The Waterkooler

Border Patrol Expands

An organization of citizens in California, created last year to support the U.S. Border Patrol, will begin its own Minuteman-style vigil in August, using volunteers to spot illegal aliens in areas around San Diego, organizers said yesterday.

The Friends of the Border Patrol, led by Chairman Andy Ramirez, said 300 retired police officers, military personnel, pilots and other citizens have offered their services for the "FBP Border Watch," which the organization hopes to expand eventually from the Pacific Ocean to the Arizona state line.

"America was built on the spirit of volunteerism and community," said Mr. Ramirez, who previously headed Save Our State, which helped defeat efforts by California lawmakers to authorize drivers licenses for illegal aliens. "Citizens volunteering to defend our nation in time of war and crisis is a time-honored American tradition.

Meanwhile, the Main Stream Media saturates us with deportation sob stories about how nice and hard-working these criminals are.

A desperate Josué Suarez needed to land a job, but as an undocumented immigrant he lacked valid identification. So a year ago he went to the Department of Motor Vehicles, walked over to the counter and handed over a phony work permit as identification to apply for a non-driver's ID.

On March 3, he was deported to his native Honduras, a country he barely remembers after growing up on Long Island. Today, he and 14 other relatives sleep on the floor of a great-aunt's house in San Pedro Sula.

"They sent me to a country where I know nobody, where I have no life and no future. Every day is a new shocker for me," Suarez said in a telephone interview, adding that where he lives the toilet doesn't work and the water from the kitchen sink reeks. "I'm not going to drink water you can smell."

The number of noncriminal deportations has more than doubled in the last four years, according to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Yes, you read that correctly folks: noncriminal. Apparently there are no laws that criminalize possession of "phony documents."

We know that illegals are 5 times more likely to engage in criminal activity, as studies show. It is common sense: You come hear illegally, your first act in this country is to break it's laws; you have to find illegal underground sources for illegal documentation, you live each day a lie, you become desensitized to the law. The simple fact is that illegals coming into this country are taxing our prison systems.

In 1980, our federal and state prisons housed fewer than 9,000 criminal aliens. By the end of 1999, these same prisons housed over 68,000 criminal aliens.1 Today, criminal aliens account for over 29 percent of prisoners in Federal Bureau of Prisons facilities and a higher share of all federal prison inmates.2 These prisoners represent the fastest growing segment of the federal prison population. Over the past five years, an average of more than 72,000 aliens have been arrested annually on drug charges alone.

Illegal Fact sheets