Minuteman volunteers in New Mexico will begin civilian border patrols in October in what organizers said yesterday will be an effort to shut down a portion of that state’s border to rising numbers of illegal aliens and drug smugglers.
New Mexico organizer Bob Wright, a field coordinator during the “Minuteman Project” patrols in Arizona in April, said he has begun meetings with ranchers and landowners in the border areas near Columbus, N.M., where his volunteers will man observation posts to report — not detain — illegal aliens and other border intruders.
Mr. Wright said he received telephone calls and e-mails from civilian volunteers across the country looking to participate in the New Mexico vigil, and he plans to scout the proposed patrol area next month on horseback.
He said horseback patrols will be included during the October vigil.
“We are getting some real support,” said Mr. Wright, owner of a butane factory in Hobbs, N.M. “Our goal is not to control the border, but to bring pressure on the government to properly secure it. This is not about violence or racism or hate, but the rule of law, and none of us are looking to hurt anyone.
“But the situation on this border is a tragedy, both for America and for Mexico. I would hope the two governments will take notice of our efforts and try to do something that will permanently resolve this chaos.”
He said an organization meeting is scheduled July 10 in Las Cruces, N.M.
Mr. Wright said those who volunteer for the New Mexico patrols are being subjected to background checks by officials at the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps in Arizona, which organized the Arizona patrols in April and is sponsoring other border vigils this year.
U.S. Border Patrol officials have reported an increase in illegal immigration in the agency’s El Paso, Texas, sector, which includes the entire New Mexico border. Agents in the Las Cruces area detained 4,387 illegal aliens between October and May — compared to 5,790 during fiscal 2004. Apprehensions in the entire El Paso sector during the 2004 fiscal year were up 17 percent from the previous year’s total of 88,840.
A number of the illegals targeting New Mexico as a point of entry have been identified as criminal aliens, those convicted or accused of or who committed a crime in this country.
Earlier this week, Border Patrol agents near Albuquerque, N.M., arrested a 31-year-old Mexican national wanted in connection with a murder in Florida. Aloberto Hernandez-Ortiz was among 11 illegal aliens stopped in a van east of Albuquerque. He was identified through the agency’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System as having an outstanding felony warrant in a 2004 murder in Fort Meyers, Fla., in which the victim was stabbed to death.
The New Mexico vigil is expected to target the border areas near Columbus, a community of 1,800 just north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The town lies five miles north of a well-traveled port-of-entry at Palomas in the state of Chihuahua.
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