Americans have been organizing to monitor and report border-jumping immigration criminals for some time now. Now the head of the Border Patrol is considering creating an organized civilian auxilliary.

The top U.S. border enforcement official said Wednesday that his agency is exploring ways to involve citizen volunteers in creating "something akin to a Border Patrol auxiliary" - a significant shift in rhetoric that comes after a high-profile civilian campaign this spring along the Arizona-Mexico border.

Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Robert C. Bonner told The Associated Press that his agency has focused on involving citizens after noting the willingness of volunteers to help federal agents catch illegal immigrants.

"It is actually as a result of seeing that there is the possibility in local border communities, and maybe even beyond, of having citizens that would be willing to volunteer to help the Border Patrol," Bonner said.

Volunteers would need training and be organized "in a way that would be something akin to a Border Patrol auxiliary," he said. "We value having eyes and ears of citizens and I think that would be one of the things we are looking at is how you better organize, let's say, a citizen effort."

Bonner characterized the idea as "an area we're looking at." Questions such as what kind of authority volunteers would be given - would they be deputized to make arrests or carry guns - haven't been answered.

"This is what we need to study," said Bonner, who was in Los Angeles to discuss port security.

You mean you've taken this long to figure out that there are folks ready, willing, and able to give you aid and assistance in doing a job for which you are under-funded and under-manned? That was the whole point of the formation of the Minutemen.

Posted by: Greg at 03:11 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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