Border Manifesto # 2
On Wednesday August 4th I met with
Supervisory Border Patrol Agent, Mark Monin. He had contacted me a few days
earlier to discuss the possibility of using a high hill about a quarter of a
mile south of US Hiway 80 at mile marker 400 to establish a camp for several
National Guardsmen. They wanted to establish an observation post complete with
modern optics and night vision capabilities. The purpose of this post would be
to aid Border Patrol agents in spotting and identifying illegal alien groups.
The hill referred to is on deeded land so Agent Monin needed my approval to
proceed with the plan. My first response was to question his choice of this
certain hill, it being quite high and steep, 4 or 5 hundred feet above the
valley floor and having no established trail or road ascending to the summit.
His response was that those obstacles could perhaps be overcome. I suggested a
smaller hill on the opposite side of the hiway with a road to the top and
easily accessed. This seemed fine at the time and we agreed to proceed.
It seemed odd to me that the much
talked about Guard was to be deployed 22 miles north of the border so I told
Agent Monin that I had thought the guard was going to be sent right to the
border itself. His response was that no suitable spot had been found to that
point. They had looked at a hill on a ranch very near the border with a view
extended 10 miles both east and west, but had decided against it because the
(the Border Patrol, and National Guard) thought it would be too time consuming
to get up and down it and it was a long way from town.
Actually it is closer to town than
either of the hills he was interested in on my place, and it had a road and
trail already established going up to the top. I didn’t get it. Picking a hill
22 miles north of the border with no access and limited view after passing up
the chance to establish a lookout right on the border? The rancher who controls
the hill right on the border (we’ll call this Hill #1) pleaded with the Border
Patrol to establish this new lookout there. The rancher has witnessed countless
dope loads and outlaws cross the line within shouting distance of Hill #1 and
was quite dismayed when they chose to go elsewhere. Hill # 1 is about 21 miles
straight south of Hill #2 (the hill first mentioned at mile marker 400 on Hiway
80). Several days after my meeting with Agent Monin, a Ford F-150 pick-up with
over 1000 pounds of Marijuana was found at the Fairchild Ranch. The pick-up had
Sonoran plates and so overloaded with dope that both rear tires had blown out.
The driver escaped. The Fairchild Ranch where the pick-up was found is exactly
half way between Hill #1 and Hill #2. Because of the lay of the land this truck
could have never gotten north of Hill #1 undetected had there been an
observation post established there. Actually in the first week of August there
have been 3 drive-through loads of Marijuana pass through this same area, all
easily detected from Hill #1. This isn’t counting the numerous loads going
through that area on the backs of human mules.
To me the
significance of this is profound. Why would the Border Patrol and our National
Guard pass up an opportunity to establish a look out in an excellent spot right
on the border, only to choose a spot of lesser quality 22 miles north of the
border? Is this mere coincidence? In my opinion, “No.” It is planned and
deliberate incompetence.
On August 5th
the Washington Times printed an article written by Kerry Picket. It
states that 7000 ICE employees have cast a unanimous vote of no confidence in
the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), John Morton, and the
assistant director of the ICE office Detention Policy and Planning, Phyllis
Coven. The Times article mentioned a letter posted by the Center for
Immigration Studies and authored by ICE Union President, Chris Crane. Quoting
the article, “According to CIS, the letter provides a litany of examples of how
ICE’s mission is being skewed toward supporting an unflinching goal of amnesty
by refusing to allow agents to do their job, allowing criminal aliens to roam
free, depleting resources for key enforcement initiatives that preceded this
administration, misrepresenting facts and programs, demeaning the extent of the
criminal alien problem, and geared to support amnesty.”
When I read
the Times article, it really hit home because I’ve been seeing and
hearing these thing for years. I’ve had no less than a dozen Border Patrol
agents tell me there superiors purposefully do things to make them
unsuccessful. I mentioned this one time to Congresswoman Gabriell Giffords and
Border Patrol Tucson Sector Chief, Robert Gibert, and I thought they were going
to have me arrested. After the meeting where this happened, I had an
out-of-uniform Border Patrol Agent hug me and thank me profusely for speaking
the truth.
This
deliberate incompetence (I’m sorry, but putting a National Guard lookout post
22 miles north of the border, when there is a much better spot right on the
border is incompetence) that we’re seeing here on the frontier isn’t the fault
of agents like Mark Monin, or even the station or sector chiefs. This is a
deliberate method of operation that comes straight from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. USA America March 27, 2010 ,
neither Barack Obama nor anyone in his administration has ever contacted the
Krentz family to make any kind of a statement, even though Rob’s murder has
been and still is one of the biggest news stories of the year! The minute Jan
Brewer signed SB 1070 into law, Obama and his entire cabinet lit up like a slot
machine making hay over a law that a majority of Americans support.
The petty
fracas between professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Sgt. James Crowley
instigated the much televised beer bust that was no more than another photo op
for Barack Obama – but no mention from Obama of the deliberate
disenfranchisement of ranchers who have the misfortune of living south of
Interstate 10.
Obama and
his Attorney General, Eric Holder, laud the imagined inequity of holding
radical Islamic terrorists at Gitmo but refuse to make a statement condemning
Samir Shabaz standing outside a polling place with a club in his hand
intimating voters.
One can’t
help but compare the current administration with King George III and the
American colonies in the mid 1700s. Good King George miscalculated the mood and
capacity of the Americans for reprisal and revenge. But perhaps I’m wrong.
Maybe Obama knows what trouble lays ahead for him come election time. That’s
why he wants all these Mexican outlaws to make it north to freedom and amnesty.
Good ole Barack can get his buddy Samir Shabaz to protect all these illegal
outlaws (who tramp through my neighborhood) while they go inside and cast a
vote for the Democratic ticket.
While all
this nonsense is going on the poor people on both sides of the border continue
to suffer because of the current administration’s perpetuation of a bogus
border policy that is doomed to fail. Hypocrites like Barack Obama, Janet
Napolitano and Raul Grijalva cry about the poor Mexican people when the trail
they are leading us down enables the Cartels to get rich and abuse the poor and
innocent. And cowboys like myself get blamed for it.
Ed Ashurst
Apache, AZ
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