Minutemen putting up fence in Arizona border area

AP/MSNBC:

Scores of volunteers gathered at a remote ranch Saturday to help a civilian border-patrol group start building a short security fence in hopes of reducing illegal immigration from Mexico.

The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps plans to install a combination of barbed wire, razor wire, and in some spots, steel rail barriers along the 10-mile stretch of private land in southeastern Arizona.

They hope it prompts the federal government to do the same along the entire Arizona border.

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Rancher Jack Ladd and his son, John, were hopeful the effort would limit the illegal immigrants and drug runners who have cut the small fence along the property or just driven over it to cross into the United States.

“We’ve been fighting this thing for 10 years with the fence, and nobody will do anything,” Jack Ladd said.

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Minuteman spokeswoman Connie Hair said it would take up to three weeks to build the estimated $100,000 fence. So far, the group has raised $380,000 for more border fences, she said.

Timothy Schwartz of Glendale, Ariz., who was among at least 200 volunteers gathered, said he wants to see a fence along the border from California to Texas.

“We’re not going to stop,” Schwartz said. “We’re going to stay here with a group and keep building.”

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Fences can channel crossing to areas where it will be easier to stop the illegal crossings. It has become a test of wills for many, but politicans in Washington, particularly in the Senate have shown they lack the will to stop the illegal crossings and infact want to reward those who have made it with forgiveness of taxes owed and amnesty for felonies commited once they get here.