Minuteman Project at MCC

Sheriff Daniel Beck, from Allen County Sheriff’s Department in northwestern Ohio, spoke tonight to a good-sized crowd in the conference center at MCC.

The campus was closed tonight, and campus security officers were stopping vehicles just after drivers turned off U.S. 14. Many drivers turned around without continuing onto the campus. More about this later…

At the entrance to the conference center people were asked for tickets and turned away if they had none. One man offered extra tickets to a couple who arrived without tickets, after being told by a campus telephone operator to buy them upon arriving. I was told that I could not enter with my camera (until I displayed my Press Pass), and then it was “suggested” that I go to the small conference room where a press conference was to be held. Campus security was uncertain whether reporters would be allowed to hear Sheriff Beck’s remarks. I opted to avoid confinement, and it turned out that no press conference was scheduled.

But not to worry, because I also had a ticket, which I had ordered as soon as the meeting was announced.

I wanted to interview the protestors about whom I had heard, but they were nowhere to be found. More about this later, too.

Opening remarks were made by Rosanna Pulido, who had organized both the previous failed meeting at the Crystal Lake Holiday Inn and this event. (Thanks for starting on time, Rosanna.) She spoke at length about the Matricula Consular, a document now accepted in Illinois as valid identification. This document, which she said is accepted in Mexico only as identification but not for government services, was approved in 2005 by Illinois legislators and was approved as valid identification for services, which might include airline travel, opening checking accounts and other services requiring valid identification.

According to Wikipedia, “the Matrícula Consular ("Consular Registration") is an identification card issued by the Government of Mexico through its consulate offices. The official purpose of the card is to demonstrate that the bearer is a Mexican national living outside of Mexico.”

Rosanna said that the FBI considers the matricula consular as a major threat to national security. She was also critical of the offices of the McHenry County Sheriff and the McHenry County State’s Attorney for sending personnel, including judges, to Mexico for sensitivity training.

Dave Gorek, of the Midwest Coalition to Reduce Immigration www.immigrationreform.org and NumbersUSA www.numbersusa.com, also spoke before Sheriff Beck was introduced. He expressed great concern about the number of legal immigrants, citing U.S. Census Bureau estimates of 2,000,000 immigrants/year entering the U.S. and estimating the U.S. population at 460,000,000 by 2050 and as high as 1,000,000,000 (that’s one Billion) by 2100. [The U.S. population at 10:33PM was 303,220,582.]

Gorek expressed his opinion about “anchor babies”; those who automatically gain citizenship by being born in the U.S. He said that the U.S.A. is one of only a few countries in the world “stupid enough to grant citizenship to babies born in the U.S.”

To find out how your elected officials voted on immigration issues, go to www.numbersusa.com

Rosanna said that Illinois legislators will vote in November on HB 1100, which provides for the granting of driver’s certificates to illegal immigrants. Go to www.illinois.gov to read the House Bill. Then call your legislator and tell him/her how you want him/her to vote. And then check up and find out how your legislator really voted.

Sheriff Beck has been in law enforcement for 35 years and Sheriff for 15 years. He ran as an Independent. After hearing him talk, you can understand why he is independent. His presentation included a series of PowerPoint screens, starting with “We (United States of America) are a national of laws, not of men” and “This is the principle upon which our entire foundation of government and our American Society is built.”

As a former deputy sheriff, I listened in a particular way to his presentation. I’m a law-and-order type of guy. If it’s the law, it is to be followed. Little good can follow, if everything starts with a broken law. So right away, I could be in agreement with him.

Sheriff Beck says he and his Department do not discriminate on enforcement. It felt to me as if many in the audience wanted him to say that he targeted Hispanics, but that is not what I heard. Throughout his presentation, what I heard was, “If your identification is not valid, we are going to spot that.”

At the Allen County Sheriff’s Department resources are devoted to training deputies to identify fraudulent documents. There is a five-week training program www.ice.gov/partners/287g/Section287_g.htm through Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), but they didn’t wait for training space to become available. Sheriff Beck built partnerships with various other agencies, such as the DMV, and he utilizes their training and materials to educate his deputies.

Sheriff Beck said he had little respect for law-enforcement officers who don’t honor their oath. They are to enforce the laws. He said that, if during an investigation they encounter a person who has no valid ID, then they will arrest him, regardless of race, color or anything else – American or not. He said the sheriff is the “quality control” guy in the county – the chief law enforcement officer.

If the residents are not satisfied with the sheriff, then they should get involved and elect someone else.

In response to a question about the number of illegal immigrants in the southwestern United States, Sheriff Beck said, “If they ever get amnesty, they’ll own the Southwest United States, because they’ll have the votes.”

Rosanna Pulido is the former director of Illinois Minuteman Project and is not associated with the Federatoin for American Immigration Reform. For information, visit www.fairus.org

Back to the logistics of tonight’s meeting. The lockdown of MCC tonight was uncalled for. A small group of students in Latinos Unidos was planning a protest and they were apparently ordered off the campus. What would have been better would have been to invite them into the conference center to hear Sheriff Beck. If they were disruptive, then they could be escorted out. But why not expose them to the Sheriff’s remarks and provide a forum for conversation and discussion.

Stopping cars on the way in and turning back drivers who weren’t heading to the program was unnecessary, in my opinion. An acquaintance in the parking lot said to me, “We live in a police state.” Well, I, for one, will not live in a police state. The police, including campus security, are there to protect and to serve.

The presence of Crystal Lake police officers was very light before the program. Afterwards? A different story. Why in the world so many uniformed officers were present in the building at the end of the program is anyone’s guess? They were quiet and polite, but they weren’t needed there at all.

Thanks to MCC’s President Walter Packard and Vice-President Jim Gray for their courage to provide meeting space for Sheriff Beck.

Last week I began reading Minutemen: The Battle to Secure America’s Borders, by Jim Gilchrist, Founder of The Minuteman Project and Jerome R. Corsi, Ph.D., Co-author of NYT Bestseller Unfit for Command. Foreword by Congressman Tom Tancredo. © 2006. Readers interested in the costs of illegal immigration might consider reading this book, which is available at the Woodstock Public Library (as soon as I finish it).

Check out www.mchenrycountyblog.com for photos and more about tonight’s meeting.