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"Mr. Simcox, they want to know what
they should do now?" asked Mary, a news reporter for the
Univision affiliate out of Phoenix. Volunteers of Civil
Homeland Defense had just arrived at a remote site for a Friday
night border watch mission with Mary and her cameraman in tow.
They had rushed down from Phoenix in record time to meet me for
a sound bite about a piece she was doing about recent
allegations of migrants being abused on the border. What she
ended up getting was the truth. In your face,
shut-up-and-sit-down truth, the kind of truth
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that makes hate-mongering groups like
Humane Borders, The Anti-Defamation League, and the Southern
Poverty Law Center look like the witch hunters they are. Six
compassionate American citizens encountered two groups of
people entering the country illegally--and for the fiftieth
time the episode was captured on film, this time by a news crew
from Univsion. What did they see? They filmed another encounter
that has ended like the hundreds of similar incidents before.
"Well,” I said, as I regained
my composure after giving a Border Patrol Supervisor a piece of
my mind. He had just told a female senior citizen CHD member
that he was not going to respond to our calls for assistance. (See Border Patrol refuses to respond to calls
of citizens".)
"I guess they have three choices.
They can continue on their way, but La Migra is waiting for
them--they are out there.” I gestured with my hand behind
my back towards the San Pedro River. I could see the
group looking past my eyes and then right back to meet my
stare. The group of 30 some immigrants gathered around the
small and very outnumbered news crew. Mary asked, almost
incredulously, "You mean they can go--you won't stop
them?” "No, of course not; I can't or I go to
jail," I said. "I can't stop them, but I am
here to send them a message: they will be caught. Migra is on
their way,” I said, “but sure, they can go ahead
and take a chance.
"Or,” I said, “they can
sit and wait here for Migra--we won't hurt them; we have water.
“Or, they can go back to Mexico. Go
back home,” I said to them looking directly into their
eyes. They knew what I meant and how I felt. "Go back and
go to Naco and come in legal. Come in legal, and I will respect
you,” I said.
Mary continued to translate and play to
the camera, but I knew most of the UDA's knew what I was
saying; many were nodding their heads in agreement and seemed
to look ashamed. One of them made a statement about only
wanting trabajo, and I can respect that desire. That's an
American value and now I see a value held in high esteem around
the world-- people are not afraid of hard work to make a
living. And our government has invited them here.
I am still uncertain as to whether what I
said next made it into the report. But my words created a
chuckle or two among the UDA's.
I responded to the man's statement by
telling the entire group that if they are looking for work to
go to Texas. "Go to Crawford, Texas," I instructed
them. "Ask for directions to the Bush Ranch - go see
Presidente Bush--he will give you work."
The Univision reporter had not planned to
come along on the patrol, Mary only wanted to ask asked me if I
had noticed a difference in border security since the
Department of Homeland Security announced its latest ruse known
as the ABC initiative or something like that. Mary had called
at the very last minute; we were already scheduled to meet with
a documentary film crew; they had postponed and rescheduled for
the next two nights of patrols, and we already had another
reporter from Missouri. So I invited Univision to join us. Mary
met us at our headquarters in Palominas and filmed CHD
volunteers as they discussed the evening patrol, gathered
supplies and drove to the border. Mary followed us--high heels
and all.
We were still in the process of unloading
the rescue water, first aid kit and lights when over the radio
someone said, “There's a group coming!" The
alert came from one of our dangerous senior citizen spotters,
who had already deployed and were sitting in lawn chairs hidden
behind trees to the south of the trail. Again they gave the
signal that a group of UDA's was approaching. I alerted the
news crew (they were obviously shaken and nervous after I
passed on the alert to them, which I thought was curious since
they were so concerned about the rights of the migrants, their
so-called "people") They sat directly behind
me as I crouched close to the hillside and waited for the group
to appear around the bend of the trail. Completely
unconscious of the fact they were surrounded by American
citizens and a news crew from Mexico, the group rounded the
curve and walked right to me. Coming down from the side of the
hill, I greeting them with a friendly. Hola, buenos dias,
(actually it was afternoon and I should have said Buenos tardes, but then
I'm still learning).
Folks, I mean this is in the
middle of nowhere, eight -tenths of a mile north of the border
along the San Pedro River. The group stopped in their
tracks, caught in the headlight of the camera lens that stared
them down from forty feet away in the grass that brightly
reflected the bronze light cast by the setting sun.
