has been that most of the threats of violence, and the deliberate suppression of free speech, has come from those opposed to the message of the Minuteman Project. No altercations, no injuries, and no attempts to suppress free speech, have been instigated by the Minuteman Project. The Project’s operating procedures encourage strict adherence to the rules of law without exception.
The Minuteman Project does not dispute the right of anyone to visibly and audibly bring forth a grievance or a perspective. Every human being has an undeniable right to peaceful assembly and speech on U.S. territory, despite his or her status as a legal or illegal resident of the United States. The right to freedom of assembly and speech is one of many basic human rights applicable to all persons within the pristine vision of our Constitutional framers.
Adherence to the principles of self-governance under rules of law has made our nation’s history an enviable one, indeed. The preservation of American heritage, culture, and language provides a cohesive bond among the population, facilitates commerce and communication, and promotes domestic tranquility.
The Minuteman Project’s tool of choice to accomplish its task is, of course, the First Amendment. We choose the pen, the voice, and the anticipated free marketplace of ideas. Our adversaries have chosen to throw bricks and bottles, make threats of violence, engage in outright propaganda, physically prevent Minuteman Project participants from assembling or speaking, and deploying other weapons to disrupt freedom of assembly and speech.
For example, Dottie Dalton, a 66-year old grandmother, suffered inner-cranial trauma when she was hit with a frozen bottle of water thrown by a protester averse to the Minuteman Project during a rally in Baldwin Park, California on May 14, 2005. Dennis Slater was battered on Nov. 3, 2007 by a dozen illegal alien day laborers who ganged up on him after he protested their hiring site at a Home Depot in Canoga Park, California. Ten sutures were required to close a wound to his skull from a baseball-size rock.
In their efforts to suppress freedom of thought and speech, anarchists, unscrupulous business interests, and criminal mentalities are quick to attack the law-abiding.
Specifically, organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the International Socialist Organization, the Columbia University Chicano Political Caucus, and to a lesser degree the ACLU pursue narrowed agendas fueled by intolerance, hatred, and bigotry toward those who would assemble with a message they do not want disseminated.
Sadly, some elected and appointed public officials encourage this hostility, as do rogue student governing bodies and educators at many universities. Columbia University (NYC) is perhaps the most incurable suppressor of free speech among the many campuses that engage in that despicable transgression. Free speech in such intellectually frozen environments is reserved only for the meanest thugs wielding the biggest clubs.
Such is the contemporary punishment for those who dare to think “out of the box” by rebelling against a thought and speech suppression disease I refer to as “politically correct paralysis.” Such illness freezes all debate and discussion about issues deemed to be “off limits” by certain journalists, politicians, anarchists, educators, co-workers, intellectually challenged students, and other disciples of unlimited arbitrary censorship.
Politically correct paralysis abruptly stops any mature or critical decision-making and adherence to the priceless rule of law.
The residents of our nation face a threat to its existence by a Trojan horse illegal alien invasion of a magnitude unprecedented in U.S. history.
VIII. A BRIGHT FUTURE FOR AMERICA
True brilliance is simplicity, not complication. Likewise, a gigantic, intimidating government that mandates a myriad of senseless, prescribed notions, or acquiesces to ineffective solutions for serious issues, only compounds social, political and economic problems to the point where the citizens no longer recognize or trust governing bodies.
While it is every American’s choice to be “uninvolved” in molding the future of our nation, it is the duty of responsible Americans to maintain their nation’s governance by the people to preserve its stature as a great democratic republic.
The goal is attainable. All that is necessary is a will to accept the challenge. Some call it “tough love.” I call it the irrevocable right to self-governance vested in every American by our Founding Fathers.
Many Americans are blind to the illegal alien invasion crisis because the nation’s 40-year-long awkward, stumbling performance, insofar as immigration law enforcement, is almost accepted as a routine and normal way of life. Our nation was founded as a nation governed by the “rule of law,” not by the whim of any man, including mobs of illegal aliens who endlessly stream across U.S. borders. Since when is lawlessness a normal way of life in a civilized society?
To achieve change, you must cause change. Change does not mean the world must first come to an end. The New York Stock Exchange will still trade. Commerce will continue to function productively. Schools, courts, churches, and city halls will remain open for business as usual.
The Minuteman Project is not a call for armed conflict, but a call for voices seeking a peaceful and respectable resolution to the chaotic neglect by our political governors who have stubbornly refused to enforce immigration laws and uphold a hallowed oath of office.
Without intervention by the people who comprise the very fabric of this country, its successors will inherit a tangle of rancorous, unassimilated, squabbling cultures with no cohesive bond, and a certain guarantee of the death of this nation as a harmonious “melting pot.”
Future historians will write about a lax America that let its unique and coveted form of government and society sink into a quagmire of mutual acrimony. A prosperous middle class will vanish into an expanding lower economic class, accompanied by more oppressive taxation. Incrementally, the United States will become a mirror reflection of a third world country.
There are leaders. There are followers. There are those resigned to the sedation of non-thinking bliss. Our nation needs real leaders with real perspectives, visions, and solutions about the illegal immigration crisis, stoic leaders with courage and a plan, not illusory rhetoric or a “blanket” amnesty.
