Law would make Minutemen guilty of 'domestic terrorism'

Saturday, January 20, 2007

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INVASION USA
Law would make Minutemen
guilty of 'domestic terrorism'
'Patrolling to detect alleged illegal activity'
while carrying any weapon would be felony

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Posted: January 20, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Jay Baggett

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(c) 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

An Arizona lawmaker has introduced a bill to revise the state's
statutes on organized crime and fraud by defining "domestic terrorism"
in such a way that members of the Minuteman Project or other
border-patrol groups could be prosecuted and forced to serve a minimum
six-month jail term.

Rep. Kyrsten Sinema

Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Phoenix, introduced HB 2286 in the Arizona
House on Thursday.

Sinema, formerly of the Green Party, had earlier submitted a bill
asking the legislature to make changes to a law used to prosecute
customers of immigrant smugglers as conspirators under Arizona's human
trafficking law.

"None of us every dreamed it would be used in a co-conspirator
fashion," Sinema said.

As WND reported, it was federal inaction that motivated Arizona
lawmakers to approve the new law creating the crime of smuggling in
2005. Maricopa County District Attorney Andrew Thomas announced he
would interpret the law to mean illegals caught with a smuggler could
be prosecuted as co-conspirators if they paid a coyote to transport
them across the border.

"If the customer pays a dope peddler money, he's violated the law,"
said Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who compares the relationship between coyotes
and illegals to drug dealers and their customers. "(Here), they're
paying for transport."

That law was upheld last year by a county judge after defense
attorneys questioned its constitutionality. Last month, the same judge
who upheld the law also overturned the first jury conviction of an
illegal immigrant charged as a conspirator under the law, Associated
Press reported.

(Story continues below)

Now, Sinema is targeting border-security groups like the Minutemen
with new legislation that would define anyone not formally affiliated
with law enforcement, who patrolled in search of illegal activity
while armed, as a domestic terrorist. If it becomes law, the bill
would impose a mandatory minimum jail sentence, even if prosecutors
recommend probation.

HB 2286 reads:

Sec. 2. Title 13, chapter 23, Arizona Revised Statutes, is amended by
adding section 13-2320, to read:

13-2320. Domestic terrorism; classification

A. An individual or group of individuals commits domestic terrorism if
the individual or group of individuals are not affiliated with a
local, state or federal law enforcement entity and associate with
another individual or group of individuals as an organization, group,
corporation or company for the purpose of patrolling to detect alleged
illegal activity or to individually patrol for the purpose of
detecting alleged illegal activity and if the individual or group of
individuals is armed with a firearm or other weapon.

B. Any city, town or county that suffers injury arising out of a
violation of this section may maintain an action in superior court for
the recovery of damages or for an injunction, or both. The court may
award the successful party reasonable attorney fees.

C. If the court sentences the defendant to a term of probation, the
court shall order that as an initial condition of probation the
defendant be imprisoned in the county jail for a period of not less
than six months. This jail term of incarceration shall not be
deferred, deleted or otherwise suspended and shall commence on the
date of sentencing. This subsection does not apply to persons who are
sentenced to serve a period of incarceration in the state department
of corrections.

D. A violation of this section is a class 5 felony.

Sinema and other Democrat legislators joined the ACLU and the American
Friends Service Committee as legal observers during the Minutemen's
project on the Arizona-Mexico border in April 2005.

"I've been monitoring the Minutemen for a year now," Sinema told
vigilantewatch.org at the time, "and they're just scary."

"Race-based tactics always lead to violence," she insisted. "Remember,
the Ku Klux Klan was the first-ever group to patrol the border between
the U.S. and Mexico back in the '70s."

As WND reported, a leader of the violent, terror-connected Latin
American gang Mara Salvatruchas, Ebner Anivel Rivera-Paz, had
reportedly issued orders from federal prison to members of his
international criminal organization to teach a lesson to the group of
Americans taking border control into their own hands.

The Mara Salvatruchas, founded in Los Angeles, has become one of the
most violent and widespread gangs throughout South America, the U.S.
and even Canada. Many of its members and leaders have been deported
from the U.S., but the group is said to be deeply involved in
cross-border arms-running and drug-smuggling operations, according to
U.S. law enforcement sources.

Under Sinema's bill, volunteers who still want to assist law
enforcement by being eyes and ears along the border will have to do so
unarmed.

Sinema was awarded the "Vladimir I Lenin" award from Arizona
Federation of Taxpayers in 2005, a tongue-in-cheek honor given to the
"most pro-big government legislator." In 2006, she angered many
conservatives when, in a magazine interview, she referred to them as
"Neanderthals" and said women and moms who stay at home and don't work
are dependent on men and "leeching off their husbands."

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