The group consisted of 12 young males--and
they were a typical group of well-dressed dark-skinned
Mexican-Indians from Quinerojo area, at least I think that's
what I heard --remember my Spanish is not so good.
I asked the men in my best gringo-Spanish
who they were, where they were from and what they were doing.
"Are you Americanos?" I asked. No reply, just blank
stares and a few confessions they were from Mexico.
I asked whether they were legal. At this
time the news reporter Mary and her cameraman had built enough
courage to move closer and began to ask me questions. I
encouraged them to start asking the questions and backed off to
confer with another agitated volunteer who, I learneed, had
just been told by the Border Patrol that we had better not do
anything to detain the group and that they were not going to
respond to our call for assistance.
Now remember, the Univision crew is
filming and we have a volunteer filming the entire episode from
a safe distance as we always do. Just about five minutes after
the first encounter, one of our senior spotters calls out again
that yet another group of UDA's was approaching. The group
walked right up behind the first group, paused and then moved
in to create a complete group of over 30 UDA's. Four or five of
the coyotes immediately retreated back down the trail towards
Mexico.
And there we were, in the twilight zone;
suddenly it became all these people milling about, positioning
to get in front of the camera to get involved in the interview.
Mary, the reporter is firing off questions at a such a rapid
pace that I lose track of the conversation.
It was a press conference at ground zero.
The invaders were being detained, or you could say delayed by
Univision's cameras, not by a U.S. citizen. In fact a U.S.
senior citizen is desperately attempting to do her duty by
calling the proper authorities and she is being accused of
illegally detaining a group of illegals by the very government
that is supposedly in place to protect her.
At that point I became
agitated, grabbed the phone and spent three frustrating minutes
attempting to reestablish connection with Border Patrol, Naco
station. When I did, I demanded to speak with a supervisor, and
I was immediately transferred to one.
"Hello, this is Chris Simcox, I own
the Tombstone Tumbleweed Newspaper. I am sitting out here with
about 40 illegals and you just told one our volunteers that you
were not going to respond to our calls for help. That's absurd!
Right now there is a Univision television news crew taping this
conversation. And it's going to be on the front page of my
newspaper this week too. Listen, sir, you work for me, you work
for us, the American citizens. I'm calling to tell you there
are people breaking into our country. Are you telling me you're
not going to respond? You work for me, sir, and I demand that
you send someone out here to deal with this!”
The supervisor’s response this time:
"Yes sir, we have someone on the way."
I return to the group to find the reporter
basically telling the UDA’s that we are "just
citizens" and that we have no power to detain or stop
them. She is telling them to run! I'd say that if Mary is in
this country as a guest in this country then she should be
removed immediately as a subversive and should never be allowed
to return. She was aiding and abetting a crime in progress, and
actually encouraged the group to challenge us and to go on
their way.
I walked back to this group love fest in
progress and told Mary and the group that La Migra was on their
way, which raised a sense of concern in the group of UDA's.
That's when Mary asked me the question, "Mr. Simcox, they
want to know what they should do now?"
After explaining the choices to them, the
group moved to one side and engaged in a type of conference or
pow-wow to decide which option would work best for them. The
first group of twelve men decided to take their chances, bade
us farewell and continued their journey north towards the San
Pedro. As I promised, they were apprehended by Border Patrol
just over an hour later about two miles north of our location.
The remainder of the group decided that
since they had lost their guide, they would turn around and
travel back to Mexico--although they vowed they would return
again using a different route.
So there we were, watching one group head
north, the other returning to the south, and Border Patrol
nowhere to be found--ah! the success of the Homeland Security
Department’s efforts to seal the southern border.
Mary and her cameraman asked us a few more
inane questions like,"Is'nt it frustrating that Border
Patrol did not respond to your calls for help?" and
"Doesn't this make you want to quit?"
Four of our volunteers packed up and
proceeded to return home to enjoy the rest of their Friday
night. Univision became tired of waiting for Border Patrol to
arrive--over 40 minutes had passed since they said they would
be on their way. Mary and her cameraman thanked us, packed up
and headed back towards Phoenix with one of those
"money" stories.
I returned to my truck
climbed on top of the cab with my binoculars and video camera
and awaited the arrival of the Border Patrol supervisor. What
happened next is an entirely different story.
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