The Minuteman Project encourages everyone to provide the leadership necessary to protect and preserve our nation’s sovereignty, its future prosperity, the unity of community and family, and our American heritage and dignity as a civilized society.
Multiculturalism and diversity are commendable goals. But they are selfish and aimless agendas of blind social engineers when not accompanied with “assimilation” into the host country. If we are to be a unified nation, then we should strive to be an “assimilated” nation.
Our Founding Fathers certainly envisioned the newly found USA to be the target of invasion. What they never envisioned is a nation, over two centuries later, populated by so many indecisive non-leaders who cower at the challenge of preserving their nation. Such is the consequence of an uninformed electorate led by a cavalier corps of bureaucrats unconcerned with a nation conceived in liberty and governed by the people under the inveterate concept of the rule of law.
With no indication that the federal government has any serious intention of enforcing immigration laws, a physical barrier separating the US and Mexico is now an appealing component of the multi-faceted solution to the rampant invasion of the United States.
Without a dedicated willingness to cure the dilemma, the borders of the United States will remain an inviting gateway for the disenfranchised populations of third world countries, including criminal elements who will continue their criminal enterprises within the United States.
A physical barrier from San Diego to Brownsville should include dual concrete and steel reinforced walls 20 feet high and 10 feet deep into the ground. The two walls would run parallel with a 60-foot wide unpaved causeway between them. Stationary and mobile towers staffed with border patrol agents would provide a series of observation posts. High tech video and sensory devices would be employed to detect any intrusion into the area between the dual walls. Sonar devices would randomly check for tunneling activity.
The Minuteman Project affirms the construction of deterrent barriers along the U.S./Mexico border. It does not recommend such a drastic step for securing the Canadian border. Although the unprotected U.S./Canadian border certainly allows for illegal entry into the U.S., its breach is much less significant compared to the overwhelming numbers of persons using the U.S./Mexico border as an illegal conduit into the United States. Resources should first be applied to secure the nation’s largest breach, the southern border.
Funding for international border walls should initially come from the U.S. Treasury. As law enforcement organizations arrest, fine, and liquidate property of those engaged in the illegal alien slave trade, the confiscated financial resources could be made available to supplement the law enforcement programs and the maintenance costs of border barriers.
It is unlikely that many current federal, state, or local bureaucrats will ever sincerely address the issue of the illegal alien invasion crisis. The exceptions are those with a visible, proactive history in immigration law enforcement advocacy.
The Minuteman Project recommends the replacement of any bureaucrat whose actions continue to lead to the imprudent neglect of U.S. immigration laws.
After the barriers are erected the healing process for nature would begin. Eventually, the millions of pounds of rubbish would be manually cleared. Wildlife and vegetation, long ago trampled into extinction under the feet and vehicles of millions of illegal aliens, would spawn and return the areas to their natural habitat.
The idea of a physical barrier stands as the last resort to survive as a sovereign nation, a nation’s final attempt to preserve its heritage, independence, prosperity, and domestic tranquility.
But, unfortunately, it also would stand as an undeniable reminder of a chronic, reckless disregard for the rule of law by political leaders that Americans blindly trusted… a trust that has been breached by most of those leaders.
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Footnotes
[1] Jim Gilchrist, BAJ, BSBA, MBA, CPA, is the Founder and President of The Minuteman Project, a multi-ethnic, immigration law enforcement advocacy group. For more information on Mr. Gilchrist or Jim Gilchrist’s Minuteman Project, Inc., see http://www.minutemanproject.com and http://www.jimgilchrist.com.
[2] A past Los Angeles Times article brought attention to the fact that Los Angeles had the lowest literacy rate in the country. Jean Merl, A Lesson in Economics, L.A. TIMES, May 30, 1993, at A1.
[3] Using the model from global investment banking firm Bear Stearns & Co., the estimate would be about 35 million, and the Minuteman Project generally follows the Bear Stearns paradigm of calculating the estimated illegal alien population. Briefly, the Bear Stearns method uses detailed studies conducted by statistical and financial experts. The exhaustive study, conducted originally in 2004, concluded then that 20 million illegal aliens were in the United States. The Bear Stearns & Co. study appears more reliable and plausible than any alternative studies, or any federal government estimates, of the number of persons illegally residing in the United States. Bear Sterns, Robert Justich and Betty Ng, The Underground Labor Force Is Rising To The Surface (Jan. 3, 2005), available at http://www.bearstearns.com/bscportal/pdfs/underground.pdf.
[4] Californians for Population Stabilization, Report by CAPS Disputes Government Figures, available at http://www.capsweb.org/content.php?id=57&menu_id=8 (last visited Feb. 6, 2008).
[5] See Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, Who Left the Door Open?, TIME, Sept. 20, 2004, at 51.
[6] U.S. Congressman Steve King (R-Iowa), Biting the Hand That Feeds You (May 5, 2006), http://www.house.gov/apps/list/hearing/ia05_king/col_20060505_bite.html.
