"Homegrown Homeland Defense"

Surprisingly, the NY Times has an article on Glenn Spencer's American Border Patrol, and it's not a hit piece for the most part:

This is the work of American Border Patrol, an emergent and entirely unofficial wing of the country's homeland defense. Last summer, Spencer moved with his wife out from Los Angeles to Sierra Vista, Ariz., to start A.B.P., what he calls a neighborhood watch of the Arizona border. Since this ranch is not a neighborhood but forsaken desert, A.B.P. is more accurately a roving bureau of traffic reporters, dedicated to documenting illegal immigration where it happens. With satellite dishes, ground sensors and dozens of ''hawkeye'' spotters to call in sightings, A.B.P. tracks S.B.I., films them and notifies the Border Patrol while they upload the film live to the Internet. In quasi-military operations like this one, Spencer estimates that A.B.P. has helped capture more than 3,300 illegal immigrants. ''Our policy is not to touch them,'' Spencer says. ''That's the Border Patrol's job. We just want to show people what is happening down here''...

The economics of drone surveillance are irrefutable, and a drone-security program has already picked up support from Republicans, like Senators John McCain (of Arizona) and Pete Domenici (of New Mexico) as well as Asa Hutchinson, the undersecretary for border and transportation security...

Of course, some groups are not happy with ABP's attempts to bring this issue to wider notice. Why would that be? Surely, they believe that we should enforce our border and immigration laws, right?

Immigration2003 · Sun, 06/01/2003 - 12:12 · · Importance: 1