http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Bernie_Sanders_Immigration.htm
Voted YES on preventing tipping off Mexicans about Minuteman Project.
Voting YES on this amendment supports the Minuteman Project, a group of volunteers who have taken on surveillance of the Mexican border for illegal immigrants. The amendment states that US funds will not be used to tell the Mexican government about the whereabouts of the Minuteman Project volunteers. Proponents of the Minuteman Project say that they are volunteer citizens doing what the federal government SHOULD be doing, but has failed to do. Opponents of the Minuteman Project say that they are vigilantes at best and anti-Mexican racists at worst. The amendment states:
None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to provide a foreign government information relating to the activities of an organized volunteer civilian action group, operating in the State of California, Texas, New Mexico, or Arizona, unless required by international treaty.
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The amendment's sponsor said on its behalf:
• What this amendment does is it clarifies Congress' position on a Border Patrol practice or a practice of the US Government that tips off illegal immigrants as to where citizen patrols may be located.
• As a response to the lawlessness along the Mexican border, a group has sprung up called the Minutemen Project, and the Minutemen Project is definitely not politically correct in Washington DC. However, they filled a void which the government was unable to fill.
• There are over 7,000 volunteers in the Minutemen organization, and their help has been productive and good.
• What my amendment does is simply says that the U.S. Government cannot tip off the Mexican officials as to where these folks are located. Plain and simple, nothing fancy about it. I am sure the Border Patrol will say, oh, no, we are not doing that, and yet one of the Web pages of the Secretary of Mexico had the information very explicit, and we just do not believe that is a good practice.
Reference: Department of Homeland Security appropriations; Bill HR 5441 Amendment 968 ; vote number 2006-224 on Jun 6, 2006
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2014/0430/What-happened-to-Minuteman-Project-It-s-still-roiling-immigration-reform
TUCSON, ARIZ. — In just a few years, perhaps the most visible civilian attempt to stop illegal immigration has all but disappeared amid the changing dynamics of the debate.
A little less than a decade ago, the Minuteman Project and the copycats it spawned arrived at the Arizona border with binoculars and American flags, vowing to defend the country from what they described as an invasion. At their height, the Minutemen were the face of a conservative insurgency that would later lend its energy to the emergence of the tea party.
To like-minded Americans, they were patriots. To critics, they were dangerous vigilantes.
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. In other words, it barred funding foreign governments for information relating to the 1st amendment rights of US citizens.
