02/28/2006

Minutemen Issue Challenge To Senate: Personally Inspect Southern Border Before Voting on Security and Granting Amnesty
border security and amnesty bills currently scheduled to come before the Senate in debate on the floor late next month

(PHOENIX, AZ) February 28, 2006 – On behalf of the more than 120,000 Minuteman supporters and volunteers nationwide, Chris Simcox, President of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, today sent letters to all 100 United States Senators challenging them to personally inspect our southern frontier before voting on the so-called “comprehensive” border security and amnesty bills currently scheduled to come before the Senate in debate on the floor late next month.

In the letter, Simcox notes that Senators have traveled around the globe to get firsthand knowledge of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but that very few Senators have witnessed for themselves the ongoing daily battle being waged for control of our own borders.

After personally experiencing the conditions along our border line, Simcox hopes the senators will be convinced of the necessity to secure the borders immediately before addressing any amnesty or guest worker legislation. The Minutemen firmly believe that without first securing our borders, amnesty and guest worker programs would hopelessly exacerbate our already disastrous border crisis, by creating even more incentives for illegal entrants to flood into our country.

“The United States Senate needs to observe in person what caused Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to admit in statements to the press after his own tour of our southern line that we do not have ‘operational control’ of the southern and northern borders,” said Simcox in a statement regarding the challenge letters. “Mexican military, international criminal cartels and millions of illegal aliens violate our laws, our sovereignty and our territorial integrity on a scale that along the southern border, U.S. law enforcement officers and average citizens live in fear for their very lives,” Simcox added.

Simcox and the Minutemen believe it would be a dereliction of their sworn oath of office for Senators to vote on legislation with such grave national security implications without personally witnessing the daily lawlessness and terror that exists in our border regions.

“Senators should go out on a patrol with someone like 100-pound female Border Patrol agent Lisa Martinez,” suggested Simcox. “Armed with only a 9mm pistol for protection and a radio that only works in some locations, Agent Martinez regularly encounters groups of 30 to 40 men illegally crossing the border on moonless nights in Cochise County, Arizona. She and her fellow agents frequently face down drug smugglers armed with automatic weapons who are working under the protection of elements of the Mexican military and heavily-armed paramilitary groups,” Simcox continued.

The Senators are also invited to spend time with the Minutemen as they conduct their civilian border observations. The Minutemen stand ready to escort the Senators to places at the border of unrelenting human misery, where people are abandoned to die in the desert wilderness, women and young girls are gang-raped by their human traffickers with their undergarments hung as trophies in “rape trees,” where land owners are terrorized daily by a flood of illegal aliens crossing their property, killing their livestock and dogs—and where locals wake up in the morning to find intruders in their kitchens eating out of their refrigerators.

“Through the peaceful, lawful exercise of our First Amendment rights, the Minutemen have raised political awareness of the national security crisis at our out-of-control borders,” Simcox said. “Yet too many politicians still view this as merely an issue to be managed to get past the next election, rather than seeing the situation at the border for what it really is: an ominous threat to the survival of this nation in a time of war.”

“People throughout the country will be watching which Senators personally inspect the border and we will pick our targets and work to ensure that politicians who disregard our national security pay at the ballot box come election time,” Simcox said.

The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps will be holding a month-long border observation program this April on the southern and northern borders. 6,500 Minutemen are expected to participate.

The text of the letter:

Dear Senator Specter:

The occasion is finally before the Senate to exert responsible leadership in addressing the crisis of our nation’s unsecured borders. Before you conclude your deliberations and cast your vote on upcoming border legislation, the Minutemen would like to challenge you to travel personally to America’s southern boundary line, and see for yourself the danger our open borders pose to our national security and sovereignty.

Various members of the United States Senate have traveled to Iraq and Afghanistan to personally gauge our war effort. A 100-member congressional delegation to assess the progress being made on the Hurricane Katrina rebuilding effort was announced last week—yet how many members of the Senate have actually traveled to the frontier of our own country, and assessed first-hand the national security threat presented by our uncontrolled border?

Whether you arrange a ride along with the U.S. Border Patrol, or would like to get a more independent look at the crisis, the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps stands ready to serve. We are pleased to offer assistance with any information you request, or plans you might wish to make, to aid you in evaluating the border security situation.

We as a people face important choices as we move forward to secure this nation’s borders. Some of those choices will doubtless be difficult; some may be politically controversial.

To make an informed and productive decision, the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps believes it is incumbent upon you to first come to the border and experience for yourself what your fellow Americans who live there must contend with every day. Unless you have been to the border and talked to law enforcement on the ground striving to stem the tide of illegal incursions, and those struggling to hold fast to their safety, livelihoods and property, you cannot possibly make a responsible determination about the requirements of U.S. border integrity.

In the interest of national security, we issue this challenge. We hope that every single member of the Senate will do his and her duty to our country, and become personally informed of the true dimensions of this national security crisis—by actually coming down to Arizona, Texas, California or New Mexico and learning the unvarnished facts about our porous and violent southern border line.

Sincerely,

Chris Simcox

President