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 News from Around the Americas | December 2006 
Minuteman Fence Rising on Border Ranch
 Brady McCombs - Arizona Daily Star
| | Ben Grantham of N and B Fence works on a 17-foot-long post, part of a planned 0.9-mile fence to be erected on rancher Richard Hodges' 372-acre spread. The fence, though it covers only a tiny fraction of the U.S.-Mexican border, is "going to do an awful lot for me personally, as far as protecting my cows, protecting me and my family," Hodges said.
(Kelly Presnell/Arizona Daily Star) |
The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps is backing its big talk with a big fence.
The volunteer border watch organization has financed and coordinated the construction of a 0.9-mile-long, 13-foot-high steel mesh fence east of Naco. So far, about a quarter mile is finished, with poles and holes marking the progress on the rest of the section.
Although the barrier covers only a tiny section of the 362 miles of international border in Arizona and even less of the nearly 2,000 miles of U.S.-Mexico border, the Minuteman organization insists the impact on illegal immigration will be more than just symbolic.
To area residents like Leonel Urcadez, owner of the Gay 90s bar in Naco, the fence being built on private land in an area where few people travel other than Border Patrol agents, is a harmless boondoggle that won't do anything to stop illegal border crossers.
"What can it possibly do?" said Urcadez. "They'll just go around it."
Richard Hodges, owner of the 372-acre cattle ranch where the fence is being built, agrees the fence won't do much to protect the nation.
But it is "going to do an awful lot for me personally, as far as protecting my cows, protecting me and my family," he said. "What it has done is brought so much attention, an awful lot of attention."
The effect will be twofold, said Al Garza, Minuteman Civil Defense Corps national executive director. First, it will force traffic to the east and west and give the Border Patrol an area it won't have to patrol.
Secondly, it will "let the government know that it's not as difficult to secure the borders as they lead us to believe," Garza said.
The barrier is expected to cost about $650,000, said Peter Kunz, project manager for the Minuteman Fence Project.
It is being paid for by donations from across the United States that go to a separate account dedicated to the fence project. The organization doesn't give out the exact amount of donations, but Kunz said it has received more than $500,000, most in donations between $25 and $500.
Rancher OK'd imposing fence
From the ground, the fence looks formidable. Steel poles cemented 4 feet deep in the ground stand 13 feet high and are connected by steel bars welded together that hold sheets of galvanized mesh steel. The fence can't be easily cut through or climbed over, Minuteman officials say. It is about 100 feet north of the border.
Yet, from the top of a nearby hill that overlooks the valley between Douglas and Naco, the fence appears no more than a slight detour for illegal entrants and smugglers in a wide-open valley marked by 5-foot-high railroad steel vehicle barriers and barbed-wire fence.
"What is one mile when we have hundreds of miles? It's nothing," said Mike Albon, spokesman for Local 2544, a chapter of the National Border Patrol Council, the agency's union. "They go to either to the east or to the west to the end of the fence."
Ernie Rogers, owner of Rogers' Border Service, an auto shop and tow service in Naco, questioned the placement if the goal was to stop illegal entrants.
"That is one of the most-patrolled areas by Border Patrol, anyway," said Rogers, 70, who has been in Naco since 1952. "You would think they would put the fence somewhere else."
The Border Patrol has about 1,000 agents allocated to Cochise County, according to Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever. Since peaking in 2000, apprehensions and drug seizures have been decreasing in the Naco/Douglas corridor, said Jesϊs Rodriguez, the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector spokesman.
The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, which formed in April 2005, has also worked with rancher Jack Ladd, who owns land west of Naco. The group is building 10 miles of five-strand barbed-wire fence that will protect Ladd's cattle, said its president, Chris Simcox.
The organization has been patrolling Hodges' property for a couple of years, Hodges said. When its officials asked to build a steel mesh fence, he gave them an emphatic approval.
Minuteman volunteers began work on the fence in late September before organizers realized it could be dangerous working with heavy steel, said Gene Barbetta, volunteer coordinator for the project.
To avoid liability concerns and to come into compliance with county regulations, they contracted with N and B Fence out of McNeal. Three men from the company work from Monday through Friday. They hope to be finished by February or March, Barbetta said.
Volunteers monitor the border and provide security for the fence and the workers. They've had about 40 volunteers come spend time since September, Barbetta said.
Their presence slows the drug-smuggling traffic considerably, Hodges said: "When they're here, it's incredible, it's just as quiet as can be around my place."
No effect on Border Patrol
Any type of barrier that slows smugglers and forces them to cross by foot rather than vehicle helps, said Border Patrol spokesman Rodriguez. But, since the fence is on private property and set back from the border, it won't change how the agency patrols the area, he said.
Recently erected railroad-steel vehicle barriers line the border in front of the fence in the valley between Naco and Douglas. The improvements are a direct result of the Minutemen bringing attention to the issue, Hodges said.
The group has been influential with the public, Albon agreed. And, as long as they don't interfere with agents' work, which hasn't occurred yet, their presence doesn't bother agents, he said.
Their patrols, however, have little effect on enforcement, Albon said.
But in January, a Drug Enforcement Administration report said the presence of so many volunteer observers on the border in April and May 2005 may have helped deter drug smuggling.
Albon insists that a fence alone won't stop anyone, but the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps leaders think otherwise.
In the organization's master plan, the current fence will someday be a secondary fence. It plans to erect a high-tech 8- to 12-foot- high chain-link fence that will be covered in a special fiber-optic mesh and connected to cameras and sensors, Simcox said.
A company, identified as FOMGuard USA by Kunz, donated $7.8 million of the fencing material for that second phase of construction.
When completed, the 0.9-mile double-layered fence could cost $1.188 million, Kunz said.
Last month, in an attempt to answer critics and accusations by former members of money mismanagement, Minuteman leaders released the nonprofit's federal income-tax filing and an independent financial audit for its 2005 operations.
The audit, by Salmon Beach & Associates of Dallas, showed the Minuteman organization took in about $418,493 in donations and registration fees, but spent $449,667, leaving it $31,174 in the red as it entered 2006.
"As we speak, we have more Minutemen scouting other ventures," Garza said. "Anywhere we can drive a post in, that's where we are going to stop."
On StarNet Find a video of the fence being built and listen to interviews of Minuteman Civil Defense Corps volunteers at azstarnet.com/border
? Contact reporter Brady McCombs at 573-4213 or bmccombs@azstarnet.com. |
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