COMMENTARY
Warning: Minutemen to target Texas' border

James C. Harrington and Hector Dominguez-Ruvalcaba, LOCAL CONTRIBUTORS
Friday, June 10, 2005

'The Minutemen are coming! The Minutemen are coming!" But these are not the valiant New England patriots of yore who fought for independence against the British.

Rather, these minutemen are a rag-tag group of middle-aged men in pickups who want to take law into their own hands, patrol the U.S.-Mexico border and deny a livelihood to some of the poorest and most disenfranchised people — neighbors of ours — to come into the country since the Statue of Liberty was placed in New York harbor.

These "vigilantes," as President Bush has rightly called them, having just finished a stint along the Arizona border with Mexico, recently announced that they are coming to South Texas to "help patrol" the border and keep Mexicans from illegally crossing into the United States.

If these interlopers had their way, they would somehow stop the migration and deport the 11 million illegal immigrants already here. If they were to succeed, of course, the economic effect on the United States and Mexico would be devastating. Crops would rot in our fields. Hotels, restaurants and construction businesses would fold.

Mexico's faltering economy would crash. Already, illegal immigrants send $1 billion back to that country every year — more money than Mexico receives from its oil industry. Every Mexican who migrates to the United States is one less individual about whom Mexico has to worry, and one more worker who will help support a number of relatives "en la patria."

Congress has grappled in vain for years with how to control this near-perfect model of a free market for human labor. The draw of relatively well-paying jobs in the United States has created a seemingly endless flow of jobless Latinos — mostly Mexican — illegally entering this country in search of more promising lives. Nearly half a million are expected to cross this year. Thousands will endure extreme conditions to cross the desert. Most will make it, but at least 300 will die trying — and only about a 100 or so will be found. No one really has the decency to keep track of the casualties.

Everyone knows people are illegally crossing the 1,833-mile long U.S.-Mexico border. Efforts to seal off the border in some sections, like California and El Paso, have not stopped the flow of immigrants, or even slowed it. These efforts have just made it more expensive and dangerous, and have created an organized network of traffickers, branching out to cities all across the United States.

The undocumented person has to pay $800 or more to a coyote for the uncertain and dangerous journey. But it's a risk worth taking, rather than a hand-to-mouth subsistence in poverty-racked Mexico. No one would go through this hell if they and their families could survive in Mexico.

The United States' dependence on cheap labor and Mexico's moribund economy doom the Minutemen's desire to stem the biggest wave of human migration since the early 20th century.

What drives the Minutemen, when they know they have no chance of success and that their message is devoid of realism? Their language and Web site provide the clue — and it's one of jingoism and racism. It is only against Hispanic immigrants that they wage their war of exclusion. Their methods smack of the "Know Nothing" vigilantes of the 19th century, who fought the immigration of Catholics and Jews. How is it that descendants of immigrants so easily turn into persecutors of immigrants?

These modern-day Minutemen will have a deservedly hard time in Texas. They apparently know nothing of Texas history and culture, or the ties that bind half of Texans with Mexico. But they do remind us that we still have far to go in stamping out racism in our society — and even further to go in resolving the grave, life-threatening distortions between the economies of Mexico and the United States.

Harrington is director of the Texas Civil Rights Project. Domínguez-Ruvalcaba is a writer and researcher on border issues.