Newsflash: U.S. citizens exercise rights

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives us the rights to free speech and peaceable assembly. A group called the Minuteman Project will spend April doing just that.

Its Web site (www.minutemanproject.org) says it is a grassroots effort designed to “peacefully assemble at the Arizona-Mexico border to bring national awareness to the decades-long careless disregard of effective U.S. immigration law enforcement.”

About 1,000 volunteers, some legally armed, were dispatched to southeastern Arizona on April 1 to report to the U.S. Border Patrol any individuals seen crossing the border.

As regular as a geezer on Metamucil, the Arizona branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, www.acluaz.org) got its pantyhose all in a bunch.

Here is how I imagine the news cycle went on this story :

Memo from ACLU to CBS: American citizens exercise constitutional rights.

Memo from CBS to ACLU: Who cares?

ACLU Spokesman Ray Ybarra said, “It seems like they’re [MMP] just really afraid of the change that’s inevitable … and they’re trying to act out on the frustrations by coming out here and engaging in illegal activities.” The ACLU then organized “observers” to document the MMP’s “illegal” actions.

Ybarra continues, “The ACLU had a lot of concerns, like maybe we shouldn’t be putting people out in the middle of the desert with crazy white supremacists.”

Memo from ACLU to CBS: Undocumented workers denied rights!

Newscast from CBS to U.S. news consumers: Hateful band of racist, bigoted, gun-toting nuts out to lynch helpless immigrants!

Ybarra did not explain how a group concerned about illegal immigration morphed into “crazy white supremacists,” but it obviously plays better in the media.

Not one to miss an opportunity, Mexico’s President Vicente Fox said at a press conference, “We totally reject the idea of these migrant-hunting groups. We will use the law, international law and even U.S. law, to make sure these types of groups … will not have any opportunity to progress.” How nice that El Presidente has such a grasp of morality and justice.

In April, 2002, Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriff David March was shot and killed during a routine traffic stop, leaving behind a wife and young daughter.

The suspect is one Armando Garcia, an illegal alien and alleged drug dealer. (Although, as a drug dealer, perhaps the term “undocumented worker” is a more appropriate term—he did, after all, have a job.)

Garcia remains free because the coward fled back to Mexico, which refuses to extradite him. Staking out the moral high ground, Mexico refuses to extradite any of its criminals who might face the death penalty.

And Mexico’s response to the Minuteman Project? It positioned troops across the border. You’d think the rationale would be to discourage its people from illegally crossing. You’d be wrong. The troops are for “protection.”

Conspicuously missing are these facts:

1. According to Tucson Sector Border Patrol Chief Michael Nicely, alien and drug smugglers have not hesitated to assault his armed agents.

2. La Voz de Aztlán (Voice of Aztlán) reported that a leader of the violent Mara Salvatrucha gang, a.k.a. “MS-13,” issued orders to attack any U.S. citizen taking part in the Minuteman Project. MS-13 also smuggles immigrants and drugs across the border. (Apparently, the MMP is bad for business.) A fact conveniently overlooked by the ACLU and one that would explain why some members of the group are legally armed.