“There is a large military veteran population in our state who would go down there and do the work that the state needs done under the state flag,” Michael Frye, a supporter of the bill, told the Star. Now, he added, “There’s really no other choice but for those folks like myself to form citizen militias.”
Minuteman volunteers build a fence along the U.S./Mexican border near Palominas, Ariz., Saturday, May 27, 2006.
Arizona militias say they are done waiting for the government to protect their borders after state lawmakers shot down a bill that would have created a state-sanctioned border militia unit.
The Arizona Daily Star reports that militia volunteers remain committed to stopping what they say is an invasion of smugglers and illegal immigrants, even after being denied state organization status.
The defeated bill would have created a 300-member volunteer militia at the request of the governor. They would have been be armed; however, a provision in the bill required that members be screened in order to prevent violent extremists from joining. You can read the text of the bill here.
Like almost any topic related to illegal immigration and the U.S.-Mexico border, the issue is extremely contentious. The Daily Star reports:
A longtime Arizona border-militia leader, Jack Foote, worked for a period with the group that wrote the bill and said its demise is motivating sympathizers of the border-militia movement.
“We have now washed our hands of our state’s Legislature,” Foote, of Cottonwood, said via email. “Now we are going to do things our own way.”
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