Minutemen

No, it's not a club for 70 year old men that Viagra isn't working for.

These are the "armed vigilantes" that are voluntarily patrolling the Arizona-Mexico border, on the lookout for illegal aliens crossing over to the United States.

What isn't being reported as heavily, is that the only people that are armed are the people that have legally obtained gun permits in Arizona. Also, they are not vigilantes. They are not taking the law into their own hands, nor are they passing judgment or sentence against the people they catch. Supposedly, they have been successful in catching a few border jumpers, and when they do catch one, the U.S. Border Patrol is notified so that they can come and take custody of the detained immigrant.

Although I support the Minutemen in concept, I'm not in favor of their work as a national or regional policy. If I were the President, I would have the understaffed Border Patrol operate in urban areas, and I would direct the U.S. Army to patrol the rural areas. The Army is a force that has a mandate to protect us against our enemies, foreign and domestic. Illegal immigrants are enemies of this country. They drain resources from our state and national budgets, and they do not aspire to be productive members of an American society. Their only wish is to make money and send it back home to family, or worse, traffic drugs to the U.S. I don't have a problem with someone trying to earn money for their family, but they need to come the legal way. The U.S. Army already rotates units in and out of the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California. Instead of sending units there for annual training, they should send the units to border to conduct their training, where they will get real world experience running the same training missions they currently do in California.

Our border problems are real, and they won't get any better until a new strategy is tried.