Part II
[Previously: ‘Choosing a Path of Reason to address the 20-Million Illegal Immigration Emergency,’ June 27. keyword: Simcox.]
Chris Simcox is exasperated by 6 years of crisscrossing the country, trying convince the skeptical and the flatly disinterested that the presence of 20 million illegal immigrants, many of them criminals, signifies America’s house is on fire, that America is under threat.
A founding father of the noted Minutemen Civil Defense Corps, Mr. Simcox, who addressed an audience in Culver City last week, says “I think I know exactly what illegal immigration is not on the front page.
“Not enough people have died. Not enough have been killed by illegal immigrants.
“More people have died at the hands of illegal foreign nationals in this country than were killed on Sept. 11. Did you know that?
“The problem, though, is they are not dying in one sensational fireball.
“Just one at a time in local communities around the country. You get local outcry about illegal immigration. But it doesn’t make the mainstream media. And people have an attention span of about a nano-second.
“It’s going to take either a catastrophic terrorist attack where it can be proven the killers came across our borders illegally or the assassination of kidnapping of a high-ranking official before enough people will take this seriously.”
A Home to Crime
“No wonder,” said Mr. Simcox, a former Westside teacher who now lives in Arizona, “that Los Angeles has become a haven for illegal gangsters.
“No. 1, you have a mayor who is pro-illegal. No. 2, you have a police department that refuses, because of community pressure, to inquire about a suspect’s immigration status.
“If I were the Police Chief,” he said, “I would immediately go after federal funding and state funding to develop a very aggressive task force.
“I would take the handcuffs off my law enforcement officers. I would say, ‘In the course of your duties, you will inquire about everyone’s immigration status. If they can’t provide a driver’s license or any other kind of documentation that they are citizens, they need to be brought in.
“I would increase effectiveness by merging our criminal databases with agencies such as Interpol. Soon, you would begin removing criminals from the streets of Los Angeles.”
The ‘Border’ Moves Inland
Disappointed that after 6 years of campaigning, America collectively still looks the other way when illegal immigration is discussed, Mr. Simcox said there are encouraging signs that interest is being aroused.
“Crime committed by illegal immigrants is causing Americans to wake up to the issue of illegal immigration,” he said. “Gradually, they are seeing that it no longer is just a problem for border states. Six years ago, we warned Americans this was not just a border state issue. We said that if we did not stem the tide of people coming into this country, the border was going to wind up in their backyard.
“That is what has transpired. Americans in Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota — doesn’t matter. Every American now understands this problem is out of control, and they are demanding a resolution to the problem.”
Mr. Simcox is discouraged by prospects in the race for the White House.
“We are facing two Presidential candidates who will do nothing to stem the flow of people coming in.” he says.
Drugs at the Root
“People ought to know the government of Mexico is about an inch away from being toppled by drug cartels. At the same time, our borders are controlled by the best-funded, most resourceful violent criminals that you can imagine. A bloodbath is going on in Mexico, and it is spilling across our borders.
“The drug cartels are warning the U.S., ‘You don’t want to interfere in our operation.’ I fear that what is going to happen is that the violence will spill over the border. I fear we will have high-ranking officials here, including law enforcement, who will be assassinated by drug cartels as a message, ‘You don’t want to come after us.’
“Ultimately, this could lead to what we have wanted all along:
“ We need military on our border. And we need a President who would declare a national emergency on our border, enact an Executive Order, deploy 25,000 National Guard personnel to our borders to support the Border Control and work with Mexico to extinguish the drug cartels and the human traffickers.”
Mr. Simcox said that the Minutemen (minutemanhq.com) have raised awareness, just not enough.
Protection Has Improved
“We have succeeded in putting enough pressure on Washington to double the size of the Border Patrol,” he said. “A fence is being built because the people have demanded it. But this is still not enough, given what we are up against.”
Distinctions generally are drawn between two kinds of illegal immigrants, the hard-working, head-down foreign nationals and, on the other hand, the gangster-types.
“Gangs proliferate in urban areas,” Mr. Simcox said, “because there is a sense of poverty, a sense of desperation that the government is not providing for them. When you are in this country illegally, and you have no one to turn to, you are easy prey for the gangs. They tell young men, ‘We’ll help you. We’ll protect you. You will be part of our family, and we will make sure we provide for your needs.’
“Recruiting of illegal aliens into gangs is easy because they have no options. They can’t go to the police. And the police themselves say, ‘That is why we need Special Order 40, so they will come forward and give information to us.’
“I’ll tell you. Illegal aliens are not going to do that —not because of crimes they have committed or because of a fear of getting deported. It’s about going against the drug cartels. That is what they really fear.”
